Preserving modesty in the pool (Muslim women in Seattle)

Seattle Times ^ | July 19, 2005 | Lornet Turnbull

[Mrs. Don-o]

It's Saturday evening, the end of a hot day, and a group of women and children have gathered at North Seattle's Meadowbrook Pool for their monthly swim.

Most of the pool staff has left, except for two female lifeguards, who on this day will be on duty for the next two hours.

The women and children — all Muslims — have been swimming in private once a month at Meadowbrook as part of a program organized by the North Seattle Family Center.

Because Islam requires Muslim women to fully cover themselves in public, swimming in pools or the ocean is largely off-limits for many.

But across the Puget Sound area, that's starting to change as public and private pools at times are sending home their male staff members, covering up their windows and allowing women of faith to swim alone and in private...

Access to these pools is not free; the groups, like all others that use these facilities, pay a rental fee....

[ClearBlueSky]

I just had an idea that could solve the problem of letting Islam keep its women enslaved in America while letting them ditch the desert rags!
Cover any BUILDING they're in with huge sheets! BUILDING BURKHAS!! That's the ticket! Would help the economy -making and selling huge Building Burkhas, every public facility could have one and whip it out when Muslim women enter. Keep it on the roof,yank it down- VOILA! A Sharia Safe environment for women and children of the death-cult!
So much nicer than all that paper and tape covering windows- which is doing the same job the rags did by shutting them off from the world,right?
( only slight sarcasm off)

These people are sick- and some want to HELP them to be sick, which is even sicker. It's not unlike providing razors for people who want to mutilate themselves.
Hey- why not be really helpful? Catch those disobedient women when their menfolk are chasing them down for 'shaming' the family! The beating that will follow( if not the execution) will be none of our beeswax.

[SunnySide]

"Cover any BUILDING they're in with huge sheets! BUILDING BURKHAS!! That's the ticket! Would help the economy -making and selling huge Building Burkhas,"


They already have those in the middle east deserts. They're giant caravan tents with the camels parked outside.

[delacoert]

You posted all day yesterday and now your latest response was posted at 2 a.m. !!! Honey, don't let this thread cause you any more sleep loss.

Didn't you know the contemptible Pajamahadin never sleeps, Sweetcakes.

[SunnySide]

"Didn't you know the contemptible Pajamahadin never sleeps, Sweetcakes"

I can tell you've gotten over your sleep deprivation because now you're calling me sweetcakes. Now about your depravity issues...

[Nowhere Man]

Why yes, that swimsuit IS very nobby!
We have a cute one in one of our shows that is SILK (v. unusual) and has a matching parasol and shoes. I bet it had a matching hat too, but that didn't make it through the years.

Note that the advertisement brags that the material does NOT cling to the figure! My how things have changed!

Thanks again for a smile!

BTW, I think "nobby" came from "Nob Hill" in San Francisco where it was a rich neighborhood so the term meant "stylish" or "classy." I'm looking for a good source for Victorian slang, I did find things like how they talked in the lower class parts of Victorian England, but I'm also looking for a source of how maybe Victorian kids talk then or for lack of a better description, "middle class slang" then.

[Nowhere Man]

All of my 8 great-grandparents came here from Bavaria in 1870-71. In 70 years my relatives would have comprised quite a tribe of 2nd and 3rd (and 4th) generation Germans right there. They worked, paid taxes, had families, supported the Church, served in the military, and suffered no discrimination here in the USA that I have ever heard of. Should they have?

A little OT, but on my mother's side, her mother's family came over from Munich (in Bavaria) about that same time, 1870/71. maybe a little after because my great, great grandfather was a Prussian Army Captain before they came over.

[Candor7]

yours***Give them a choice between their current status, and a better, freer one.****Yours

They have no choice, it is usurped by their religion, purdah and sharia. They are not free, and seek to take away our freedom. As long as they maintain purdah they will have no choice. You just don't get that, or perhaps you do and have no patriotism.

Many American Muslims have had the choice in this country and have refused to exercise it. Now war is on against Muslims and American Muslims must choose their adopted nation or their religion. So far everything you say about them makes me conclude that Muslims in the USA will choose their religion over their adopted nation.You are even willing to bend our constitution in a way it was never meant to be in order to empower that process. ( Yech!)

That makes them dangerous. Muslims are culturally and humanistically challenged.
Freedom of speech, religion, assembly does not give the right to commit sedition agains the USA, as many liberals think. Accepting the culture of purdah encourages Muslims to sedition because they think that our acceptance of public purdah confirms our weakness. And you enable that. Any constitutional right does not give American Muslims a right to lie to the press about their peaceful intentions ( Nod, nod, wink, wink, say no more) and then go about organizing secret madrassas and muslim gangs in the USA. These are the things YOUR thinking enables.

Who do they think they are to impune
the USA for bringing humanistic freedoms to the world through education and culture, and then killing thousands of inni=ocent Americans in cold blood. And who do you think you are to be supporting them, for the time has come to decide which side of the fence you are on. Take purdah yourself and see how you like it. Wear the clothing, walk with them. See how you like sharia law instead of our constitution. I gurantee you will return a strict constructionist!

How can you people double think yourselves into such rampant liberal stupidity:

Of course Muslim Women have a constitutional right to swim in public pools? You can read it between the lines of the Establishment Clause? No wonder Bush wants to stack the Supreme Court with strict constructionists. What wing nut thinking will we see next on bathing Baathists ?

[nopardons]

There are many books on slang and euphemisms, but none, that I know of, which are specific to the Victorian/Edwardian era.

English and American slang, especially in the lowest class, were quite similar; but Cockney rhyming slang is an indigenous , unmovable, almost another language thing.

Unlike from the 1920s on, children, or more accurately, teens/early twentysomethings, did not have their own slang in previous eras.

"nobby" could also have come from the words NOBLE and NOBILITY.

[Nowhere Man]

"nobby" could also have come from the words NOBLE and NOBILITY.

That's true too although when I looked that term up somewhere back in the 1980's when I first really gotten into this stuff, it did make the "Nob Hill" reference out in San Francisco, but I admit I can't prove that now.

One interesting observation is that really, the idea of being a teenager, adolescent, whatever as an epoch in life or a lifestyle as the case maybe really didn't start until after World War I, the 1920's if you will, and kicked into high gear during and after World War II. By the time you hit 12, 13, 14, you were considered adult, well adult enough for most responsibilities like holding down a job, running a farm (or at least your own plot) and even getting married. I'm also a member of a couple of forums for books like Anne of Green Gables but there is talk of literature for that era and I came upon one young lady whose great grandparents married when he was 28 and she was 12. Well, that's a bit extreme for even then, but unless you were part of the rich or even some of the middle class, you had to go to work, get married, or otherwise get on with life. My grandfather quit school in 1913 during 8th grade to go to work. Plus the society was different, you had more of a social infrastructure then that supported responsibility at a younger age. It wasn't perfect of course but can you see a 16 year old get married today? It seem like we are pushing responsibility from the mid-teens back then to 21 and beyond an extended adolescence if you will and sometimes we are the worse for it. If my grandfather, born in 1901, was alive now, he would have said to the young Move On.org 20 somethings, "well I was already working for years when I was that age." I'm not knocking any young folks as a group, there are plenty of them here and even when I was that age, I think back and say, "what was I thinking?" If my typing is a little off, it's because I'm trying to type with one hand while holding a 16 year old grey and white cat im my chest, she is heavy. B-)

[nopardons]

If you'd like me to, I will go pull down my books on slang and look up "nobby". My answer will have to be later, as we're going out to dinner and I have to get ready now.

My great,great grandmother was married at 16, in 1868, but that was considered to be rather young; even back then.

For most of the 20th century, 21 was considered to be the age of the complete attainment of adulthood. The "teen" phenomenon did NOT really get a solid foothold until the late '30s. Prior to then, there were NO "TEEN DEPARTMENTS" in department stores and it really wasn't considered a separate age group. High school kids wore ADULT clothing to high school ( boys in suits or at least formal slacks, shirts, ties and a sweater, girls in dresses or adult skirts and tops and high heels !)until the middle '40s.

Beginning in the late 1960s, severe cases of arrested development began to be seen ( Hippies/Yippies ) and it's been downhill from there, with people fast approaching 60, today, acting like and thinking that they are 16 - 18. And it sickens me.

When I graduated from college, I KNEW that I was an ADULT and behaved that way...responsible for myself and my actions and even when I was in grad school, I didn't think of myself as being a "kid".

Ooooooooo...you have a kitty? I miss mine terribly. He has been in heaven a while now; he was grey and white too, weighed 25 pounds, and believed, with all of his BIG heart, that he was a human.

[Shazolene]

"Nobby" and "Nob Hill" have the same root word ("Nob" or "swell" or "toff" or whatever slang you want to use for fashionable rich man!). But 'nobby' in English slang well predates the establishment of Nob Hill in San Francisco.

[Shazolene]

There's a very interesting book on Victorian terms - not necesarily 'slang' but the language changes so much we've lost track of the meaning of MANY words from back then (and over there). It's called "What Charles Dickens Ate and Jane Austen Knew" - gosh, or maybe the other way around! Very readable and entertaining. Check it out - or if you can't find it based on my sketchy info above, let me know and I'll look for my copy to give you better info.

[nopardons]

"WHAT CHARLES DICKENS ATE AND JANE AUSTEN KNEW" ( though the GLOSSARY has a few slang words ), like Pool's second book, "DICKENS' FUR COAT AND CHARLOTTE'S UNANSWERED LETTERS", have nothing at all to do with language, slang, nor words in general. These books are about a way of life and very interesting.

I have a little book, which I bought when I was around 11, at a used bookstore, called "THE FUSSER'S BOOK". I was published in New York, in 1905, and is a funny wee book for young ( in his/her 20s )ladies and gentlemen on how to date and flirt. It is filled with American slang of the day, sadly without explanation of the words; however, most of them are easily deductible from the context; some aren't.

What is a "fusser"? I can't say for sure, but here's a quote from the book:

Don't be daunted by her college degree. The intellectual girl may be dying to be fussed."

"ice-wagon".........

Do occasional penance: it is good for the soul. Make the saddest girl in the room feel that she is the most attractive while you are talking to her; or dance during an evening with at least one "ice-wagon".

"gooseberry".........

If you realize that you are the gooseberry don't rub it in. He's probably just as unhappy about it as you are.

NM....I looked through four books on slang and could not find the word "nobby" in any of them. SORRY :-(

[Nowhere Man]

Beginning in the late 1960s, severe cases of arrested development began to be seen ( Hippies/Yippies ) and it's been downhill from there, with people fast approaching 60, today, acting like and thinking that they are 16 - 18. And it sickens me.

Yeah, I think that was the root of the many problems we have today. I don't mind acting young and having fun, but there are times you need to take responsibility when the rubber hits the road. I think the true problem is that people play the blame game too much and are not too responsible. Sure there are times when circumstances take over and people can get overwhelmed and things happen beyond our control but there are too many times people "cry wolf" too and keep playing the blame game for everything. It's like the "free love" thing in the 1960's, people wanted the fun and freedom but not the responsibility.

Ooooooooo...you have a kitty? I miss mine terribly. He has been in heaven a while now; he was grey and white too, weighed 25 pounds, and believed, with all of his BIG heart, that he was a human.

I have 8 cats actually, our oldest will be 18 next month, she is a grey, tan and white calico with green eyes. She is the most active cat we have, plays a lot and meows a lot, like at 3 AM. She is lucky she weighs in at 5 pounds, due to her size, people think she is a kitten or at most, 1 or 2 years old.



Pansy: b. 8-19-1987

[nopardons]

Look at the moronic phrase "DON'T TRUST ANYONE OVER THIRTY."

The idiots who fell for that, never even thought about the fact that the jerks who were promoting it/thought it up, were quickly approaching 40; yet they trusted and followed them! Heck, Abbie Hoffman et al weren't even BABY BOOMERS.

Adults can and should have fun, that's not the point at all. The point is, when you're an adult, it's long past time to stop acting stupidly immature!

Oooooooooo, what a lovely kitty!

You have eight cats? Holy cow!

[Nowhere Man]

"Nobby" and "Nob Hill" have the same root word ("Nob" or "swell" or "toff" or whatever slang you want to use for fashionable rich man!). But 'nobby' in English slang well predates the establishment of Nob Hill in San Francisco.

Yeah, I did a quick search on www.dictionary.com and they seem to point out the English origin of the word "Nobby" so I think nopardons is probably more correct. Maybe Nob Hill got it's name from "Nobby" or "Nob" so it could be in reverse too. B-)

[nopardons]

Yes, I do think that Nob Hill got its name from an old slang word, rather than the other way around.

I have studied slang and euphemisms and word derivation for almost all of my life and my hunches are usually right. :-)

[Cougar66]

seems like an awful lot of run of the mill muslim news stories lately.

[Nowhere Man]

I have a little book, which I bought when I was around 11, at a used bookstore, called "THE FUSSER'S BOOK". I was published in New York, in 1905, and is a funny wee book for young ( in his/her 20s )ladies and gentlemen on how to date and flirt. It is filled with American slang of the day, sadly without explanation of the words; however, most of them are easily deductible from the context; some aren't.

What is a "fusser"? I can't say for sure, but here's a quote from the book:

Don't be daunted by her college degree. The intellectual girl may be dying to be fussed."

Did a quick search on www.dictionary.com and I came up with what it could mean although I only found the word "fuss": A display of affectionate excitement and attention: Everyone made a fuss over the new baby.

So I guess it could mean to "show affection or attention over a certain lady or gentleman."

"ice-wagon".........

Do occasional penance: it is good for the soul. Make the saddest girl in the room feel that she is the most attractive while you are talking to her; or dance during an evening with at least one "ice-wagon".

Hmmm, "ice-wagon" could be a wallflower and/or girl who seems frigid and/or nervous making her look frigid. That would be my guess.

"gooseberry".........

If you realize that you are the gooseberry don't rub it in. He's probably just as unhappy about it as you are.

"Gooseberry" could mean a "party pooper" or "stick in the mud." I heard it used in "Anne of Avonlea," the 1987 miniseries sequel to "Anne of Green Gasbles" (1985) of course based on the books.

Reading Dicken's could be challenging at times, like when in "Oliver Twist," they referred to a handgun as a "barker," I remember having to look it up.

Oh to have a time machine, I'd take my 1970's era cassette tape deck and my 1990's era camcorder back. B-) For a while, I kept getting e-mails from a guy who needed my help in building a time machine, I'm handing at fixing radios and would like to tackle a TV or two (would like to get my 1970 Zenith color TV back in action) but I think time machines are a bit beyond me. B-)

[CWOJackson]

Okay smarting pants, you got Nob Hill. So where did there term Skid Row come from?