Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Sights and Sounds

8 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on October 17, 2007

So one of the interesting things about blogging, is occasionally getting to meet people in person, whom you’ve previously known only in virtual space. Last night, I had the opportunity to meet, and talk the ear off of, a fellow blogger. This afternoon, I received the following piece of feedback on the crossover impact of this meeting on our future blog interactions:

Your blog’s totally going to have that combination accent (like, easily mistaken for Australian except for occasional curls in the words!) from now on.

So, if anyone’s been wondering what I sound like… 🙂

Blogging

← Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 1: Cartesian Fragment Summer Philosophy in Melbourne →

8 responses to “Sights and Sounds”

Claude Scales October 18, 2007 at 12:45 am
“[O]ccasional curls in the words” led me to wonder if you might be Scottish, but then I read your “Uh-Oh” post that you linked to your response to my comment on “Proximities” and discovered that we have in common having spent at least part of our childhoods in Texas. (For my nuanced views on the Lone Star State, see this post, especially the “Addendum.”)

But as far as knowing what you sound like, I got my best clue from Wildly Parenthetical, where you’re called “Ms. Pepperell.” Up to now, knowing only your first initial and surname, I had made a default assumption that you were male. Why would I make such an assumption? It’s a troubling question for me. Given the statement, “There exists a person ‘n. pepperell'” where “n” could as easily stand for Nancy as for Nathaniel, why do I picture in my mind Nate and not Nan? I’m sure it has to do with patriarchy and hegemony and all those awful things. Mea culpa.

Reply
Evgeni V. Pavlov October 18, 2007 at 6:30 am
“nancy” – some of my friends started a blog recently – pervegalit.wordpress.com – and quickly got into some hot waters primarily because, being technologically naive and blogosphere-retarded, there was some confusion with log-ins and postings and general foolishness related, i suppose, to internet’s inherent anonymity and freedom – in any case, somehow they were accused of actually being one person who schizophrenically posts under different aliases – an impression that is hardly possible judging from their postings but an impression that they are not trying to disprove because there is something inherently bad about schizophrenia and pretence, even though this is what a lot of blogging is about anyway.

claude, your decision that “n” stands for “nate” rather than “nancy” i think is caused by your reading of excellent analysis of Marx that is all over this great blog – women can’t really understand Marx that well, right? [i kid i kid – sorry]

Reply
Mike Beggs October 18, 2007 at 9:41 am
Hey that’s funny. I also spent quite a bit of my childhood in Texas. First Houston then Richardson, suburb of Dallas.

Reply
Nate October 18, 2007 at 2:56 pm
My mom lives in Dallas! There’s some mystical word that like Stuart Home and crazy post-situationist type people use sometimes, I think it means like “belly-button” or something, where there’s something about a place that is important and draws people to it… maybe Texas is like that. Wow that was a terrible excuse for a comment. On the plus side, I just found five dollars.

Reply
WildlyParenthetical October 18, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Ah, Claude, I’m a wee bit chuffed to have prompted such a moment of self-reflexivity, not least in relation to the *Queen* of reflexivity herself 😉

And go you, Nate, wish I could just find 5 dollars like that… !

Texas; clearly where it’s at. Or was. 😉

Reply
N Pepperell October 18, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Back in Melbourne now – and exhausted! But couldn’t resist dipping in here 🙂

Claude – In the US, it wasn’t unusual for people to guess my accent as Scottish – I think, though, that this says something less about the “Scottishness” of my accent, than about the fact that the accent just sounded generically “non-native” (people also used to guess Dutch, German, South African…). The culprit, I think, was an early (correctable) hearing loss, and then subsequent speech therapy – I think it left me sounding a bit… regionally undefined… ;-P

On the gender issue: the “point” of the first initial is to keep “drive by” posters from knowing for certain what my gender is, as I’ve had occasional problems in the past. For a long time, I didn’t clarify – but it became relevant to do so at some point in a discussion where gender and blogging (and anonymity) was specifically under discussion, so I “outed” myself. I still tend only to bring it up, though, when there is some contextual reason it’s relevant, although it’s become increasingly obvious, as there are now a number of people around who’ve been reading for some time, and who therefore know to refer to me as “she”…

Folks from Texas: I was born in Denton, lived around and about the state, and then spent several years in Houston before leaving the state for good. (So, Mike, it looks like you and I have opposite trajectories…)

Evgeni – Your conditioning is showing…

WP: trying to think of some other slogan for Texas… Last I was living there, there was an anti-litter campaign – everyone driving around with bumper stickers that read “Don’t mess with Texas”: surely there’s some riff around this for Texas-expats-become-critical-theorists?

Reply
Evgeni V. Pavlov October 19, 2007 at 3:03 am
it does indeed – as far i am concerned you also have a grey bushy beard and a close friend named Fritz. speaking of accents, i have a beautiful russian accent that, for some reason, makes my speeches on all things russian, like anarchism or literature, very very persuasive…

Reply
N Pepperell October 19, 2007 at 7:31 am
Oh but I do have a grey bushy beard and a close friend named Fritz… 😉

Reply