English, gender and God

Mister Pamboli responds to me:

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By the way, bonus points for those who know where "sweetie, honey, baby, pussycat" comes from.

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Little Shop of Horrors - but not sure if it's original to that.

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That's what I was thinking of. While I'm sure somebody somewhere had said it before Menken and Ashman (after all, it's being said by an agent: "Seymour Krelborn! Sweetie, honey, baby, pussycat! Hey, Seymour Krelborn, you prince, you! My name is Bernstein; I'm with NBC. I came down here to convince you to do a weekly TV show for me"), they certainly gave it a boost.It really doesn't have the same impact without that inflection.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

"If the sexism is ingrained, then how could Paul not be sexist by using the language?"One might allege that to some degree he, and every other English speaker, is.I think the argument that the language is structurally sexist is a strong one, and that this is a reflection of the political reality.

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Why? You were saying that nobody uses it.

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No, Rhhain, this is not what anyone has claimed. Yet again, you've rewritten someone's claim to suit yourself. Quite sporting. The claim is, and has been for several pages now, that 'niggardly' is not in common usage as a synonym for 'miserly.' And that this usage has become so uncommon among most speakers of the language are unaware of it. And that furthermore, most speakers associate the word with racism.

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And yet in 15 seconds, I found references that reach from current usage (and your claim of "after the big hullabaloo" is disingenuous at best) going back 20 and 40 years.

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Going back 20 to 40 years does not demonstrate current usage. You've skipped one to two whole generations by going back that far-- disingenuous, to be sure. "Current usage" would be usage within a few years of right now.Of course, what you haven't even begun to do is show COMMON usage.

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Why?

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"Using a word specifically to fit an acronym hardly counts as common usage," because making a sentence from each letter of a word is a forced use of language, as is creating a word from each letter of a sentence.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Going back 20 to 40 years does not demonstrate current usage. You've skipped one to two whole generations by going back that far-- disingenuous, to be sure. "Current usage" would be usage within a few years of right now.

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Of course, what you haven't even begun to do is show COMMON usage.

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Imagine, Rrhain didn't immediately understand my use of the words "gay" and "pussy", and it looks like he's having trouble with the OBVIOUS meaning of "cock", as well!I mean, surely, along with "niggardly", all of these words are used by people in everyday speech to mean what I mean them to mean and in no other way, right?At least, nobody but educated non-morons would ever misunderstand, right?

schrafinator responds to me:

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Imagine, Rrhain didn't immediately understand my use of the words "gay" and "pussy", and it looks like he's having trouble with the OBVIOUS meaning of "cock", as well!

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Incorrect.I understood perfectly, I just wasn't playing the game you wanted to play.

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I mean, surely, along with "niggardly", all of these words are used by people in everyday speech to mean what I mean them to mean and in no other way, right?

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Logical error.You're comparing apples and oranges. You see, "niggardly" has only one meaning. "Pussy" and "gay" and "cock" have multiple meanings. Thus, to say, "Let's talk about cocks," with absolutely no context is ambiguous.Now, since we were talking about animals previously, there's a good chance that by "cocks," you were referring to chickens. But then again, since you were being disingenuous, who on earth knows what you were talking about.So knowing that you were more interested in playing around than actually discussing anything, I asked a simple question.And look at the response! More derision, more game playing, more stuff and nonsense.

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At least, nobody but educated non-morons would ever misunderstand, right?

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Is there a point to all the invective or is this the only way you can comport yourself?Perhaps it fills a need. Is there a reason you spend so much time on this?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Does it? That appears to be the question. I'd say it has two meanings - the dictionary definition of "miserly", and a definition most people seem to ascribe to it that has racist connotations.As usage is the final arbiter of language, it must have those two definitions, as both of those definitions are in use.

crashfrog responds to me:

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You see, "niggardly" has only one meaning.

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Does it? That appears to be the question. I'd say it has two meanings - the dictionary definition of "miserly", and a definition most people seem to ascribe to it that has racist connotations.

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And I would say that it has one meaning but that a lot of people who don't know the word hear it as a completely different word.That is, the speaker said "niggardly" while the listener heard "niggerly."Personally, "I didn't say that" trumps anybody's claims of meaning.Remember those Sprint commercials where the person on one end of the cell phone says one thing while the person on the other end hears something completely different (personally, I love the Dachshund one..."Stampede!" and all the little dogs dash across the screen)? Notice that nobody, not even the viewer of the commercial, blames the person who said what was misheard for making an error.Why? Because the person speaking is blameless. They said what they said, meant what they said, and when you look at what they said, there is no way it could be interpreted to mean what was heard.It's the same thing. The person said something, meant what he said, and when you look at what was said, there is no way it cold be interpreted to mean what was heard.So we're left with the result that the people misheard.

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As usage is the final arbiter of language, it must have those two definitions, as both of those definitions are in use.

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But there's a problem: You're looking at the people who are hearing the word, not the people who are using it. The people who are using it seem to use it in only one way.So who should we pay attention to in this situation? The people who use the word or the people who only hear the word and never use it themselves?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

So you say. Personally, I feel that speakers are responsible for avoiding phrases that could be reasonably predicted to be misunderstood. If people use "niggardly" it's ludicrous to suggest that they can't reasonably predict that people will misunderstand. Speakers of English don't live in bubbles. The listeners, because there's more of them. Duh. Language is democratic.

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Logical error.

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Yes, yours.

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You're comparing apples and oranges. You see, "niggardly" has only one meaning. "Pussy" and "gay" and "cock" have multiple meanings.

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Sorry. "Niggardly" has multiple meaning as well-- one of them racist-- or there would be no contraversy. This second meaning has emerged recently, but it is very real. As anyone not living in a fantasy world should know, words are markers and they mean only what people think they mean, and with language, mob rules. So why the denial?Lets talk for a sec about about this mildly interesting but quite disingenuous distinction you make between 'speaker' and 'hearers.' You seem to think that only those speaking are 'users' of the language. This is equivocation on the word 'user.' You know damn well that both the speaker and the listener are using the language.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

The recent line of conversation is long overdue to have its own new topic and a more suitable title.Might I suggest the coffee house topic "When word meanings are misunderstood".If anyone cares to do such, feel free to link back to the end of this topic.Adminnemooseus