With my husband, I do really appreciate the fact that we - even though we're different kinds of Asian, there is a cultural shorthand between us, and I don't have to explain anything. I've dated guys before who weren't Asian-American, and it frustrated me when I would have to defend why beans belong in a dessert.
The religious imagery and fairytales that formed our shared cultural references have been replaced by the cult of celebrity. Marilyn is the sex goddess, Camilla Parker Bowles is cast as the wicked witch, Che Guevara is the revolutionary. Celebrities have become visual shorthand for narratives that shape our lives.
Foot-binding, which started out as a fashionable impulse, became an expression of Han identity after the Mongols invaded China in 1279. The fact that it was only performed by Chinese women turned the practice into a kind of shorthand for ethnic pride.
Irvine, being a planned community, is really good shorthand, especially in a movie or book, for understanding suburban pressures.
Of course it's always easy when you work with people that worked together, or you work with people that you worked with before, because you develop over years some sort of shorthand of communion that is always very valuable.
The Bush administration opened several lines of attack against the rule of law and the integrity of an independent Justice Department. The scandals are so famous that they've been reduced to shorthand: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, NSA, Attorneygate.
I guess I was just meant to be a secretary who doesn't take shorthand. I'm a lousy typist, too - 33 words a minute.
People who work in specialized fields seem to have their own language. Practitioners develop a shorthand to communicate among themselves. The jargon can almost sound like a foreign language.
When you work with somebody for a long period of time, you develop a shorthand with everything.
Growing up in a family of actors, what's great about it is that they're very supportive and they understand what it's like to be an actor - the rejections, the highs and lows... and having a common language with them is great because you have shorthand speech.
