English, gender and God

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schraf, sweetie, honey, baby, pussycat....

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You seem to think that I have a problem with being called "gay."

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Were you planning on setting me up on a date with someone?

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Do you have a pussy?I LOVE pussys!I have two!My husband loves them as much as I do!

Have you seen a doctor about that? After all, you can have them fixed...

Guess I just never met the right people down there I lived in Austin (Westlake Hills) from, oh, '88 to '92. Seems my peers were more interested in making fun of Latino immigrants at the time.

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Guess I just never met the right people down there

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Incorrect. You never met the WRONG people down here. I live in Austin right now-- but for only another month ( Yeehaw )-- and I don't really hear the strong accent. But about two hundred miles east of here, where I grew up...------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

Silly.They are already both fixed!

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So we need to dumb everything down to a fifth-grade level?

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Maybe not, but if the issue being discussed is whether a politician should have got in trouble for using "niggardly," then I think we're missing the point.Should Americans be more understanding and better educated? Maybe. I guess I would prefer it. Since I can't do anything about it, though, I'll live with what is, not what should be.Should the politician have seen the problem coming and avoided the word niggardly? Well, I hate "political correctness," and I'm not real up on politics, and I would have known to avoid the word. So, in my opinion, a politician who didn't know what he would get when he used the word is too ignorant to be in politics.

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The reason I keep asking the same questions over and over is because they keep not getting answered.

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Don't make me go back through this thread and point out all the objections you've brushed off or ignored. Save face, and do it yourself. We'll be waiting.

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Because without any idea as to what "survey of common English words" you're referring to, how can I possibly respond.

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You mean you didn't read my post #140? Funny, you replied to it?

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Page not found | Charlotte Mecklenburg Story

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You did read through enough of that to get a feel for the date, right?

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Etiquette International - The Art Of Gift Giving

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LOL... I could never take these characters seriously. Please remember, we are looking for common use. I'll grant that you can find current use of the word, but the issue is COMMON use.

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Again...I don't know where you live, but I see it being used all the time.

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You've hardly demonstrated "all the time."

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Yet another friend of mine used it just last night.

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Then again, we aren't talking about you and your friends. We are talking about common usage. You are going to have to do better than 'My bud used the word just now.'

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Well, there you go.

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"Well, there you go." Your argument is "Well, there you go"?????

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People hearing a different word entirely and being so sensitive to the issue of racism that even when they are shown that there was no racism involved, are absolutely certain that there had to be.

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You've stated this several times now and, frankly, you can't know what people are hearing or what they think they are hearing. In other words, you've made up the rational that people are misspelling in their heads. But it doesn't matter really because how people arrive at the conclusion is irrelevant. If enough people are offended, the word is OFFENSIVE, even if the word used to mean 'fluffy bunny ears.' Remember, usage is the ultimate determinant of meaning. You pretend to agree with this statement, but desperately argue against the consequences. 'Red' means 'blue' if enough people make the 'mistake.' And during the transition you are going to see a lot of bickering and a lot a confused people-- exactly what we do see.

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I did. That you don't want to respond to them simply means that there is nothing more to discuss.

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You've got to be joking? How many posts did it take before you got around to something besides "I hear it a lot." LOL....------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

Mister Pamboli responds to me:

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Curious examples Rh chooses to show the common use of the word niggardly today.

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Why? Like I said...that took a whole of 15 seconds. It wasn't like I was trying very hard.

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The first three are all in the context of budgeting. Two explicitly use the term niggardly budget - one from 60 years ago(!)

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You need to read it again. It wasn't 60 years ago.

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and one postdating Howard's case which brought the phrase into the public eye.

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No, not apparently. After all, they were using it beforehand. What was brought to the public was the reaction to it.

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Really all this shows is that niggardly budget may be a cliche in the circle of those who discuss budgeting.

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Considering that "niggardly" means "stingy," is that really such a bizarre thing?

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Your fourth example is from a web page which is hardly representive of common English usage - for one thing the word niggardly is used here to construct the acronym NAZI and a related acronym NAZM.

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And why is that a bad thing? You seem to be saying that because people you don't like are using the word, that somehow has an effect on whether or not the word is being used "legitimately."

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However, the fact that the word sounds as if it might be one is reason to consider context very carefully before using it.

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I, too, would agree with this caveat. Make sure you're not in front of a group of people who will go ballistic over words they might not know.

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As ever, the onus in the natural course of language is on the speaker or writer to take account of their audience or readership, rather than the formalized social niceties built on an idealized view of language that Rh seems to prefer.

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No, I say it goes both ways. Just as it is vitally important for a speaker to consider the audience, it is just as important for the audience to consider the speaker...including making sure that you didn't mishear.A person can be the most careful of speakers but if the audience mishears, then there is a problem which the speaker has no control over.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

schrafinator responds to me:

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schraf, sweetie, honey, baby, pussycat....
You seem to think that I have a problem with being called "gay."

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Were you planning on setting me up on a date with someone?

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Do you have a pussy?

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If by "pussy" you mean "pussycat," no longer, I'm afraid...my cat died from pacreatitis a couple years ago.If by "pussy" you mean something else, well, I'd have to know what you meant. (*blink*) (*blink!*) (*innocent look!*)------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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Why? Like I said...that took a whole of 15 seconds. It wasn't like I was trying very hard.

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It shows - a little more effort in actually reading the links rather than just grepping the term would have perhaps been appropriate.

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You need to read it again. It wasn't 60 years ago.

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You're right. 62 years. Sorry.

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No, not apparently. After all, they were using it beforehand. What was brought to the public was the reaction to it.

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I disagree - reading the reports it seems pretty clear that the phrase itself was also brought to the public's attention. I would be interested to see if there are any examples of recent common usage of niggardly pre-dating the publicity over Howard's usage. So far you have only come up with an older use of "niggardly budget" which, as I have pointed out, could as easily be explained as a cliche.I suppose you could argue that people commonly form the past tense of hoist as hoist rather than hoisted and that petard is a common term for a bomb or grenade. No doubt in your idealized community of mavens it is so.

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And why is that a bad thing? You seem to be saying that because people you don't like are using the word, that somehow has an effect on whether or not the word is being used "legitimately."

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You misunderstand. It is not the writer's opinions that interest me in this case, but the fact that he is using the word to form an acronym. Using a word specifically to fit an acronym hardly counts as common usage.

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pamboli: As ever, the onus in the natural course of language is on the speaker or writer to take account of their audience or readership, rather than the formalized social niceties built on an idealized view of language that Rh seems to prefer.

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rh: No, I say it goes both ways. Just as it is vitally important for a speaker to consider the audience, it is just as important for the audience to consider the speaker...including making sure that you didn't mishear.

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Again you are being presciptive rather than descriptive. I was simply describing that in the natural use of language, speakers disambiguate. You might not like it, but that's the way it goes. You seem determined to impose social rules on people to suit what you apparently see as your superior use of language. Unfortunately, it comes across as arrogant, which I hope is not the case - perhaps this is a pose for the anonymity of the internet and in real life you are not quite so obstreperous?BTW and off topic - did you get round to Carpe Jugulum? I'm not a great Pratchett fan at all, but this was an excellent long-haul-flight read.

In re the original topic of this thread, and the discussion of he as a gender-netural pronoun, the following article may be of interest, written by the resident lexicographer on that venerable conservative journal, The Spectator.http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion...

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‘If you dial 1471,’ writes Dr Roger James, a reader, naturally, ‘you are likely to be told by a recorded female voice that The caller withheld their number. This is an example of the difficulties that our language gets into because it lacks a word that means his or her. Years ago, she would have said, The caller withheld his number, but political correctness has taboo’d that way out. What should the recorded operator say?’

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What, indeed? I think I prefer ‘The caller withheld their number’ to ‘The number you have dialled knows you are waiting’, which is not true literally or figuratively.

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The loss of he as a sexually neutral pronoun is certainly a nuisance, more often awkward than the loss of man in the sense ‘anthropos’ or ‘homo’. The deranged people who rewrite the Bible and the liturgy get round it by recasting sentences to make them plural instead of singular (‘Foolish people say in their hearts there is no God’). That is often disastrous. But it interesting to note that the use of they/them/their has a quite different effect.

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Something for everyone here, I think. Naturally I rejoice at the writer's recognition of The loss of he as a sexually neutral pronoun but I am sure Rh can find comfort in their description of deranged Bible rewriters.BTW, the details of the phone messages are of course specific to UK. 1471 is the equivalent of *69. The number you have dialled knows you are waiting is the silly and potentially misleading message one receives when encountering the call waiting service.

Mister Pamboli responds to me:

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Why? Like I said...that took a whole of 15 seconds. It wasn't like I was trying very hard.

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It shows - a little more effort in actually reading the links rather than just grepping the term would have perhaps been appropriate.

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Why? You were saying that nobody uses it. 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.And I didn't even include any foreign references. Pages and pages of Irish and Indian references. Perhaps my crowd runs towards British mannerisms (my job of the last 3 years was at Sony which has a very large contingent of immigrants from India), so perhaps that's another bias. However, the fact remains that it is hardly as uncommon as you claim. In a brief time, I found many references that had nothing to do with the Howard or the teacher incidents.

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You need to read it again. It wasn't 60 years ago.

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You're right. 62 years. Sorry.

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No, try again.Does the number 20 mean anything to you? It was a report from the 80s that made reference to a statement from the 60s. And it did not feel the use of the word "niggardly" to be unusual. It made no comment about it but treated it as simply a common word. It didn't even attempt to define the term.

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I would be interested to see if there are any examples of recent common usage of niggardly pre-dating the publicity over Howard's usage.

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I already did. I guess I'll need to ask you what you consider to be "recent."

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So far you have only come up with an older use of "niggardly budget" which, as I have pointed out, could as easily be explained as a cliche.

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No, it could be attempted to be explained as a cliche, but nothing in the text indicates that it was considered a cliche.

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And why is that a bad thing? You seem to be saying that because people you don't like are using the word, that somehow has an effect on whether or not the word is being used "legitimately."

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You misunderstand. It is not the writer's opinions that interest me in this case, but the fact that he is using the word to form an acronym. Using a word specifically to fit an acronym hardly counts as common usage.

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Why?Be specific.

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No, I say it goes both ways. Just as it is vitally important for a speaker to consider the audience, it is just as important for the audience to consider the speaker...including making sure that you didn't mishear.

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Again you are being presciptive rather than descriptive.

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No, I'm being realistic and polite. Communication is a two-way street. Before you accuse anybody of any sort of ulterior motive or offensive stance, you make sure that you heard it correctly. And then you make sure that you understand the plain meaning of what it is that you heard. And then you ask if the person who said what you think was inappropriate for clarification ("Did you really mean 'X'?") And only after all that shows that you did hear correctly, it does generally mean that, and the person really did mean that do you conclude that there is something to get upset over.If you short circuit this process, you leave yourself open for screwing up big time and if the listener continues to be a jerk and insists that the speaker is responsible for the listener's failure, he'll deserve the derision that would be understandably heaped in his general direction.I don't deny the listener's feelings. I do deny that he has any reason to be upset and his insistence on remaining pissed off is indicative of someone who is more interested in being angry than on doing anything about it.

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I was simply describing that in the natural use of language, speakers disambiguate. You might not like it, but that's the way it goes.

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I don't deny that.I do deny that they have any justification for remaining pissed off when all evidence clearly shows that they're the ones that screwed up.When the Mars probe from a couple years ago bounced off the atmosphere because some engineers at NASA used the Imperial system when everybody else was using metric, it was their fault. It doesn't matter that the Imperial system is just as good a method of mensuration (being completely arbitrary just like the metric system). They screwed up. It was their fault. They should have checked. And in this day and age, who on earth uses Imperial for anything scientific?

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You seem determined to impose social rules on people to suit what you apparently see as your superior use of language.

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Not so much language as it is simple etiquette.It is inapprorpriate to accuse somebody of something unless you have good cause. And that means making sure that you heard correctly, that you understand what you heard, and that the person wasn't misspeaking.

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Unfortunately, it comes across as arrogant, which I hope is not the case - perhaps this is a pose for the anonymity of the internet and in real life you are not quite so obstreperous?

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I love getting psychoanalyzed over the interent. I always learn such wonderful things about myself!Have you considered the possibility that it is extremely arrogant of you to assume that a person who uses a word correctly is somehow at fault for not taking the possible stupidity of his audience into account when one would actually expect some amount of education?

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BTW and off topic - did you get round to Carpe Jugulum? I'm not a great Pratchett fan at all, but this was an excellent long-haul-flight read.

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Just started it. The stash of Discworld books is at my friend's house (the same one with the cat mentioned elsewhere), so I only get to read it when I go visit them.I think Small Gods is a good look at the way religion and religious thought works.You might try Nanny Ogg's Cookbook. It includes the recipe for Dried Frog Pills. The first step is to carefully take no frogs and do not dry them.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Why, what do you mean?The common usage where I'm from, (and I assume, therefore, that it's like that everywhere or that at least it SHOULD be) means "cat".You were confused? Well, what kind of fifth-grade educated moron are you?Now, why don't we talk about cocks?

schrafinator responds to me:

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Why, what do you mean?

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Just wondering. So many people here have been disingenuous in their terms that I just wanted to clarify.

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The common usage where I'm from, (and I assume, therefore, that it's like that everywhere or that at least it SHOULD be) means "cat".

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Well, the problem is that you didn't use the word I used.You see...I said, "pussycat," and then you said, "pussy." And again, since so many people seem to be eager to play little word games (you, for example), you can understand that I might ask for clarification just to make sure that I understood what you were trying to say.I wouldn't want to accuse you of something you didn't actually do.That would be rude.You wouldn't want me to be rude, would you?

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You were confused? Well, what kind of fifth-grade educated moron are you?

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When did confusion equate to being a moron? It isn't like I don't understand the word. I'm just asking for clarification to make sure I understand what you're saying so as to prevent future misunderstandings and possible bad feelings.See...here we have the crux of the problem: You're more interested in being angry than in comprehension. Did I accuse you of anything when I asked for clarification? No. And yet, you respond with ad hominem commentary.

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Now, why don't we talk about cocks?

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Which ones? There are at least three possibilities I can think of.By the way, bonus points for those who know where "sweetie, honey, baby, pussycat" comes from.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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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.