Which referenced Rabelais’ Garagantua & Pantagruel, hence the velvet hat…
I’m guessing late Eighties, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
Giving the benefit of the doubt is why we have Trump. We didn’t call out bigoted uncles, we gave them the benefit of the doubt and here we are. It was cowardice on our part.
Is there a comprehensive list anywhere of “why we have Trump”? I think I’ve seen at least five million different reasons, but I’d love to have them indexed.
Why don’t you get right on that if it’s important to you?
Threads like these are why I don’t think the Dope is anywhere near as liberal as it likes to pretend. We’re pretty tolerant of misogyny and racism especially from other older white Americans. We make a lot of excuses for them here.
We had a mod here who was widely seen as being bad at moderating posts relating to women, but when he flounced off people here praised him for what a great mod he was, except for when it came to women (you know, half the population).
Great idea!
The thread is overwhelmingly saying it was a shitty thing for MSH to say, isn’t it? I’ll chime in: it’s a shitty thing to say.
And then there’s all this, but benefit of the doubt, don’t know if he’s really a misogynist bullshit. It reminds me of everyone here asking when are the sane Republicans coming back. Just a hotbed of political rest.
When you give someone the benefit of the doubt, you point out to them how what they said can be offensive, and recommend that they rethink their language choices, since a lot of people say a lot of things without really thinking about them.
And then you wait to see how they respond.
I agree, to an extent. Once someone has showed you who they are, that benefit isn’t necessary. But I do think that we need to be better at inviting people into decency, instead of trying to shame them into decency.
That shaming, of course, is why we have Trump.
I don’t think we like to pretend we’re very liberal at all. Or at least I don’t. I think the more conservative posters may characterize it as a ultra-liberal hive mind, but the board itself isn’t particularly progressive or anything. So maybe that would make it more mainstream liberal after all, if you make that distinction.
It’s liberal, but it’s old liberal, and old liberals believe in different things than young liberals. Not more or less liberal, just different.
Definitely this. While the SDMB definitely leans to the left there is a big pushback against progressives. SDMB is socially liberal but pretty center on most other topics (give or take).
And despite having mostly liberal posters, the official position of the SDMB is to be politically neutral.
It’s Boomer liberal. Which is a different kind of annoying liberal. Lots of worries about propriety and in some ways thinking the world is the same as it was in 1975.
For better or worse, this board seems like it’s basically populated by the white moderates mentioned by MLK Jr in his letter from a Birmingham jail.
We’re the Democratic Party of message boards, more focused on process and tone-policing than on progress and growth (personal and market share).
This whole board is a glorified nitpicker support group. That’s natural considering the “well, actually” nature of the original Straight Dope column.
There’s not really anything wrong with that, I guess. It’s the identity of this place.
I balked at the nit-picking, at first.
But, really its taught me to pay attention to my spelling and punctuation.
I’m never gonna be perfect. It has helped.
I came here just knowing and reading Cecil’s books. I thought of them as funny and quirky, but not tomes of encyclopedic knowledge. (Altho’ he is the smartest human(?) on earth). No AI there, unless it was Al the plumber.
On further reflection I think the problem with “skank” is it is cruel.
A lot of slanders sum up to, “You’re a jerk, I think you are a sucky person.”
There is a meanness to “skank” though. It seems more personal.
I looked.
Skank(promiscuous and unattractive woman) comes from Skag(unattractive woman).
Maybe.
Or, a mash up of skeevy and rank.
Or,
A dance coming from the Ska music scene in Jamaica.
Take your pick.
I’ve heard teen girls describe other teen girls as “skanks” or a “skank ho”.
Youngsters can be so cruel.
I feel safe in saying C__t is worse. And more cruel.
Yep, I know its spouted out by millions with out thinking. No concern children may be in the room or the car. Or even concern if these kids belong to the name caller..of course everything is peppered with “fucks” and “motherfucker”. And 100s of other curse words.
It’s the wild west out in public, with worse language.