Words That Should Actually Be Banned
2. Crazy when used to refer to your ex-girlfriend(s). They cannot all be crazy. Maybe it’s just you.
3. Bitch, in nearly every context, but particularly if you are referring to your romantic partner, a woman you don’t like, a woman who has spurned you, or really, any woman at all. Also, when gratuitously used in music ie: “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” or “That’s how you let the beat build bitch,” or “I see two of my bitches in the club.”
4. Censorship, the cry of, when you have said something offensive and then resent that your offense hasn’t been warmly embraced.
5. Fat/Ugly as a rejoinder to a woman having an opinion with which you disagree.
6. Actually, if you intend to “correct” or “explain” something you have deemed yourself an expert on.
7. Joke, just a, when you use humor as a guise for pettiness, inadequacy, and hatred.
**Feel free to add other words we should ban in the comments!
Tags: banned words, censorship, the butter
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LOL as a way to end a sentence instead of a period, especially when you haven't said anything funny.
Can I nominate the passive-aggressive smiley at the end of a mean comment as an addendum? FIRE.
"Friendly reminder." UGH.
Especially ESPECIALLY when you're trying to make up for whatever you just said. "[Offensive statement] lol"
That's just a linguistic thing FYI. Skip to like 6:20 for the explanation, but the whole thing is pretty brilliant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s
At this point I just pretend it's like a telegram with "LOL" instead of "stop." The soviets have fallen LOL Also please defrost the chicken LOL
Honest, I'm just being.
CF: Saying, just.
Thumbs up times infinity! This drives me crazy.
FOREVER BANNED AND BURNED TO THE GROUND.
Politically correct, especially when used to derisively refer to standards of decency you feel inconvenienced by.
Beat me to it. I think our world would be a better place if everyone was legally mandated to always replace "I'm just being un-PC" with "I'm just being an asshole".
This is almost the case on the xkcd forums! "Political correctness" autocorrects to "basic human decency." It doesn't come up that often (at least in the threads I read), but when it does it's delightful.
ahhhhh that is amazing!
Yes. I am so tired of the phrase "politically correct." Being racist/sexist/homophobic doesn't make you politically incorrect. It makes you a bad person.
My favorite thing ever written about political correctness was by a male friend on the Facebook, who basically said "yeah GOSH it's so hard to go around life trying to think about other people instead of just saying whatever dickbag thing you feel like saying without thinking of the consequences." It's not "political correctness," it's "politeness."
yes, absolutely, but it's more than politeness. politeness is apologizing when you bump into somebody, saying please and thank you, introducing your left-out-feeling friend when you run into people you know and they don't. all good things. i feel like being "un-pc" usually translates to being ACTIVELY shitty (and often in dangerous ways), while being impolite usually means failing to do something/say something you should have said/done.
Politically correct is up there with social justice warrior in the category of insults that I understand intellectually but make ZERO sense to me. Those are good things. Those are things a reasonable person should want to be. If I could be a superhero, I'd want to be Social Justice Warrior.
And referring to "socialized health care" as some sort of…horrible, terrible thing? When in fact it is the bomb.
Yes please. This (politically correct) would be at or near the top of my personal list.
every single time I hear that phrase I have to tell the person "oh, that's an antiquated term from back in the 90's. these days the same thing simply as known as 'not being a bigot'."
I want to thumbs up all these comments multiple times!
Feminazi. Please.
But wanting equal rights for everyone regardless of gender, race, or social class is just like invading Poland and gassing innocent people by the millions, doncha know!
plus, it's always super-fun when you can be offensive to multiple demographics at the same time.
Nazi when used to refer to anything other than actual Nazis.
Wife of ______, as a phrase used as the first identifier when introducing a woman, particularly in a written news story.
Seconded, plus adding "wifey." For some reason, this one REALLY gets me, although there's nothing *inherently* terrible about it.
Similarly, the word "hubby" makes my skin crawl.
"Husby." KILL IT WITH FIRE.
I knew someone who referred to her fiance as her "fubby," as in "future hubby." GAG ME WITH A SPOON.
noooooooooooooooooooo
Wifey sounds like a book about a crazed killer. Not sure if it's the titular wife or her obnoxious, Wifey-saying husband who does the killing, though. Perhaps it's a farce, and they're both trying to kill one another. (Yes, I know there's a Judy Blume book, and it's not about this at all, but this is how the word sounds to me).
For me, it's the wife which has always made my skin crawl, like her presence is completely taken for granted, the speaker's relationship with her has lost its value, and supporting her is a chore (cf., the lawn, the bathroom, the laundry).
In the same vein: "John Smith and his wife, Emma." Emma WHO? I am fine with "John Smith and his wife, Emma Smith," "Emma Smith and her husband, John Smith," "Emma and John Smith," or "John and Emma Smith," but please don't force me to assume that they have the same last name just because they are married.
See also, "_____, mother of two".
Ugh, my roommate's Italian boyfriend (recently moved to the states from Milan for his PHD, endlessly amused by the vagaries of American idioms), has taken to adding "bitch!" or "bitches!" to the end of an unreasonable amount of his sentences. It's getting so, so old, so, so quickly.
"Continui a usare questa parola. Non credo che significhi che cosa pensate che significhi."
bravissima
Thank you, thank you, thank you for including female. Whenever a student uses this word, I want to scream about how we are not a specimen to be studied in a lab. But usually and perhaps shamefully I don't say anything, because i don't know how to verbalize my reason for this dislike in a calm way.
I generally find myself wanting to shout "I'M A NOUN, NOT AN ADJECTIVE, FUCK YOU VERY MUCH."
or just saying "Female WHAT"
I've used "female WHAT" effectively in the wild!
"Female gazelles take ages to text you back? Really? How FASCINATING, I would never have guessed they could use phones at all with those hooves. Oh, not gazelles? Did you mean female fruitflies? Timber wolves? Prize longhorns?"
He didn't get it even slightly, but I enjoy the sight of a baffled man more than I do a ranting one.
I wrote up a little paper-writing help thing (I don't know – words are not working for me today) suggesting that it was using "male" and "female" as nouns to describe human beings was contextually off for a non-science paper. I don't know if it'll actually be of use, but I want to cry when an otherwise excellent paper repeatedly refers to women as "females."
I love this idea.
Just tell them that they should only use female when talking about animals (or, I don't know, trees and electrical wiring?). It sounds totally reasonable and like a normal teacher thing to say.
My mother called out my uncle for this. "You sound like you're referring to LIVESTOCK," she snapped.
Your mother sounds pretty amazing.
I've had OK time explaining that it's borrowing science terminology to give a false air of legitimacy, which makes it pretentious and inaccurate. The kind of pedantic folks who like using it generally grudgingly respect the "Dude, bad science" reproach; generally can't be bothered to cite actual studies; and if they *do* try to back up their use of it, generally have fairly weak arguments (like, I dunno, POP CULTURE EVO PSYCH) that have been pretty thoroughly discredited.
Related: "I have a theory" when what they really mean is "I have a half-baked idea I pulled out of my ass." At best, that's a hypothesis.
Wait, for what word?
<img src=http://www.quickmeme.com/img/f4/f45295c776d1631e114b953721eedc1bd42a5668c0d66b5f1fe16a713ea095e3.jpg>
Someday I'm just going to start copying & pasting this image into the comments of my students' papers.
I mean if you don't want to be smacked in the head with a safe full of gold-pressed latinum, MAYBE you should not have talked to me like a Ferengi.
Quark's total embarrassment at Ishka's one-woman Ferengi revolution was such a treasure though.
Urgh, seconded. Don't ever call me a female is the hill I am going to die on.
It was an episode of ER years ago that woke me up about that one. The British doctor, I forget her name, moved back to England and was being a doctor there when she described a patient as a "XX-year-old female…" and another doctor got on her case for not calling the patient a woman instead of a female. It had honestly never occurred to me; I think I was in my early twenties at the time. Never forgot it, though.
basically never describe anyone with an adjective used as a noun?
black people = fine
blacks = ugh
ditto the way we talk about people with disabilities, and etc etc
I have a friend who wrote page-long marginal notes to every student who used "female" as a noun. Painstaking, but maybe at least partially effective?
Basically this: http://xkcd.com/1357/
Yes! Especially the title text – I feel I should commit that to memory for use at opportune moments.
Marxism when used to refer to anything except actual Marxism, see e.g. "Cultural Marxism."
I work for an organization that, as part of its activities, receives complaints about television services. (I'VE ALREADY SAID TOO MUCH.)
A dismaying number of complainants like to throw the words "Marxism" and "Communism" around and it drives me up the wall. Yeah okay, it sucks that Rogers now has special broadcasting rights to NHL games and you can't watch them on CBC anymore, but ending your rant with "I thought this was CANADA, not COMMUNIST RUSSIA" just makes me want to take away your TV forever. Communism is when you have two hours of black & white broadcasting per day and it's all Party propaganda and you're not watching TV anyway because you're spending your entire day queuing up for stale bread and factory-reject pig's feet SO JUST STOP USING THAT WORD.
… sorry, it's kind of a touchy subject.
Also, like, what does “Cultural Marxism” even mean? Like, if you're not talking about an oppressed proletariat seizing the means of production from a capital class, then what the fuck are you talking about? How does this make sense?
Anti-feminists use this term all the time and I do not know how to rebutt their arguments because DUDE WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING?
I mean, Marxism is a school of thought that extends beyond that specific scenario. It's a broad way of viewing class relations and conflict, and it is also a specific approach to studying/analyzing history. So cultural marxism looks at culture (literature, tv, weird cultural fixations) through those lenses. Which I can't explain, bc I am not a marxist, but cultural marxism DOES mean something real. But I'm also sure it's used to mean a whole bunch of other things that really make no sense at all.
Also one time an anarchist dude referred to A.N.S.W.E.R. (the anti-war organization) as being Stalinist, and I was legitimately and honestly puzzled. Like. Are there purges? Has famine swept over a land with exceptional agricultural resources? Is there state-sponsored torture and are people disappearing off the streets in large black vehicles? No, you say? NOT STALINIST.
I mean really, appropriately a thing shouldn't be called “Stalinist” unless it is actually specifically run by Stalin.
See also: "Nazi."
Oh god, I know so many of this type of anarchist dude – I like to call them "manarchists". They make us look terrible!
Overreacting, when used by a member of a non-marginalized group to refer to the response of a member of a marginalized group.
–> "Found Footage" as applied to movies
–> "The <any letter here>-word"
–> "Person of interest" instead of "suspect"
You said suspect, and this is the trigger word for my personal language rant.
Traditionally, suspect means a known person who is suspected of or under investigation for (but not convicted of, and often not even charged with) committing a crime. Someone who has committed a crime, but whose identity is not yet known, is a culprit, a perpetrator, or perhaps just an unknown person. In the last 10 or 15 years, however, the media have widely adopted the use of suspect for the latter type of person, while continuing to use it for the former. So one day you'll hear "three suspects were seen entering the Kwik-E-Mart and absconding with a large quantity of Krusty-Os," and the next day, it's "three suspects have been arrested in yesterday's of the Krusty-O caper. Police have identified them as Lisa Simpson, Ralph Wiggum, and Üter Zörker." Are they guilty? Well apparently so, because they're suspects, and as we heard yesterday, it was suspects who committed this crime.
As a linguist, I should be accepting of the fact that language changes and words take on new meanings. But as a social justice squire (I only aspire to being a social justice warrior), I am really bothered by the implications of using suspect to refer to a guilty party.
Word.
Wrong way, don't take this the, when there's only one way to take it and that's the insulting way.
The intentional misspelling of a slur to make it "acceptable" in standard conversation. (c.f. "ghey")
Oh dear, another form of discourtesy I had been blissfully unaware of.
I've mostly seen it in the context of young gamers claiming "But we're not actually saying the word! It doesn't count if we're not saying the actual word!" It's a pinnacle of the infantile I'm-not-touching-you argument, but there you have it.
They need a swift kick in the bhalls.
Somebody needs to write about this. I totally agree.
It reminds me of a few religious associates I had in college who refused to say not just "God" and "damn", but the lesser variants "gosh" and "darn"- their argument was that the intention behind the altered word was the same. I laughed at it initially, but now that I've had assholes online insist on saying "ghey" and "wigger" I've got a lot more sympathy for the argument. There's a really interesting discussion in the overlap there about intended meaning.
Weirdly, it looks like it might derive from science fiction fandom's h-infix custom, which I had thought was one of those weird fandom things that simply never made the leap online for whatever reason : http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/h.html
I personally have only ever encountered "ghey" in ironic circumstances, as a way to underline that the writer is being sarcastic: "Heaven forbid ART be taught in schools! Your kids will catch Teh Ghey!" If people really are repurposing it as an insult, that's… wow. Fuck that shit.
Made me think of this: <img src="http://woustudents.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/thatssogay.png?w=240&h=300">.
Similarly, this:
<img src="http://woustudents.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/thatssoretarded.jpg?w=594">
Must have. (Should also be in all high school classrooms.)
Is that what that's about??? I've seen that around places and could never figure it out. Kids these days…
Feminazi, since using it violates Godwin's law and demonstrates a willful ignorance of feminism, which disqualifies you from the conversation on the internet or with reasonable people.
Offshoot of 4: Cries of "Free Speech!" unless you are actually being hauled away by the authorities.
Also "woman" as adjective, or am I the only one who is bothered by that?
"Lady" as an adjective, too. "Lady doctor." "Lady pilot." "Lady scientist." NO.
Hey Lady Doctors!
Hey Lady Pilots!
Hey Lady Scientists!
We obviously need some spinoff series.
Classic series, this time just chockful of ladies!
The Lady Bunch
Walker, Texas Lady
Who's The Lady?
Sanford & Lady
Lady Who, starring Helen Mirren as a regenerating Time Lady with a blue box
Lady Galactica
Lady Columbo (this is different from Mrs. Columbo, this is a rumpled homicide detective who wanders around with a cigar and raincoat, solving crimes)
I'd watch Lady Who.
Still hoping for Helen Mirren or Tilda Swinton as Thirteen. Nobody can take that away from me.
Peter Capaldi is ok, but I was hoping for a Time Lady too. At least we got the Mistress!
Lady being added to a school's mascot for woman's sports. If there are no Men Vols there shouldn't be Lady Vols.
I am not shitting you, there is a Catholic high school in Milwaukee whose women's team name is the Lady Popes.
(The actual mascot for both men & women is a "Sugar Bear", in what I assume is some inexplicable accident of history.)
I love it when two things that are sexist/patriarchal accidentally combine to make something that challenges patriarchy.
True story: the nutty drama teacher at my (Catholic) high school tried to cast me as a gay female Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, with her main directorial note being "play her like Britney Spears."
The principal was Not Amused. I got to keep the part, but I had to redirect my on-stage lusts towards the King instead of Queen of France.
I want to send your nutty drama teacher some flowers.
YES! I'm from Milwaukee (too? I'm assuming you are from there or lived there at one point to know this) and that school was ex-communicated from the archdiocese because they refused to change the name. Or so I've heard.
That is amazing
Yes, this. In my high school's sports conference, there was not one but TWO teams called the "Redmen," (!!!!!!! and they are still called this, wtf) and their girls' teams were the "Lady Redmen," and that is just so many layers of fucked up that I didn't even notice as an oblivious high schooler.
One of the high schools near where I grew up had the Applemen and the Lady Applemen, which, what.
I'd be an Applewoman
but what about Gentlemen Vols
let's adopt that phrasing by sneaking into the equipment room and adding a big shiny "GENTLEMEN" to all the jerseys and banners
I am all for changing Vols (m) and Lady Vols (f) to Vols (f) and Gentlemen Vols (m). Especially if we can get some sportscasters to admonish the Gentleman Vols for not being very gentlemanly even when they're well within the rules of the sport.
100% for that. I imagine epic wrath from all the local fans in response and it is glorious.
I went to a Catholic high school that combined an all-girls and an all-boys school, and both kept their mascots. So the girls were the Breakers, and the boys were the Rams. The full name of the school was Loyola Sacred Heart, so we were literally the Heart Breakers. It was awesome.
But then people might accidentally go to a man Vols basketball game, and that is something we'd all like to avoid…
Ugh, we were the Lady Knights in middle school. My friend got detention for 'talking back' when she said 'Shouldn't it be Dames?'
A high school near my hometown still is, unapologetically, the "Chesty Lions." I'm pretty sure the women's teams are referred to as the Lady Lions, but there's no formal recognition of the ridiculousness.
CHESTY. LIONS.
So many options! Voluptuous Lions! Curvaceous Lions! Leonine Cleavage!
"The Lady Bulls." No, those are cows.
My high school mascot was the Caballeros. Girls' teams were the Lady Caballeros. That would be the Lady Gentlemen on Horseback. Offensive and stupid in two languages!
I swear I just read a story, like…today, that said they're changing this and all sports teams at UT will now be the Vols. Woohoo!
Me: What is this author's point?
College student: The lady is saying…
Me: (keels over from grief)
All I can think of when people use "lady" as an adjective:
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/XVfjxfZ.gif">
Except THIS "Lady Pilot" is OK.
we've got a lady pilot, not afraid to diiiiie.
(see also: "i was surprised when you called me a lady, cause i'm still not so sure that that's what i wanna be")
I love Neko so much.
me too, she is so great.
I have historically LOVED using "lady" as an adjective semi-ironically (and in deliberate reference to George Eliot's "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists") but too many people use it seriously and I will verbally destroy anyone who calls me a lady. So.
I was about to protest that I enjoy using 'lady' as an adjective… and then I realised that using it solely in phrases like 'my delicate lady brain' did not actually qualify as serious usage.
So yes. No 'lady doctor' business.
Oh god, heard a creative writing student reading his work-in-progress a little while ago. He introduced one of the novel's characters as 'a lady authoress', how's that for a double whammy?
Maybe he's leaving room for a less-refined "gutterwench authoress" character in future chapters.
"Oh, the lady reporter is here to see you." – something I hate hearing but I hear a lot, unfortch.
On words I DO like: unforch. (But all my friends would like to ban my abbrievs already.)
I like to abbriev words because I use them so much and have such a strict AP style guide at work that abbrieving them feels so subversive.
I hear you. I teach writing so when I send email to my friends I like to use slang misspellings liek woah.
Abbrevs is totes the lang of the fuche.
I mostly like woman as an adjective, but I struggle with it too. For example, when I write or talk about reading books authored by women in 2014, I like to say I'm reading "woman writers" or "woman authors." I like it better than "female writers," in which I can still hear the Discovery Channel inflection that I dislike about "female" as a noun. I like "lady writers" for casual conversation but feel like it's too cute or diminutive for an essay. I can't just drop the modifier, because in this case it's important that the authors I'm reading are women. I'm out of other ideas.
I guess I just feel like "man writers" sounds much weirder than "male writers" and I apply that the same way when it's necessary to distinguish.
I usually use the admittedly clunkier "Things written by women."
I stand by my love for the concept of "woman king" but it's an outlier.
re: female: I'm sure you're right, it's just that I started using "female" when I was playing an MMO where my character wasn't human and somehow it started bleeding into my actual vocabulary.
Also, "male" instead of man just feels right sometimes.
See, having grown up with sf/f media, I tend to also get annoyed with "male" and "female" being applied to members of self-aware, non-human species, rather than "man" or "woman." Because "man" and "woman" are just the gendered subsets of "person," really, and if we're identifying members of a species as people (idk, the Breen or the Centauri or whatever), we should also refer to them as men and women, except in cases of in-universe biological exposition ("the Centauri male, unlike the human male, has 6 external genitalia, each one being involved in a different stage of intimacy.")
It's just that I try to think of people as people without gendered requirements, and playing a giant squid lady was really interesting as far as exploring that.
Again, that's just my mental framework; I don't say "female" in real life because I know people read other meanings into it. And that's totally fair.
Giant squid lady makes me think of Interstellar Pig.
I have to agree. There are times when I'm not simply talking about women, but want to include teenage women and girls too. There isn't a word, other than females, that groups all ages of our gender together, that I can think of. Maybe we should create one!
Whenever someone (anyone) uses "females" I always ask "Female whats?"
My well-meaning dad uses "female" as a noun a lot and it drives me bonkers. Totally stealing your trick.
It's a good one and it works! Try it in the wild and see!
“To be honest” unless you are making the point that you are not habitually honest.
Or its corollary, "I'm just being honest!"
As if honesty without compassion was worth spit.
This might be controversial, but I would love to ban 'strong woman', at least when used by men. Because have you ever heard anyone say "He's such a strong man?" or "I love strong men?".
Yesss. And all those "LOLOLOL she's so scary LOL" "jokes".
I actually have heard the latter but I understand and agree with your point.
It's a cheat. Usually just means 'outspoken women I like'.
I get okcupid messages sometimes that describe me as someone who sounds like a strong woman and it always seems kind of off to me. What are these dudes projecting onto me? Why are they implying that a strong woman is somehow abnormal?
No, but personally, I do like strongmen. Especially if they've got the old-timey mustache and the one-piece striped swimsuit.
<img src="http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/5f/dc/19/5fdc19127443bb1ecb8197d6b67c9bd5.jpg">
I actively second this one. 'Strong Independent Woman' also. The Destiny's Child song is a classic, but it is fifteen years old. I shouldn't have to clarify my independence.
Well it is assumed that man = strong man and if you are divergent from that you just get called a faggot, sissy, etc.
I feel like I could only say "I love strong men" in a Mae West voice.
I now always connect it with the Gone Girl line about 'I love strong women' being code for 'I hate strong women.'
"Friendzone," for 'it's not an actual real thing, you assholes' reasons.
I think this is funny, and perhaps true. The phenomenon of which you speak, however, seems quite real when you are romantically attracted to someone who doesn't share your romantic feelings, but who has platonic feelings for you. In this scenario, you remain in the platonic relationship which you wish was a romantic relationship because of the hope that the others feelings will morph from platonic to romantic. And, there really isn't a worse feeling than being told by someone with whom you have a romantic interest that, "you are such a good friend."
And, there really isn't a worse feeling than being told by someone with whom you have a romantic interest that, "you are such a good friend."
You have lived an incredibly sheltered life if you think for one second this is true.
What about being stabbed in the ear? Seems like that would be a worse feeling.
how did this robot-bro mansplaining make it through the comment filter, is this a test
Thank you to the admins for allowing us this long-awaited chance to be the ones who descend upon the dissenting commenter. It's a rare opportunity and we will cherish it always.
"In this scenario, you remain in the platonic relationship which you wish was a romantic relationship because of the hope that the others feelings will morph from platonic to romantic." How about you remain in the platonic relationship because you enjoy the other person's company and they enjoy yours, you look out for each other, and friendship is awesome? If the only reason you've accepted a gift (friendship) is the hope that you can eventually trade it in for a "better" gift (romance), you don't deserve either one.
Having experienced that exact thing, I can tell you that crushing student loan debt is way worse.
It actually feels much worse to realize that you've given your friendship and trust to someone who's only been mimicking kindness in the hope that you'd eventually touch his wee wee.
It's almost like the dudebros in these situations keep forgetting that women are people with thoughts and feelings and minds of their own…..waiiiiiit a minute……
The problem is that men get so indignant and angry when they realize that the scheme you lay out above did not work. At no point in time were you led on or deceived in the scenario by this hypothetical other person — they were straightforward with you the entire time about their platonic feelings for you. You were the one who tricked them into thinking you only wanted friendship, based on your belief in your sublime and utter desirability that would eventually be made clear to them. When that outcome fails to transpire, why then get mad or be hurt? Why not be mad at yourself for being too stupid to see the writing on the wall? Why pursue a person who has made it abundantly clear to you that they are not interested in you in any way shape or form?
Oh, here we go. "Poor me! She "friend-zoned" me and is taking advantage!" No, she was honest, and the dudebro in your scenario is being DISHONEST. Believe women when they say Nuh-uh. If you like them and are willing to be a true friend with no other expecations, then stick around and enjoy her company. Otherwise, end the false friendship. No good can come of it, and she will be the one most hurt by the dude's dishonesty and manipulation. … and ultimate anger when he doesn't get his way.
The only exception I will ever make to this is in referring to Jorah Mormont as Ser Friendzone.
Ser Friendzone will never not be funny to me.
If they weren't at least a little crazy, why would they ever have gone out with me?
"Over-sensitive/sensitive/too sensitive" when referring to a woman (and some men) who are merely expressing feelings, usually of the hurt variety.
"Objective" when it comes to columns and other forms of journalism and opinion-making that dare suggest something ain't right.
"I'm just being honest" when you're just being an asshole.
"I'm going to play the devil's advocate" when you're just going to be contrary for no reason than to be an asshole. Also, an annoying corruption of the original Church function.
Oh, man Objective for basically any reason, ban it forever.
What was the original church function? Inquiring minds want to know! (So I can derail derailers in future "devil's advocate" situations.)
The Devil's Advocate argument was, originally, a rhetorical device, in which the opposing (and clearly wrong) argument was introduced into a discussion as a way to refine the author's arguments. "But I hear you argue, as many have said, that [x]. Here's why that's clearly wrong-headed and heretical. I will now cite an overwhelming amount of Scripture at you."
So essentially, melt away, all you haters?
Thanks – I knew vaguely it was supposed to refine and strengthen the author's argument, but love knowing more context/having any excuse to call someone playing the devil's advocate wrong headed and heretical.
But it wasn't originally about dismissing the person playing Devil's Advocate. The Advocate wasn't assumed to believe his arguments, but it was important for him to present a dissenting opinion in a debate, to force the other participant to address each counter-argument to his own. Like Socratic Dialogues or a law school moot court.
Melt away in the face of my logic! I…think I actually like the Devil's Advocate? As braak said, it sounds like a very valuable tool and I wish it hadn't been so rage-inducingly misappropriated.
Yeah, it's a really useful rhetorical device. Of course, it only works that way if people are engaged in the practice of rhetoric, rather than making a specific complaint against a real-world situation.
co-signed to unreadaethel, also adding that the Devil's Advocate is very valuable both as a rhetorical tool and as a philosophical tool, but only in specific, controlled environments.
Yeah, I can see how that would be! Outside of the controlled environment is where it all turns into flames on the sides of my face.
Internet nerds 100% give devils a bad name.
This too: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01168b.htm
Essentially, the devil's advocate was an official who was used to poke holes in any arguments for the canonization or beatification of people in the Church. So he was the guy who was supposed to make sure the case for making people saints were as strong as possible.
Will 100% be introducing this as a fun fact at some point, which is probably another phrase that should be banned, but I DON'T EVEN CARE I love having this knowledge and want others to have it too.
Perhaps we could turn it around on them and use "male" instead of "man" in all instances. Point out that if he's going to base his speech to us on biology only, then so will we. You male, you! He's just a male; that's how they are, you know. And so forth.
But they do that, too, it's horrible.
"To be honest" unless you are making the point that you are not habitually honest.
Waaaaaaait
Can I keep to be frank? It serves the very useful function of pointing out that:
1. the thing I'm going to say might be awkward, hard to say, or hard to hear;
2. I'm usually too discreet to say it, but I AM ALWAYS THINKING IT, so factor that into your response.
I usually use "in all honesty" or, more often, "in all fairness" (rarely in arguments, though, more like when I'm admitting something that I didn't in the beginning of a conversation… if that makes much sense;))
yeeeeah, to be frank is much more likely to be followed by something embarrassing about myself, but I also use it in earnest conversation (rarely, if ever, in argument) with someone I care about.
My larger point is that, no, I am not habitually frank and WHOA aren't we all grateful for that.
The habitually frank bit reminds me of this guy who once asked me if I ever filtered my words (which, *frankly*, I do or, rather, I'm genuinely not confrontational or offensive) and I told him (only half-jokingly) that if I were to say out loud what I honestly think of them… well, they would't much like it ;)
I use the word bitch all the time, but that is because I have one of these:
<img src="http://dogs.bsl-sbt.com/imagefiles/dogsimages/bullmastiff_grass.jpg">
"How is my sweet bitch?"
The first time I read that word in that context as a child, I was totally shocked and appalled because I thought it was only a curse word and I couldn't understand why the person in this book was using it to describe an innocent, friendly dog.
Was it in the third Harry Potter book? Because I read that one when I was about nine, and was absolutely HORRIFIED. (I mean, in context it was meant to be somewhat offensive. But not THAT offensive.)
I think it was in Reader's Digest, actually, which increased the shock factor because RD is such a bland, grandma-safe publication.
what do they call male dogs? Assholes?
When I was a kid, I thought, "Well, if girl dogs are bitches, boy dogs must be bastards."
I am literally shaking with suppressed laughter at my desk at work. I love you both.
Although, on a serious note, male dogs can't be assholes. Because, as we all know, cats are assholes.
A male dog is just called a dog. Thanks, patriarchy!
I LOVE MASTIFFS! English, Italian, French, Bull, and I'll throw in the bully breeds, too. (At one point in my life, many years ago, I came thisclose to sharing my life with a Bull Mastiff and researched Dogue de Bordeux (sp?) as a cool alternative but ended up with German Shepherds because I wanted a super quick, super responsive dog for competitive obedience.)
Your bitch is absolutely gorgeous!
"tumblr-activism"
Just because you don't like being called out on something doesn't mean you get to dismiss it as tumblr-activism, sjw, whatever! I'm not even on tumblr!
"Why Don't They Just"
Oh my gods yes. Any time anyone uses the word "just" I know right away they don't have any fucking empathy or understanding of the real lives of other people who are not them.
I'm starting to think "just" overall. It's almost never helpful.
Not a specific word/phrase, but I think we should have a convention that you never analogize human beings to animals or anything inanimate. It's a bad road to go down, and the analogies are never even helpful.
Our Lieutenant Governor here referred to gay marriage as akin to "having sex with a table." Either way, how would she know?
Also, like, having sex with a table would be boring and ineffective, but it wouldn't really hurt anyone, so, while it's obviously an incredibly shitty/gross/homophobic/crazy thing to say, it's also a very poor argument for something being illegal. Also, any good 'Murican would know he has the right to do what he wants with his own table in his own home.
I vote that an exception be made for comparing babies to puppies and some people to overgrown puppies. Because there are just people who are so very like overgrown puppies.
Yes Mr. Floridagal is very much like a golden retriever, who has been known to exclaim "Hey Friend!!!" when one of his bros walks in the room.
"Girly," when used to imply that being like a girl is a bad thing.
"Slut", "whore", "skank" or any other word used derogatorily to shame a woman for not adhering to another's standards of propriety.
BASIC, esp. when paired with "bitch," but always when it is just another category of women deemed not-worthy-of-taking-seriously-based-on-something-arbitrary-like-pumpkin-spice-latte-consumption.
THIS. Thank you, I could never quite articulate why I hate the dismissiveness of basic bitch.
Can I use "basic" for things that both a) support, or at least don't offer any challenge to, dominant power structures and b) don't offer anything of interest? Like the movie "Fury"–ooh, look, another WWII movie about white heterosexual American combat soldiers doing combat things!
"Excellence". I hate "excellence" and the pursuit thereof. See below… http://conradbrunstrom.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/p…
Calm down/shrill/hormonal/any other variant of hysterical, especially when used to dismiss the anger of a person who has less social, economic, or political power than you do.
Yeah, I was going to say "combative" and "aggressive," used similarly in tone-policing and dismissiveness.
The hysterical variants are even worse (at least to me), because they reduce someone's anger to just childish frustration at not getting their immediate wants and desires. “Combative” is at least a word that accords some agency, if not any respect, to the aggrieved party.
Yeah, I think I agree.
hysteria, from the Latin hystericus (Greek hysterikós), suffering in the womb (reflecting the Greeks' belief that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances in the uterus)
So it's built right in to the language. Sigh.
Well you know, sometimes it just breaks free and goes traveling around. This can cause great confusion and distress.
MY UTERUS IS WANDERING AND I SIMPLY CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR WHERE THAT TAKES ME
BORN FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAS FREE AS THE WIND BLOOOOOOOOOOOOWS
"Friendly reminder" in the subject of a passive aggressive work email and "hiiiiii" to start a gchat asking for a favor from someone you haven't spoken to in months
I would also vote for "Friendly Reminder" as a preface to a self-righteous and/or passive-aggressive tweet about something. Worse if there's a chain of tweets that all start with "Friendly reminder."
This also needs to be applied to tumblr posts.
Race card: in any situation by any human being. Its only purpose is to dismiss fact and/or differing opinions. It is used in place of "sit down and shut up." Unacceptable.
"Devil's Advocate"
"I'm not a racist, but…"
"I'm sorry, but…."
"Well actually…"
"Um," when the first word in an online/email exchange.
I had a tutor at university who once said to my tutor group, "Anything you say before 'but' doesn't count". It is amazing how rarely it doesn't apply.
"I'm sorry that you took offense."
NOT A REAL APOLOGY.
YES THIS
See also, "I'm sorry if you were offended." If you have to say that, clearly someone was offended, just apologize for it.
See also anything that makes it seem like intent matters, like, "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Oh, gosh, yes. The "didn't mean to offend anyone" line gives me hives.
Dear everyone who has ever used this non-apology: Look, we're not accusing you of trolling. We are calling you out for being ignorant (willfully or otherwise). Likewise, we don't want you to apologize for OUR feelings, we want you to apologize for YOUR words/actions.
"I'm sorry you feel that way."
UGH NOT A REAL APOLOGY.
But what if I really am not apologizing? I.e. I point out a typo and someone starts yelling about how I have them under surveillance? (Which…recently happened, unfortch.) "I'm sorry it seems like that to you" was as close as I was willing to get.
Well that seems totally reasonable, and I'm sorry somebody flipped out on you like that. Sheesh.
No, we have to keep that one. It's the only thing that helped when I was being stalked by my abusive exhusband and he would throw out horrible things that I supposedly did in front of the kids to win sympathy and "prove" I was the "bad guy" for "making dad leave".
"you never let me just have my own life, you always kept me TIED DOWN with KIDS"
I"m sorry you feel that way
"All this depression is just something you need to do to draw attention to yourself"
I'm sorry you feel that way
It probably kept me out of jail. Because if I had let out the ACTUAL things I wanted to say….yeah. I still have to regularly chant, "women's prison is not a nice place" when forced to interact with him.
"I'm sorry if you…"
NOPE
START AGAIN
Exception: I said something earlier and upon reflection I realize it may have been hurtful, or rude. I don't know if you took it that way or not, but I feel I should apologize because whether you felt it was rude/hurtful or not, I was out of line and I want to apologize.
I'd like to see more apologies of this variety, really. It's good to learn to acknowledge that we can all say or do wrong things and that they're still wrong whether someone is hurt by them or not. It's good to apologize without someone demanding an apology.
But that's definitely not the same as implying that a person's feelings are WRONG, obviously.
I'm all for the "I'm sorry if the thing I said…" apology, and I have to issue them more often than I'd like because I do/say some stupid bullshit sometimes and think over its unintended meaning later.
But I feel like apologies of that sort are better framed as "I'm sorry if thing I said [hurt your feelings]" (or, even better, include a specific admission of the ills of the offense, e.g., "was unconsciously sexist/heteronormative/racist/ablist," for example) rather than "I'm sorry if you [were hurt by thing I said]." That puts the onus properly on the speaker instead of laying it on the person being apologized to.
You could just leave out the "if" and the meaning would be clearer.
Right: removing all the conditionals shows that, even if your companion didn't take offense to your misspeaking, you take responsibility for making an error in judgment. But it's still important to frame it as I'm sorry I, not I'm sorry you, which is the major point we've been discussing above.
I had this said to me at feminist book club a couple weeks ago and wanted there to be a table near me so I could flip it.
CAT LADY
I'd like to keep "female" but require that it be spelled with at least three e's.
or maybe… beemale?
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/qrLEV.gif">
Ha, I was in a (awful but very well intentioned) play as a teenager called 'Fe…male' – it was excellent and hilarious in equal measure, all about pushing against stereotypes. It's still my favourite way of saying that word, gives it a certain mystique: feeee-male.
"Man up"
Aw, I LOVE man up and use it and "put on your big girl panties" interchangeably and with both genders. There's something about both of those phrases that just makes me giggle.
I use "level up" instead now. It's not got the same ring but it's not sexist and is useful for when I am giving myself a pep talk.
Can I keep "sack up," though? I know why it's a problem, but it's just so funny.
One of the guys, she's just
"gets the girl" – as in, "In the end, he gets the girl."
No.
"In the end, he was awarded a female"
I think I just broke out in hives.
Let's reserve "gets the girl" only for when someone wins a human lady from one of those claw-crane game thingies.
"Last time I checked"
Bullshit you actually are regularly checking on this issue, bro. Bullshit you've ever even checked ONCE. You are just trying to assert the authority of the popular status quo.
Just a Stay at Home Mom. No mom just stays at home. Ever.
I've been guilty of referring to myself as such and afterwards, I'm immediately overcome with a desire to impale myself on a sharp spear of self loathing.
Help me out here people, what's a good term for a woman that doesn't have a paycheck attached to her 24/7 job?
Homemaker? It's retro but I think the implications are a lot better than SAHM.
I use homemaker because I think it is high time we reclaim the fact that *making a home* for people (any people) is an enormous undertaking that involves strength, intelligence, and courage. But of course every time I say it out loud people think I mean 'I read Family Circle and believe it implicitly'. Grrrrr.
The more I think about Homemaker the more I like it. Making is a strong and skilled action and a home is a very complex thing to make. Plus I think SAHM puts all the emphasis on child rearing, which is an important part of what most homemakers do but it ignores a lot of the other tasks that homemakers do.
I was gonna say "full-time mom" but I see your point about that ignoring the other tasks.
Oh god, don't ever say "full-time mom." So insulting to mothers who also have a paying job, and many of whom need to. Really, earning the money that feeds the children is not mothering?
How about we don't habitually describe women's daily occupations in terms of how much time they're doing hands-on parenting, since we don't for men?
Traditionally, it was homemaker. I'm not sure if I like it, but I don't dislike it either.
I've seen "full-time mom" used to clarify that child-rearing is absolutely a job, just an unpaid one that takes place in the home.
But the counterpart would be "part-time mom" which is also terrible. If you're a mom, you're a mom all the time.
So it's just mom then. And then you get to say you don't believe in labels.
That's a fair point. There's really no magical term that will make society clearly respect women's work in and out of the home.
Domestic engineer was a thing for a while, right?
Poopsmith
Chatelaine. Due for a resurgence.
Since I'm a freelancer, I say I'm a work at home mother. Feel free to apply to work that is unpaid, too.
Mother?
"But it really is just a joke! I didn't realize you were so sensi…"
<img src="http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r584/DogByte6/26683-Woman-flamethrower-gif-zlFb_zps07ba1d9b.gif">
It brings joy to my heart that even though I'm not around here as much, this gif remains.
<3 <3 <3
it's one of the best ways to keep you close to our hearts <3
"I'm so depressed/bipolar/OCD" when you are not in fact suffering from any of these medical conditions.
UGH yes. Also ADHD. It's a very bad thing when people who actually have these diagnoses have to explain, "I have OCD, as in actual OCD, diagnosed by a doctor."
On top of everything else "I'm OCD" is downright stupid – "I am obsessive-compulsive… disorder"? No, no, you most certainly are not a disorder. You might *have* OCD, though chances are you actually have super-OCD (love this article) http://the-toast.net/2014/06/03/new-strain-super-…
Also, ADD/ADHD. You're distracted, not disabled!
Yes, please! And especially in response to somebody who is trying to open up to you about actually having one of those conditions. There's no more annoying response to "I have OCD" than "Oh yeah, me too. I totally hate it when my desk gets cluttered, and I, like, ALWAYS wash my hands after I go to the bathroom."
ooh yes, thank you. Saw the odious Bob Geldof refer to his CD sales as "manic" this morning and felt a familiar prickle of irritation.
Yeah. "Depressed" is a hard one bc it described both a medical condition and a mood; it's one thing to say though "ugh I'm depressed" when you feel really down and shitty and low-energy but don't actually suffer from any kind of clinical anything, and another to say "I'm sooo depressed I didn't get those concert tickets!!"
I'm sure it's been mentioned elsewhere, but could I please submit "Social Justice Warrior?"
That is, until a band of internet troll/bigot smashing do-gooders officially christens themselves the Social Justice Warriors and they have snazzy costumes and snappy catchphrases and a jammin' theme song. Then it's all good.
I propose rechristening all agents for social justice and equality "Social Justice Warlords."
Propose further that they all wear spikes and leather like in Mad Max.
I would really, really like to become a Social Justice Berserker. Biting through shields, swinging my axe and shrieking in melee at MRAs.
Can I be a Social Justice Bard? I would like to solve social problems through the magic of my musical skills, like a politically active Orpheus.
Yes and PLEASE.
I've claimed the title. I'm more of an oratory bard myself. I just use words and metaphor.
You can also do a lot of the healing for the group in combat situations.
See, I like SJW because the people who use it as an insult are so deeply unaware that it's not an insult. It also implies that they themselves are Social Injustice Warriors which is 100% correct except for maybe the warriors part.
When I first heard this phrase, I was unaware that it had been coined as an insult. It sounds like something to aspire to. It is something to aspire to. Or, you know, social justice bard, cleric, rogue, ranger, wizard…
http://boingboing.net/2014/10/05/social-justice-w…
How about we ban the word "ban"? Such a tired concept.
metaban
'Banter' as a way to excuse bullying
'Edgy' as a way to other someone who does not look and/or dress like you, makes you feel uncomfortable, and who never asked for your opinion on their style in the first place.
The difficulty with the term "female," for me, is that there is no usable female (heh) equivalent for "guy".
"Girl" is correlated with "boy" – both sound infantilizing.
"Woman" is correlated with "man" – both sound formal.
"Guy" is informal and can refer to someone of any age…but "gal" sounds silly and wink-winky.
So when I refer to my friends and have a contextual need to clarify their gender, I tend to fall back on the term "my female friends" – because I'm not going to call them "my girlfriends" or "my womenpals" a la Ella Minnow Pea…
Should we coin a new word to informally refer to women?
Why not say "my lady friends?"
I often go out with a pack of my ladybros.
(but even in your example, you are correctly using female as an adjective, which is less rage inducing than saying you go out with your females)
"Lady" has always worked out pretty well for me.
I think "lady" is a context-dependent one. When guys say "ladies," it sounds faux-gallant. Girls can get away with it, though.
For me, "lady" is unusable because I was taught "to act like a lady" (as my brother was taught to "act like a gentleman") and so it is, in my mind, associated with a gendered code of behavior.
Do women not use "chick"? Is there something wrong with it? Seems better than gal. Or dudette.
Do women not use "chick"?
Not much, in my experience. When used, it's almost always somewhat ironic and follows a modifier such as badass, tough, or biker, and in this construction, it conjures up — at least for me — a kind of transgressive, stereotype-defying, woman-you-don't-want-to-meet-in-a-dark-alley image (see also: broad, dame). Other people's dialects/idiolects may differ, of course.
Is there something wrong with it?
To me, it sounds like the speaker is (a) talking about a young (high-school aged) girl, and (b) hearkening back to a time when girls were cheerleaders and women were housewives. It makes me think of Fonzie's (disposable, interchangeable, collectible) girlfriends, and also baby birds, which are tiny and helpless and needy (but oh-so-cute).
Seems better than gal. Or dudette.
Gal just sounds old-fashioned and, as someone said above, kind of "winky" to me. It does evoke a sense of womanly defiance and camaraderie that I like, though. I (as a woman) might be inclined to use it when entreating my female friends to take to the sea with me. I might find it strange to hear a male friend use it. Dudette is just kind of jokey and silly, and it suffers from being a diminutive form of a noun used for men (and boys).
In my own speech, I use both girls and boys, particularly when referring to friends/peers who are my age, as well as men and women, more formally and for people who are older/outside of my peer group. It would be nice to have a feminine counterpart to guys, but English has so far not given me one I like.
hey, thanks for the thoughtful response. I also use "girls" and "women" in similar situations to you, depending on the context, but I find that context is sometimes tough to define. Outside of certain formal situations "ladies" seems to stretch out to "ladieez" and it's no good.
I don't think I'm old enough to appreciate why "chick" has the issues you identify, it's always been part of the vernacular for me, and has been an okay way to refer to women in my age group. It is a weird English quirk though – you can't really say "guys and chicks", but "guys and girls" is okay.
only, exclusively, and often in the phrase chicks before dicks
My brother had a friend who called me 'chick' when I was a teenager, and that guy ended up in prison, so I sort of recoil from it.
I'm fond of 'lasses' for a group of women or girls.
I have no complaint with "female" as an adjective, as in "my female friends". It's FEEE-MALES, as if said by a Ferengi…
But that's using female as adjective. Using female as an adjective is totally cool! I refer to my "female friends" (though I sometimes say girlfriends too, in the context of my girlfriends v my guyfriends.) It's using "female" as a noun that gets icky.
"No offense but" to preface an offensive statement or opinion.
My mom taught me that one when I was eleven. Haven't ever used the term since. (thanks Mom, and sorry)
Yes! "No offense but" means you are about to cause offense AND YOU KNOW IT! Closely related to: "I don't mean to be rude/mean/racist/sexist/politically incorrect but . . . ".
Oh! I almost forgot!
HACKS. Lifehacks/kitchen hacks/sandwich hacks/beauty hacks all make me disproportionately angry. No, you haven't hacked anything, go away forever, that is a useful bit of advice, or even a helpful hint (with Heloise). It's not a hack; you're a hack.
Yes, thanks, this word/concept makes me so angry for reasons I haven't fully parsed but might have something to do with the weird tech bros who usually use it.
I can't remember where I ran across this essay (very possibly here), but it's the only thing I can think of whenever I hear "life hack" now: https://medium.com/get-bullish/when-life-hacking-…
I saw an article on Buzzfeed to the effect of "20 tricks from the Great Depression that are secretly amazing lifehacks" and everything went all staticky for a minute. Then I woke up and realized I'd scrawled "useful tips and shortcuts" on the walls in grape juice concentrate.
But that came right off with baking soda, so everything was cool again.
Along with its tired bro, 'disrupting'. Very 'edgy'. Mallory's take-down a few weeks ago dealt with the 'disrupters' so splendidly.
I still don't understand what "disrupting" is supposed to mean in this context.
I think it means you have read most of a Malcolm Gladwell book and are using that as a life guide henceforth.
YES. I'm so tired of all those LIFE HACK: DO THIS THING and it usually seems to fall into one of two categories: super obvious and probably most people are already doing it (LIFE HACK: put your clothes on hangers instead of on the floor where the rabbits can chew holes in them) or overly complicated to the point of uselessness (LYFE HACKZORZ: craft a diy mason jar robot to do your laundry for you)
Beautiful, only when used as the opposite of fat., as in, "You're not fat! You're beautiful!"
GOD I say my cats are fat and people are like "no, they're not fat, they're beautiful, you have beautiful cats"
friend, I know this, I know my cats are beautiful, they are also 13 pounds each, so they are, in fact, fat
don't project your gross human bullshit on my beautiful majestic tummy monsters OR INDEED ANYONE ELSE I KNOW
Urgh, as though there's no possible way to be both!
Yes! My niece is drowning in baby fat (50th height percentile, 97th weight percentile), and is also absolutely gorgeous. There are also adult women who are both fat and gorgeous.
"Big Girl" to describe an adult woman who is fat
Devil's advocate (preceded by "I'm just playing" or "Let me play"). The devil has enough advocates; he doesn't need your help.
"Sorry, that was abolished in 1983."
Let's ban "disrupt," when talking about anything in the business and tech industries.
Oh god. PLEASE. At times I've considered starting a Kickstarter to campaign for that.
Did you ever read the delightful article in the New Yorker disputing the whole "disruption" concept? Good times: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-…
Hormonal/sensitive: as in "you're just being __, so what I said isn't bad/offensive/problematic/triggering. It's just your wild, uncontrollable lady parts. I don't have to change; you do."
“That’s how you let the beat build bitch,”
What am I going to build my PANIC ABOUT MEETING JAMZ playlist on now :(
'Girlfriend' used by straight women under the age of 50 to refer to friends who happen to be women.
YES.
Seconded for every time I got lost in a conversation because I was mentally going "Wait, I thought she was married! Did something happen? Is she coming out to me?" before realizing what she meant.
THANK YOU. Please, straight women, stop making it confusing for those of us who use the term "girlfriend" to mean "woman whom one is dating."
I keep reading "butthurt" on social media, especially in the comments. It's apparently the new way of saying "sensitive," except it implies anal rape and you didn't "like" it. Nothing about that word is acceptable to me.
It's always made me think of hemorrhoids, for some reason.
I'd always associated it with falling on your ass and breaking your tailbone, or spanking, or similar thing that makes it hard/uncomfortable for you to sit down, but I've stopped using it when I realized that quite a number of people see it like you do, and possibly that was how it was intended to begin with.
I believe it was indeed intended as falling on your ass, but the implication it has here has made using it not worth the potential hurt (no pun intended).
It also sounds a bit infantile.
I'm… fairly sure it originated somewhere on 4ch*n and is indeed a reference to anal rape. It is several years old (I remember it from 2006 onwards) and its resurgence is unwelcome.
I would suggest beardhurt if referring to whiny, angry men.
"Puerile" – it's one thing to call someone immature, but it's another thing to use an obscure synonym for "immature" that you hope your target won't know, in order to prove that you have a more grown-up vocabulary than them.
Especially one that sounds like an unidentified bodily fluid.
But that's what makes it so satisfying to say!
Context, taken out of–when applied to an offensive quote that is in no way redeemed upon explanation of context
i missed that the absurd TIME writer who wrote the poll in the first place tweeted an apology- the replies are STELLAR, as the only ones rushing to her defense are gangrenous dicks
Stop calling people ninja. It's not okay.
Really, REALLY? or SERIOUSLY? Yes, for real. I know your brain is limited in what it can fathom but please stop making me repeat myself. I'm an asshole.
"NOT ALL MEN" –I'm just going to start mentally substituting the words "ALL MALES" when I encounter this phrase
"sorry not sorry"
"capische?!"
"basic"
"ladies" –from the mouths of men with moustaches/maybe all men/maybe all MALES
I submit that anyone wishing to employ the phrase "glorious dead" should be required to get in a time machine and spend several months on the Western Front watching teenaged boys develop gangrene in their feet from standing in the trenches all day, choking on mustard gas, and dying of gutshot wounds while screaming for their mothers before returning to the present to offer an explanation of what "glory" they think they're refering to.
Seizure, having a, whenever you are not actually having a seizure. Related: "spazzing out." ESPECIALLY when you are trying to describe something funny (eta: wait, isn't that how those phrases are always used in casual conversation?). I also cosign everything I've seen mentioned so far.
Actually: https://twitter.com/tejucole/status/4711410054427…
Friend zone – especially as a verb. NO.
"Real," as in "I'm on this dating site because I want to meet some real women, I'm sick of fake people." What on earth do you mean by that? (I would NOT like to ban "real" as in "Real men [do something]," because that's such a valuable warning sign to ignore the speaker's advice.)
"A simpler time." No, it wasn't.
"Quick question." It never is.
"Games" as something undesirable in courtship and dating. Really? You'd do away with playful banter, silliness and fun? Ok then, please swivel your infrared Dalek-eye onto someone else. NO don't come over here! Ugh, blocking you now!
(Meanwhile the fleet of giant knobby pepper shakers has caught a female scent: "FORRR-NICATE! FORRR-NICATE!")
This may have been said, but – "rape" when used to describe anything other than rape.
Yesssss, this is so infuriating.
Fap as used to refer to the act of masturbating a penis.
Not only does it sound kinda gross, the common usage is to objectify women the individual finds attractive.
Oh, I hate this one so! Sounds beyond stupid and is just blergh.
(Have similar feelings about nom nom nom. But fap is vastly worse)
"I'm just saying."
Since we've made progress excising "I'm not a [racist/sexist/gamergater], but…", the social turds of the world have found respite in "I'm just saying" as some sort of exculpatory turn of phrase that frees them of judgment for the inevitably irrelevant, offensive, or off-point remark that just fell out of their gaping maw. Be gone with it, and those who utter it.
Bullying, when referring to disadvantaged groups who are expressing their anger and disappointment at the dominant culture. "I can't believe those feminists are bullying that poor scientist over a silly shirt!" NO.
ETA: The next person who says to me "he had a hugely successful day, he can wear whatever he wants!" is going to be forced to wear a Confederate logo t-shirt to their next big business event.
Holy shit yes. Also, to all the people who've said, "All this fuss about a shirt is distracting from the really important event here!" – we can be ecstatic about landing a robot on a comet AND pissed off about a spectacularly inappropriate shirt AT THE SAME TIME, it's called emotional complexity yo".
YES JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. God. I had a good friend link to an asinine article in the Federalist bemoaning "feminist bullying"- esp. in regard to the stupid nudie shirt- and I may have just gone off on him a little bit. Christ. Don't read that article unless you want your blood pressure to skyrocket.
No fear, I've already read a National Post op-ed that compared Matt Taylor's apology to the "show trials of Stalin" and "Mao's cultural revolution" so have had my quota of barf-inducing wtfery for the day.
ALL IS SEE IS FIRE
An acquaintance posted a Tumblr picture with "he's getting grief for a shirt, how stupid" -> "he chose to wear that shirt in public, where he was supposed to be representing NASA" -> "oh, so it's his fault for how he was dressed? that sounds familiar."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
This conversation has been reminding me of the exchange in one of the Harry Potter books where Hermione describes all the things that Cho must be feeling as she grieves the death of her boyfriend. Ron: "One person can't feel that many things at the same time! Their head would explode!" Hermione: "Well, just because YOU have the emotional range of a teaspoon…"
Curvy as a euphemism for fat and/or as the new definition of beauty. It is not inclusive, and it perpetuates the long-held standard that the only desirable female bodies are small-waisted.
I am fat, but I am not curvy. I carry my weight around my midsection and have relatively small hips and thighs. My body has long been excluded from mainstream definitions of beauty, but now it's also excluded from this new, supposedly inclusive one. Phrases like "celebrate your curves," "real women are curvy," and "curves are sexy" don't just exclude thin and athletic women, they also exclude some of us who are fat.
It's almost always tied into "real" women, too, which is fucked up in so many ways. As though beauty in terms of male desire is the only kind worth pursuing, and the only kind that makes women "real", gross.
Yes, the "real women" crap is super gross. And the more I think about your comment, the more I realize what bugs me about that Meghan Trainor song. Under all the supposed body-acceptance veneer is still the message that beauty comes from being desirable to men ("Don't worry about your size/ …Boys like a little more booty to hold at night"). Gah!
On a lighter (?) note, your last sentence made me think of the Velveteen Rabbit. "You're not real until a boy loves you."
Slavery, at least when you are comparing things that aren't anything like slavery to slavery. Also, rape–under the same circumstances as slavery. Paying alimony =/= slavery. Losing a video game =/= rape.
If you're thinking of comparing something to slavery, someone has written a useful guide.
I'd add 'lynch mob'. No, it is not okay to compare being called sexist on twitter to being hanged from a tree until you are dead by a mob of racists who revel in the spectacle of your murder. ANALOGY DENIED.
Good point!
"Boys will be boys."
Oh, and – "no homo". Wrong on so many levels and painfully, pathetically idiotic. Just no. No. No!
Mo' homo!
"like a girl" when used as an insult, as in throw like a girl, crying like a girl etc
I propose, "explain, can someone just. No one owes you the time to enlighten you on something you can do for yourself in 15 minutes of internet searches."
I proofread medical mock exams as part of my job, and there are many references to females in questions. I flag them up as mistakes.
"Just sayin'" NO STOP IT.
"well actually" as in, "well, ACTUALLY, [let me tell you a very pedantic reason you're wrong]". best put by the Hacker School social rules:
"A well-actually happens when someone says something that's almost – but not entirely – correct, and you say, "well, actually…" and then give a minor correction. This is especially annoying when the correction has no bearing on the actual conversation. This doesn't mean Hacker School isn't about truth-seeking or that we don't care about being precise. Almost all well-actually's in our experience are about grandstanding, not truth-seeking."
https://www.hackerschool.com/manual
I absolutely detest "just sayin'".
Reverse, when used next to the words "sexism", "racism", or any other kind of nasty bigotry. So done with white boys using racist and misogynist language and clinging to reverseisms and " freedom of speech" as justifications.
Thug/Ghetto/Gangbanger – When said by someone who's just trying to go around saying the n word
Devil's Advocate – More like contrarian asshole trying to start a fight at a dinner party.
"Reverse racism," as commonly used to deflect criticism of prejudicial behaviors. Since racism is prejudice + power, there can't be such a thing as "reverse racism" because historically, minority groups have never been in possession of enough power as a whole to be racist.
'With all due respect,' which is almost always a signal of lack of respect.
Folks, I have a question. What happened to "reclaiming" the word "slut"? As in, slut walks, self-identifying as a slut, etc. similar to "queer." Is that still a thing?
"Gays" and "homosexuals," when used unironically. Makes it sound like we're a different species or something.
"Technology" to mean only technology the speaker isn't used to. "I grew up before there was technology." Um, no, you just grew up with different technology. Record players, radios, and pay phones are technology too.
"Butthurt", as used to mean "someone got offended when really they had no good reason to, because my joke was hilarious and obviously couldn't have legitimately offended anybody!"
OVERREACTION – Because it's not your fucking call.
Coming in late to say I'm surprised nobody's mentioned "pimp!"
Hysteria/hysterical. Nope, having a uterus does not make me crazy.
"Bromance" to describe any close relationship between two fictional (or real) men. Because are you really *that * afraid???!
I always feel like "bromance" is just short-hand for "I love you, no homo" which is obviously terrible and wrong and needs to be stopped immediately.
"War On [abstract intangible concept that is difficult to merely define, much less attack or vanquish]"
Goes double for things that are basically hegemonic, like "Christmas" or "cars."
Attitude, as something the speaker does not want to be given. This usage has baffled and irritated me my entire life.
'I think you're reading too much into it.'
Hold me back.
"I'll bet he/she/they…"
It's always the precursor to presuming the worst about someone to either generate outrage that the object of the statement received some sort of benefit or to assure the speaker that the object had it coming if they are a victim.
In every case it's speculation or storytelling.
"Friendzone". That word and sentiment has to go.
It is dudebro concocted bullshit where a guy pretends to be the friend of a good looking woman even after she has made it clear that she is not interested in more, in order to get her to change her mind, "come to her senses" and have sex him….and then blames HER and he and his dudebro buds describe her as a "manipulative bitch" simply because she stays true to her word, believes he IS a real friend and doesn't succumb to HIS attempts at manipulation and his dishonesty.
Friendzoning is an angry illusion dudebros created to blame women for being beautiful… and unavailable to them.
"You should take it as a compliment" to dismiss the issue of getting heckled on the street.
It isn't meant as a compliment, it's meant to intimidate, and the next person who tells me I should be flattered will get flattened by my rage.
The phrase "thought police" should be banned. Admittedly, though, it's been pretty useful as I currently use it to determine whether or not I should continue reading a comment, post, or article.
"Co-ed". Sets my teeth right on edge, it does. News flash: it's 2014. Women have been OVER 50% of college students for YEARS, but sure–you keep on dividing people into "students" (male) and "co-eds" (female). In the privacy of my mind, I'm calling male college students "token men who are taking the rightful place of a more accomplished woman" (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23britz.html).
Ah, as a noun. As an adjective it's still a useful thing, as in "co-ed dorm" to describe a dorm where men and women live together/across the hall from one another.
Actually, when I was a student at Smith we used the word "coed" regularly… for the men who were on exchange programs or whatever. Women were the normal students, men were coeds.
Adding "ess" to any title or term, e.g. poetess, manageress, etc.