I’m aware of the history, ** Fenris**. I’m also aware of the human potential to take old words and give them new meaning. Those words have had those meanings when others use them, but they are not what I mean when I use them. Maybe it’s because I live in Brooklyn and listen to so much hip-hop that I am so open to language being used creatively. Making new words up, changing the meaning of old words, laughing in the face of taboo’s, feeling comfortable in who you are, being true and not giving a fuck. These are all qualities that the culture I choose to immerse myself in hold dear.
Hip-hop don’t tolerate racism. Maybe some rappers are racist, but the majority of the culture I have gotten involved in hates people who judge others and act in a bigoted/racist fashion. But while we got lingo, and we got foul mouths, it doesn’t make us bad people - even if people before us were bad. I use the word to mean something. Fuck the bigots who use it to mean something else, and to those who don’t care what I mean, lighten up. Language is just a tool. It represents something. Thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Those are what are important and what we should struggle to understand. Getting caught up in semantics and the histories of words accomplishes little in my book.
I can see why some are gunshy - racism and prejudice being so widespread in our world (hopefully less now then in the past, but it is still a big problem). I’m all for stamping it out. But if it aint there, semantics just waste everybodies time. Got a problem? Ask a question. Get a negative answer: move along. Focus on what people mean. I think we understand each others points pretty well, I just don’t think we agree. I’m not sure what more I can say (that always happens in this debate).
Agree to disagree, I guess. I don’t use such terms here as a gesture of respect and politeness. I’m still not in agreement with the PC attitudes which I have found fault with here. Oh well. On the list of interesting things to talk about, this one is pretty low to me. So I’ll just let it go again for at least another year or so.
so, dalovin’, in the interest of assisting the language to de-demonize certain words, you obviously won’t mind if I refer to you as a motherfucking asswipe, meant in only the best of ways…
Whatever floats your boat, fucknut. Suckmydick. Sample my left nut while you’re at it. It’s the sweaty one. I knew it would get petty. By the way, if I am correct in my understanding of what you mean, you are saying I am really an asswipe (the “best of ways” part being a smart assed lie).
If you’re just trying to use a similar example, and not bearing ill will (which I doubt), you didn’t do a very good job. Your intentions are hostile, so you are a dickface. Congratulations. Unless of course you didn’t mean that? What exactly did you mean (smartassness aside - if that’s possible)? Cause I’m having trouble seeing what saying I am an asswipe could mean other than just that (like gay has another meaning). So it’s a failed debate tactic or you are being a dick. Maybe both. Weak.
Does this guy get to be a super-hero too? Damn improvisation. Sometimes the “never deny” rule is a real bitch.
In the sense you’re using it, “gay” doesn’t have another meaning. You use it in a demeaning sense because people who use in that way think that to be gay is to be demeaning, to be weak, to be soft.
You are being deliberately blind to the fact that words have history and meaning, and that you can’t take the negative connotations off a word by wishing.
Gee, dj, you mean it’s sometimes tough to tell someone’s intentions when they’re using derogatory comments? That you took offense at something someone said without checking to see how they meant it? That words hurt your feelings?
Incorrect. That is not why I use it that way. I know many others who use it similarly. Folks who don’t hate homsexuals and who recognize that broad sweeping statements about ANY group of people are not true, wise, or cool.
Gay can be used to mean lame by someone who doesn’t think that gay people are lame.
dalovin’, might I recommend you check out the documentary “Oliver Button is a Star” showing on PBS (check local listings). If that’s too high-brow for you, then try the book “Oliver Button is a Sissy”, it seems more your speed.
If you choice of words causes you to need to explain that you “didn’t mean it in a bad way”, then perhaps you need to choose your words more carefully. In an effort to communicate effectively, most people like to be understood the first time and not be required to explain what they really meant later.
No, see, you guys are missing the point. Our ol’ disc-spinning friend doesn’ use “gay” in a derogatory manner because other people have done so. His use of “gay” to describe bad things, and not good things, has nothing to do with the fact that 10-year-olds use it that way also, and that they do so specifically because they relate being a “fag” or being “gay” with being undesirable.
No, see, this new-fangled etymology wherein the derogatory use of “gay” has nothing at all to do with gay people sprang unbidden into his mind. All on its own, out of the blue, as if his Broca’s area was touched by the hand of God itself, he thought, “Hmmm, there is something I find aesthetically displeasing–I shall call it ‘gay!’ And even though I have heard that word used in such a manner, by those who feel that homosexuality is an undesirable trait, this is just a remarkable coincidence!”
Doesn’t it all make sense now? In fact, I, too have been the beneficiary of such a theophonetic revelation. A word just popped into my head that I can use to describe individuals who use words that are hurtful when they could use words that are not: “Cunt.” Sure, it’s been used in the past as a particularly vile insult towards women, or towards men who the speaker is trying to emasculate, but that has nothing to do with how I’m using it. My etymology is unique in the sands of time. People who use insulting words when other non-insulting words are available are now “cunts.” Who is with me?
Audience is everything in this instance. I don’t use the N word or the C word around anyone but my dad, my sister, my husband, and my adult son. They are only used around people who know me intimately and know that I don’t use these words where there is a remote possibility of it being misinterpreted, or of hurting anyone. I don’t let people use the N word in my house…ever. I never gave it a lot of thought before, but I see now that the G word can be perpetuating a lot of bad shit. As I said earlier in the thread, I used to use it to describe effeminate things, but I’m not going to do it anymore now that I know it is insulting to people. See how easy that is? Just try not to hurt people. That’s all you need to do. Thank you, gay dopers, for the insight.
I don’t know, I think that language is a personal thing and that the prevailing usage should not necessarily impose upon individual usage. Etymology is up to the speaker, not the audience. If you mis-understand me or DJ - it’s your fault
If sheep telescope differently, their ganglia trash are just a spoonfull of ether to the King, and the sheep can go husbandry themselves.
But how does you listener know that? I assure you that if you go out into the street (ANY street, even ones in Brooklyn) and strat using phrases like “Raus Juden” or “N*****-rig”, everyone will think they know what you meant.
**
We agree that language is just a tool: a tool for communicating. If your definitions of words don’t match anyone else’s, how do you communicate? I’ve no problem with playing with words: I’ve read Carroll, I’ve read Joyce (or tried to…), I’ve read Ginsberg and other Beat poets. But still…their use of language doesn’t interfere with their ability to communicate.
Phlip in his OP didn’t communicate his thoughts. He clearly did use homophobic, hateful terms. Notice how just about every insult he threw was somehow related to gay behaviors? If he had a secret, encoded meanings to his text, it’s not anyone’s fault but his that he was ‘misunderstood’.
Anyway, “playing” with language is fine. Breaking language so communication is impossible isn’t.
In addition to the problem you create when you use language so idiosyncratically that you make communication impossible, you also create a bad example.
Let us say that DJ, who really is a good guy, says, “Bro’ that movie was so gay, I couldn’t take it.” His listeners are apt to get the idea that a) to be gay is to be lame and b)DJ thinks the same way.
You have to be careful of the words you say. To retuen to the show tune theme that we had…
