Google+ to allow nyms. Hmm. I wondered if they'd hold out forever.

It'd be just as unpleasant coming from a boy

In my experience, though, boys seem to get called on it less.

I was a disdainful little shit, and got away with it myself. Except when it came to going up against my father, who's the boss of imperious imperiosity.

the bossy little cow.

Cow is such a derogatory term for a female. I just hate it. Even with the bossy-cow thing.

I LOATHE it. I don't think it's a great idea to call one's female child a cow. I don't care if one means "bossy" (why are cows called bossy? ARE cows bossy? I don't even get it); what comes across is often going to be heard as a commentary on her body.

One more thought: One of my favorite things about watching my kids, or any I guess, grow up is watching them learn the system - what you can say, what works, what doesn't, how to get what you want, and so on. It's fascinating to see them take your words and ideas, or the words around them, and use them like building blocks to create their own sentences and ideas.

Making "guess the ethnically ambiguous person's ethnicity" into a game like that kind of makes me uncomfortable.

I hear that the mixed race student association at Berkeley does it as an icebreaker called "What Are You?" Because that's the weird question they have to deal with on a regular basis. Of course, it's different when you're among people that have the same issue. Insider/outsider etc.

Happy Birthdays, Burrell and Calli!

FWIW, it's all about the "bossy" and not about the "cow" for me. I don't think of my daughter as a cow. But she is bossy. And you know, cow's are named Bossie.

Taking a cat to the vet shouldn't be a two-person job. It wouldn't have been, if I could have gotten him into the carrier on my own. And of course when we got there, he had completely resigned himself to it all, and was perfectly behaved through an exam and three shots.

If someone called me a bossy cow, even as a joke, I would not take kindly to it at all.

I did not know Carol Channing was black. Ish. Huh.

I didn't know Carol Channing was white until I was in college, I think. Then I felt stupid.

I think "bos" or something close was Latin for "cow" and that's what started it.

I hear that the mixed race student association at Berkeley does it as an icebreaker called "What Are You?" Because that's the weird question they have to deal with on a regular basis. Of course, it's different when you're among people that have the same issue. Insider/outsider etc.

I get asked that all the time. (Although, now that I think about it, I can't remember anybody asking me that since I moved to Pennsylvania. Are people here just way more polite? Everywhere else I've lived, people asked me stuff like that a lot.)