Comments on: ADVICE! For COMMENTERS: Super-Ultra-Mega Language Round-Up Edition

By: Farore

Farore — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:04:42 +0000

Echoing Taybeh Chaser, here; I’ve never been able to fully explain why I am so repulsed by the word “pussy”, but that is exactly why. Also, I realized that my hate for it really super duper intensified right around the time I was dating a (gross for many reasons) guy who was one of those Some Dudes Who Try To Say It In A Sexy Way and it just sounded like babytalk (AND ‘puss-eh’ because he was from Texas, hurr).

So uhm yes thank you very much Sadykins!! <3

By: GeekGirlsRule

GeekGirlsRule — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:28:53 +0000

Yes, emotionally I’m still 12 sometimes.

By: GeekGirlsRule

GeekGirlsRule — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:28:30 +0000

I am a big proponent of the words “doucehbag” and “douchenozzle” because early “douches” had both, and they did double duty as enema dispensers, and everyone’s got an asshole, right?

Besides, they’re just fun to say.

Douche! Douche! Douche!!!

By: Taybeh Chaser

Taybeh Chaser — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:38:51 +0000

Sady, you’re absolutely right about the word “pussy”. No one has ever explained so well the reasons why I hate it.

I also can’t stand “panties”, for some of the same reasons. It sounds way too babyish.

By: MarinaS

MarinaS — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:37:35 +0000

@Sady yes what you say does make perfect sense. And it helped clarify something for me, in that I guess I’m not sure where blogging and commenting falls between the social and the public (for me, not in absolute this-is-how-it-should-be terms).

I think commenting is social while bloggins is public; and that creates all kinds of interesting tensions. Like, on my own blog, while I don’t try to please my mom, I do work hard to have zero tolerance for discriminatory speech. But as a commenter, I’m like a person in a socail situation – circumspect and careful at first, then gradually letting my hair down as I feel comfortable (and becoming more open to comments such as “that makes me feel icky” from fellow commenters).

Where I’ve seen trainwrecks before is when this public/private thing collides on a blog with a lot of loyal old time followers. The blogger or a fellow commenter says soemthingthat raises objections, and this unclear boundary between the social and the public makes eveyone talk at cross purposes to each other about the reasons why it was wrong and it’s a hatefest. Yes, I’m thinking about “Cuntalinagate” here… :/

Anyway – thanks for jogging my brain in that interesting direction. And for the record I find your blog exquisitely polite.

By: Sweet Machine

Sweet Machine — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:51:47 +0000

And they say, “How is that worse than if we said we were getting killed? At least if you’re raped you live through it.”

Right, because something has to be the Worst Thing That Ever Happened in order to be inappropriate or triggering. *headdesk*

By: TheOtherMaggie

TheOtherMaggie — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:07:09 +0000

Ooh, you didn’t mention the “How is that worse than saying X?” argument. I get that a lot when I call out my male friends for their rape jokes. They’re playing a video game, and they go, “Oh man, we are totally getting raped.” And I say, “Can we please not have rape jokes? I’m a little touchy about them.” And they say, “How is that worse than if we said we were getting killed? At least if you’re raped you live through it.”

Besides the obvious horrible thing, this also ignores the fact that if your party is getting wiped in Trial of the Crusader, YOU ARE IN FACT BEING KILLED. It is an accurate description.

And then I have to point out that if one is murdered, one generally isn’t around to be triggered by murder jokes afterward (family and friends notwithstanding).

By: Sady

Sady — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:22:17 +0000

@abby jean: Oh, no worries! Your response was really insightful, thanks for putting it out there.

By: Sady

Sady — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:19:05 +0000

@MarinaS: I think that it’s the difference between having a drink with someone and witnessing someone’s public speech – on TV or in a blog post or in a book or whatever – that matters in this case. Of course, if you and I were hanging out, and you said “‘douche’ kind of makes me feel icky,” that would be cool. I have a friend who can’t handle “cunt” as slang for a person’s junk, so I don’t use it around her, and for some reason I find “pussy” gross (not in a political way: I just don’t like the sound of it, the hissing you have to do to get through the word and then the diminutive ending, and this may have something to do with how gross some dudes sound when they try to say it in a sexy way: it either sounds like baby-talk or they end up getting weirdly Southern for a moment and saying “puss-eh,” BUT ANYWAY). So when we talk about the nether regions – and I GUESS WE DO, because I am just now realizing we have in fact had these conversations a few times – we just use the most ridonkulous outdated terms we can imagine (for example: “the nether regions”) and avoid the whole cunt/pussy/oh-dear-Lord-do-not-say-”vajayjay” problem altogether. This is the “language gets worked out socially” thing I talked about.

But in my public speech, for example on this blog, where I really don’t know who’s listening and anyone could be, I have no way to predict who’s going to be offended by what, so I stick with the terms that (a) I know to have wide currency, and (b) I like. If I end up not knowing what the most correct or current usage is – see above – I’m open for correction, of course, but if I had to write every single thing I write so that there is ZERO chance of ANYONE EVER having an issue with a word I’ve used, I’d just degenerate into incoherence or this really ponderous Germanic style that no-one would enjoy reading. I mean, my mother has zero issue with some of the most wacky stuff I’ve written or believed, but she scolded me for using the word “shit” on Twitter once. I can’t write for everybody and everybody’s mom AND my mom; I can only make the choices that make sense to me at the time, and think about the choices I make. Does that make sense?

Also, I think you’d have to struggle to include Tiger Beatdown under the umbrella of “polite discourse.”

By: abby jean

abby jean — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:03:50 +0000

ack – to clarify my initial comment, i meant that the info was offered in the spirit of “here’s things may not have considered” not “shut up” which i totally failed to make clear. i write good.