I’m guilty of using both “gay” and “lame” in the pejorative sense and recently writing “lame” when I meant “gay” while primarily addressing a homosexual. As erislover aptly points out here (I refer to Esprix’s comments here as well), “lame” is potentially insulting to the differently abled for the same reasons, and therefore is clearly unacceptable as a replacement. Ditto for “weak” and “stupid”, there are weak and stupid people who might be insulted.
As for Esprix objecting to “gay”, as I stated elsewhere, I disagree vehemently with the argument “we can use (the word) but they can’t, because they mean it pejoratively”. That we-they stuff is gonna take us backwards, not forwards.
New “PC” pronunciations of harassment and uranus: that level of PC is beyond my limited patience. Pretty soon “I love driving in your country.” will get a giggle. Again, are we progressing or regressing?
I’m asking for everyone’s help here, gay, straight, (I object to that! I watch midget (I object to that! We call ourselves little people!) porn, clearly I’m not straight!)) African-American, West-Indian-Canadians-of-African-Origin-Who-Object-To-Being-Called-Americans, awww heck everybody to help me find a replacement word for describing the musical stylings of Ricky Martin…bad example…a word to describe the act of adults going without children to a Backstreet Boys concert…um…well you know, “doing-the-thing-which-has-no-name”.
RULES
-
No potential lawsuits. “Mickey Mouse” or “Disneyesque” are out.
-
You can’t insult anybody. Be careful! The insulting nature of “lame” went unnoticed for quite awhile in Jester’s GD thread, even by the most self-righteous!
-
Must immediately be seen as pejorative to a large number of people. If you believe that nothing critical should ever be uttered, I heartily encourage you to follow your own advice. Have a nice day.
-
To repeat: one word. “Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar-ish” doesn’t exactly slide off the tongue (in the sense that it is not easily uttered, with apologies to those with speech impediments, sheesh) and goes against Rule #2.