Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 4:11 am

Although berk seems to not be a gendered insult in the same way as its root word.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 5:44 am

Then again, it seems like (X)unt is a lot less gendered in the UK than here in the coloniesstates.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 6:27 am

I am always surprised to be reminded that people think that that-particular-word-which-is-filtered-here is gendered. To me, it's always just been a version of dick that people still manage to find vulgar for some reason. Is that a change that happened recently? Or did MacKinnon and co. just revive the controversy in their crusade against offensive slang with feminine etymology? I'm honestly curious what happened there. I find it odd that it's not considered gendered abroad but it is here, and the fact that in the 70's some American feminists made an issue out of that word specifically makes me wonder if they didn't accidentally manufacture that connotation back into existence. I'm not particularly committed to that explanation, but I'm always happy to blame things on MacKinnon. Maybe it's American prudishness preventing us from properly diluting the word through overuse?

On a related note, why does it seem that any and all euphemisms for genitalia become insults? It happens consistently enough that you would expect a reasoning behind it, but I fail to see how to extract an insult from "you're a penis."

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Sep 28, 2014 6:51 am

I know that the type of Americans that use "rhymes with hunt" tend to be very bad people. I don't know why the word is used that way here though.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 7:06 am

Not just genitals, but all "indecent" body parts. You can quite happily call someone a boob or a tit or an arse (I actually don't know if calling them an "ass" in America refers to the bottom or to the donkey) and so on and so forth.

Rude body parts are just always on hand, so an easy thing that springs to mind when you wish to insult someone.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Sep 28, 2014 7:20 am

Koumei: Ass in American can mean donkey or it can mean bum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYe-nyqao4A

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:51 am

i feel this is appropriate for this discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0doSWS0Fj24

also:
why is (c)(unt banned here but pussy isn't?
why is the former seen as such a bad and derogatory insult and the latter as calling somebody a coward/quitter/chicken?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:02 am

In answer to the first, I assume it's because in the hierarchy of swear words, it's more offensive. You'd probably have to put twice as much money in the company swear jar. You yourself noted that it's seen as more offensive, and I'm pretty sure that's why it's banned. It crosses an arbitrary line.

"According to the broadcasting standards agency, the most offensive words to use on television are the F-word and the C-word. Luckily, this is live and not on TV, so I can say whatever the fuck I like and those [EDITED] can't stop me." - Jimmy Carr

In answer to the second, I can't help you there.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:06 am

Ah, yes, Jimmy Carr . . hillariously offensive guy ^^
And what, the N-Word is not one of the 2 most offensive words? O.o
Actually, let me check, i think Louis C.K. made a skit about exactly these two . .

Edit:
ah yes he did
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuLrBLxbLxw

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:23 pm

As a Queens-English-speaker, I shall weigh in with my two-penn'orth. In general, I'd say it depended on context.

I suspect that 'slag' would be considered a worse insult when directed at the female half of the population.

I should think calling someone a 'berk' to tend to be milder than a 'fuck(er)' or a 'shit'

Depending on the words in the containing conversation/shouting-match, I'd say that they were comparable, but more likely to be considered milder.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 3:16 am

So why are Mormons a lot less dysfunctional than most other right-wing religious subcultures in OECD nations?

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 3:20 am

Are they actually right wing? In what way "dysfunctional"?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 4:46 am

Less dysfunctional? They have plenty of schisms and splinter groups and offshoots, most of which either decide they need to load up on firearms for the day of salvation against the aliens from Dooma Black president, or they decide they should be allowed to fuck as many children as they like.

That the main church says "Ahem: fuck those guys" doesn't mean they don't exist, and doesn't stop them from being pieces of Mormonism. I'd say that's a good sign of being dysfunctional. And the whole "funding terrorist organisations in African countries" thing. And their association with Stephanie Meyers has to count against them in some way.

Blasted: it's an organised religion that's a direct off-shoot of Christianity, but steeped in even more racism and sexism, with a very big focus on being a community where everyone who is "in" works together and helps each other and fuck all those outsiders. It puts big money into opposing taxes on the wealthy, opposing gay marriage*, and generally doing all the shitty things that right wing groups do. They're broadly (as a group moreso than individuals who rock up to church) in favour of turning SLC into its own special country that gets to ignore American laws.

*or in the case of Africa, funding people who go around shooting gay people.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 5:09 am

By dysfunctional, I mean in health, education, economics, etc. Don't get me wrong, they ain't shit compared to secularists, but compared to -- say -- a Catholic they're doing pretty good. In a Warring States China doing better than Dark Ages Europe kind of way.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 6:18 am

Mormons don't really compare that well against a Catholics. They haven't been around long enough to form Papal States or prosecute a Spanish Inquisition, but they're literal America worshippers from Utah who realized long ago that they could pull the strings if they fostered a population of cutthroat self-interested businessmen and tithed the shit out of them. Catholics have a tithe, too, but they also have a sense of that whole "camel through the eye of a needle" thing and, like most humans, respond negatively to playing shell games with LLCs and bankruptcy to run off in the middle of the night with people's pensions. Mormons sub that sense of repulsion to one that is centered largely on superficial material purity; Magic underwear and a strict no-drugs-allowed policy. Catholics have this thing, though, were a certain subset of alchohol is literally the blood of Christ, and if we're talking demographics, it doesn't look like they mind if you chew coca leaf or smoke the ganja, either. Or drink caffeine, for that matter.

I mean, the Curia's been a mean place for a long time, but the college of cardinals is several layers removed from the world of workaday laymen that you're actually liable to meet on the street. In this most recent half-century, Christian Socialists were the face of anti-imperialism in South America and took the brunt of despotic CIA-backed meddling right on the nose. Mormons have Mitt Romney and those dorks in white button-down shirts calling themselves "elder" before they're old enough to rent a car. Who the fuck would YOU rather hang out with?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:32 am

The LDS Church is very effectively playing the long game. Having a stable base of tithe-payers fully equipped to get very nice jobs and fully willing to help out other members for free pays dividends in a way that simply demanding tribute while ignoring those who pay it as much as possible does not. The LDS Church as an organization profits immensely from having as many of its members as possible be well-educated, long-lived, and good at managing their money because that means they get high-paying jobs to pay tithes on, pay those tithes for a long time, and will never lose their job or miss their tithes due to poor money management.

Same deal with encouraging strong family relationships. A family that gets along is significantly less likely to produce black sheep who will buck the religion, which means it is significantly less likely that the LDS church as a group will invest time, money, and effort into the first 15 years of a member's life only for them to peace out before the investment starts paying off.

Why is the LDS Church less dysfunctional? Because dysfunction doesn't pay the bills.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 06, 2014 3:20 am

So, the Ebola scare is making novelist wheels churn in my head in regards to the walking dead and spitter zombies.

The question is, how crass would it be to actually write something where the Ebola crisis mutated into a zombie plague?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Oct 06, 2014 4:05 am

I don't know about crass, but overdone is another matter.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Oct 06, 2014 2:26 pm

Stahlseele wrote:why is [EDITED] banned here but pussy isn't?
why is the former seen as such a bad and derogatory insult and the latter as calling somebody a coward/quitter/chicken?

[EDITED] is a word which was spoken by the poor, about sex, in ye olde Engelande. After 1066 as elements of old French took over a lot of the medical, judicial, and governmental language for the educated people, the serfs, later peasants, still used the old Engish (Germanic) words for the "medical" bits they understood.

So for centuries towns had places like grope[EDITED] (now grape) lane, because that's where the prostitutes where and that's what everyone called it, but doctors and other educated people used the bastardised Latin vulva and vagina.

After syphilis arrived from the new world in the 16th century, sex became taboo quite quickly (gradually replacing the old taboo of religious speech). Books before that time are very open about it, after it becomes alluded to rather than spoken of, laws restricting brothels get enforced. Literacy was also spreading with the new schools and the remnants of the old language were basically forbidden, the standard became that of the highly educated people.

The confluence of the new military-model primary education, sex taboo, stark patriarchy, and suppression of the peasant vernacular, meant that a child using a word like [EDITED] was punished severely. It's got everything, age, taboo, class, offends all the right people.

That, of course, just leads to kids using it to shock and outrage the people they find overly stuffy, show each other how they know the forbidden stuff. The shock of it was eventually turned into a shorthand attack on women: every negative thing associated with women gets bundled in the "offensive" term for a woman's anatomy, one by one, and then you can sling the word itself to label someone with all of them at once.

Thus are four hundred years of misogyny piled into the word [EDITED], every time a man hangs it on a woman. As centuries of racist chattel slavery pile on the word [EDITED] when a white uses it on a black.

The reason no one cares about pussy? It was the replacement for [EDITED] in the 16th century, as an allusion to the little cat (puss) sitting on your lap. Tickle your pussy, ma'm? As [EDITED] got loaded up with negative meaning, all the old positive meaning transferred to pussy. Though there's no stopping misogyny from tainting the newer one.

#Ebola. Too soon?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 06, 2014 6:38 pm

#[EDITED]: interesting, anyone corroborate?

#Ebola, that's what I'm thinking.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Oct 06, 2014 10:33 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:#[EDITED]: interesting, anyone corroborate?

#Ebola, that's what I'm thinking.

I can corroborate that everything he said is like 30% true and that 30$ is misleading. Most of that shit falls under "common myths about the past that are really really obviously not true when you have any knowledge at all about the time period/subject."

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue Oct 07, 2014 3:53 am

Zombie fiction is already a severely hackneyed genre. But giving it an Ebola twist is almost "Television Executive"-level obvious. It's not that it's "too soon" in a September 11th sense of the phrase; it's a "too soon" in a "need to wait thirty years for this to be retro" sense of the phrase.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 9:37 am

In thirty years most of your audience might have already died of ebola (or marburg, or H1N1, or more realistically the common cold because that's linked to heart attacks and that's what will actually kill most people in the next thirty years), and then where would you be?

#[EDITED]: woo hoo, batting 50%! Every now and then I also manage some valuable insight. You know how your mother will always love you no matter what? Don't call her a [EDITED], there's limits on everything. Also, pretend the words under [EDITED] are all "Clown". It would help if clown also got edited out, but there it is.

What the hell do people do about racist relatives on facebook? I'm trying to watch it a bit to keep up with the family news. But ... there's all this ... well, it's not direct quotes from Mein Kampf, or maybe it is and I'm just not familiar. If it was here I'd just sling shit for a while, but you know, family. Probably distant enough to unfriend, but I get fussy with that and I'm out of the loop again.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Oct 08, 2014 9:52 am

I have told family members to fuck right off with their racist shit before. Then again, most people aren't me (which I am convinced is a mostly positive thing).

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:01 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:So, the Ebola scare is making novelist wheels churn in my head in regards to the walking dead and spitter zombies.

The question is, how crass would it be to actually write something where the Ebola crisis mutated into a zombie plague?

The real problem, of course, is that they wouldn't be zombies.

They'd be ghouls.