Read the spoiler in my previous post.
Well, if so many jokers didn’t say crap like “You’re vegetarian!!! But I saw you eat a skittle the other day…you’re not a real vegetarian!!! Now you have eat a whole turkey…nah nah nah!!! I made that soup with cow!!! Hypocrite!!! You and your kind are all dumasses. If cow’s wern’t made for eating why are the made out of meat. Har har har!” we wouldn’t come up with these ridiculous terms.
We get it from both sides- I got chewed out in a veggie thread for my yearly sushi marathon and called out in a carnie thread for eating Mexican food without harrsassing the waiters about the lard content of the beans. The point is, for all practical purposes I am a vegetarian and anything that isn’t about pracitical purposes is my business and my business only.
Hell, in elementary school, I got harrassed by other kids because they taught us in health class that beans are part of the “Meat Group”. :rolleyes:
No, I’m not seriously suggesting that the world is going to hell because of that. You may not have recognized a stylistic effect called being facetious. However, it appears that the poster’s use of the term flexitarian is redundant and overly determined. He eats all foods, although seldom eats meat. How does that differ from someone who eats all foods, but eats meat a little more often? How does it differ from someone who eats all foods, although he seldom eats sweets? It seems silly to me, that’s all. And I didn’t even see in his description the impuning of my character - I DO eat meat - such as you included in yours. That aspect doesn’t seem to be part of his definition, although you certainly included it in yours. Now, that wasn’t necessary, was it?
The point wasn’t to impugn your character. I eat meat, too. (Which you’d have noticed if you’d been paying attention.) I was mocking those who would impugn the character of someone merely for failing to notice some chicken stock, and thereby demonstrating why more accomodating vegetarians (who nevertheless prefer never to eat meat) might want a special word to describe themselves. Do you make fun of Jews who only keep kosher at home, too?
[moderator hat ON]
CC. End the bickering right now. You started this when you made fun of the word “flexitarian.” While I’ve not heard the word used that often, it was voted “the most useful new word of 2003” by the American Dialect Society. I happen to belong to the ADS. It’s not just some mumbo-jumbo that Alan Smithee made up. He defined his use of it in his first post.
Alan Let it go.
[Moderator hat OFF]
Credit where credit is due: even sven used “flexitarian” first in this thread, and I thought it was pretty clear from his use what he meant by it. I forget where I enountered the word first, but I’m pretty sure it was somewhere on these boards. Anyway, I’m happy to stop arguing about it. Everyone has words that just rub them the wrong way, and if neologisms didn’t provoke such visceral reactions, no one would have fun using them, would they!