Life

[elvaq]

Solo GDC is kind of rough yeah. If you want to meet up or just have someone with common interests to talk to shoot me an email, [email protected] and we can try and make something happen.

 

Aw man, I just saw this! Because GDC is incredibly hectic and disorienting and yeah, I found that I actually know a lot more people here than I realized!! If you're still in town tomorrow I'd love to grab a drink and chat. Hit me up on twitter @taylormorris (my email response rate is pretty much 0 this week)

 

The point is that regardless of the subject matter, when you casually toss around offensive terms you're expressing an unconscious ideology in the language you use, the intent behind which is entirely opaque to the listener. So even if you're not around retarded people, you're presenting an ideology that normalizes the treatment of mental retardation as socially unacceptable or "bad".

 

This is a super good explanation.

 

Also describing stuff as "crazy," even if it's positive, is starting to bug me and I don't think that makes me... foolish?

[Spenny]

Aw man, I just saw this! Because GDC is incredibly hectic and disorienting and yeah, I found that I actually know a lot more people here than I realized!! If you're still in town tomorrow I'd love to grab a drink and chat. Hit me up on twitter @taylormorris (my email response rate is pretty much 0 this week)

 

Glad to hear you had friends here! Sent you a tweet, hopefully we can grab a drink.

 

 

The value of being honest with people, and the value of reaching out to people are ideas that have really been underpinning my week at GDC. I signed up for these forums about a year ago, and being able to read the writing all you incredibly smart people post here is fantastic. Add to that all my buddies who hang out in the IRC channel and keep me entertained while working. I'm just kind of feeling that I need to tell everyone in the community here that their presence and contribution is a genuine positive force in my life. So, thanks <3

[neonrev]

Also describing stuff as "crazy," even if it's positive, is starting to bug me and I don't think that makes me... foolish?

Crazy is a weird one for me. It's not helpful to people with mental issues, it's not terribly constructive when actually talking about a thing someone did ostensibly due to mental illness, but there's really no other word that has the same meaning, and that meaning is really useful to describe things that are done that don't match your framing of reality. It's used in a lot of different and complicated ways too.

A lot of gg-ers seem and are called crazy, which is neither helpful to the actually mentally ill ones or a useful criticism of the more earnest ones. I'm struggling to describe the 'just assholes' people without using reductive language at all, as it turns out. There are just some things that, in normal conversational speech, seem to require reductive language to describe one's actual feelings. That's not helpful when you're trying to avoid hurting people with speech, especially when it's describing the people who are (1) intentionally hurting people and (2) only concerned with linguistic consideration when it can be used to discredit you. It's paralyzing.

Probably the most common media example of 'crazy' being used is mass shootings and the like. The immediate media diagnosis of the situation is usually "They're crazy/mentally ill", which is used interchangeably both in media and in normal speech. That's not good for the same reasons, but what other way is there to describe that situation? A lot of people who do do such things are mentally ill in one way or another as well. Anyone who seems to hedge on it gets called out as apologist (Oh, so he's just crazy so it's fine?), and it can be seen as equally offensive to mentally ill (Oh, so ALL mentally ill people are just a hair-trigger away from mass murder?". I think part of the problem is that there's little differentiation in the broad world of 'mental disorders'. Someone with an anxiety issue or depression or whatever is in the same medical and social category as a sociopath or someone who's had a complete mental break. The social stigma of taking a pill or seeing a doctor to make your mind 'right' is very absolute.

Politics and whatnot has the same issue. How else does one describe Sarah Palin except as sorta crazy? Her politics are based on a very definite internal understanding that makes sense to her, I've known enough conservatives to get that, but what's the word for a political or social outlook that differs from your own in such a way that seems to imply intentional blindness to certain facets of reality? I know conservatives have the same reaction to me as I do to them, but what else is my crazy conservative uncle other than crazy? 

Those are the words I was thinking about the word 'crazy' I guess.

[syntheticgerbil]

But I just met you and this is crazy.

[Deadpan]

Ableism can feel like a tricky thing to address in language because of just how many negative words were created in reference to bodies and their problems. Here's a pretty good list for getting started though, which is what I usually link people who want to write at the site I run. It also has a very helpful list of negative words that are unproblematic.

 

I still mess up, but I've been making an effort to scrub my vocabulary accordingly. For instance, I try to use silly instead of stupid these days since the latter implies lacking intellect overall and the former only a momentary lapse in performance, I think.

[Mawd]

Silly is a great word. One of my favourites.

That list is really interesting.

[Gwardinen]

That list is interesting, because there are words on it that no one around here would think of saying, but there are also words that in this region are considered very innocent and don't carry those connotations at all. As an example, the word daft here is closer to "silly" than "retarded". My dad would call me daft when I'd do something odd as a kid, or put something away in the wrong place. I first encountered the very different connotations to the word when I called a Canadian friend of mine daft a few years ago and she was taken aback by it.

 

Edit: Also, isn't deaf-mute referring to someone who is not only deaf but also unable to produce speech, rather than being only a variant on deaf?

[Deadpan]

Silly is a great word. One of my favourites.

 

Isn't it just? Everybody can be silly sometimes. It's also a word that German and English share, although by funny coincidence it came to mean "blessed" here.

 

I guess one potential complaint people might have about all this is that all the insults I end up using these days seem so tame: baby, silly, goof, garbage, etc. But then even that seems more than enough to make some people completely furious.

[Gormongous]

Isn't it just? Everybody can be silly sometimes. It's also a word that German and English share, although by funny coincidence it came to mean "blessed" here.

I guess one potential complaint people might have about all this is that all the insults I end up using these days seem so tame: baby, silly, goof, garbage, etc. But then even that seems more than enough to make some people completely furious.

I mean, the only language with which I'm familiar that's not Indo-European is Japanese, the principal insults for which fall into the same two categories of "insufficiently respectful form of address" and "term for waste." I know there are gendered slurs there, too, but the obsession with body parts and disabilities doesn't seem quite so intensive.

Also, "silly" also meant "blessed" in English back at the beginning of the thirteenth century. It then went from that to "innocent" to "harmless" to "weak" to "foolish" by the end of the sixteenth century. All things considered, it's a very rapid and extreme pejoration of an entirely positive word, which is interesting in terms of linguistics.

I've personally been using "monstrous" a lot more, but I worry sometimes that its medieval etymology in describing birth defects isn't the best. Like neonrev, it's something I'm chewing on.

[Deadpan]

Yeah, I remembered that backwards, didn't I?

[Mawd]

Silly can tick people off because it trivialises the gravity or emotional weight of their actions I guess. It boils down to people not feeling you're taking something seriously; in some cases because its not typically a word you use when you get mad. But I'd rather use that word than something else. I'm usually a pretty calm person under pressure so I use language that reflects that. But some people just don't think you're being up front with them unless you use language they expect to hear.

 

I tend to use it to describe my own actions at times usually when making a mistake without thinking. I notice that around some types of people they tend to try and make harsher words 'stick' which can make things hard when you just want to own a simple mistake and move on. 

 

My go to harsher words would be something like 'douche' even though I love the comeback "so what they're sanitary". For tame sounding ones words like inane and insipid can still have teeth provided its in their vocabulary.

[********]

But I just met you and this is crazy.

 

I mean it's really the poets we should be worried about right?  Will they be able to convey the ineffable allure of a yet unexplored telephone usage if we remove the very bricks these cultural edifices are built upon?

[Merus]

Judging by follow-up works, those poets, I think, will be fine.

 

(Also this is why I use and suggest 'fuckwit' or even 'lackwit' because it does capture what many of those ableist words are trying to capture - that someone has their senses but just doesn't use them - and is one of the few that does.)

[Ben X]

Silly can tick people off because it trivialises the gravity or emotional weight of their actions I guess. It boils down to people not feeling you're taking something seriously; in some cases because its not typically a word you use when you get mad. But I'd rather use that word than something else. I'm usually a pretty calm person under pressure so I use language that reflects that. But some people just don't think you're being up front with them unless you use language they expect to hear.

 

I tend to use it to describe my own actions at times usually when making a mistake without thinking. I notice that around some types of people they tend to try and make harsher words 'stick' which can make things hard when you just want to own a simple mistake and move on. 

 

My go to harsher words would be something like 'douche' even though I love the comeback "so what they're sanitary". For tame sounding ones words like inane and insipid can still have teeth provided its in their vocabulary.

 

I do find "silly" annoying as it's sometimes used on this forum ("saying that/thinking that way is silly") because it feels patronising and vague, but I'm re-evaluating that a bit now seeing that it's possibly an effort to stay away from offensive terms.

 

As for douche(bag), I was just thinking the other day about how it's strange that despite being a vagina-related insult, it gets a pass as an insult where, say "pussy" or "cunt" don't.

[castorp]

[silly]'s also a word that German and English share

In Austria 'silly' is a word? I did not know that. In Germany it's only English.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I really need to replace my use of dumb with silly or foolish.

It's frustrating how detached your use can be from the source of these words. For a long time I thought twat was a tame word that didn't really mean anything.

[Mawd]

As for douche(bag), I was just thinking the other day about how it's strange that despite being a vagina-related insult, it gets a pass as an insult where, say "pussy" or "cunt" don't.

What I'm about to say could be beside the point but it's not a strictly feminine related word. I'm not sure if that takes away from its impact. I know some people that do hold douche on the same level of offensive as 'bitch' because the word is often used in the same context.

I use 'douche' now but it may well become another word I weed out.

I suppose its another instance where a lack of consideration inoculates someone against the impact of the word they use. I still use it in the same way a lot of people can call their friends dicks without totally offending them. I'm not sure if I can fully weed out douche until I find a replacement for that form of expression.

I have had and still have (to an extent/context) a very foul mouth. I'm working on it. I can deliver whole payloads of phrases without pausing to see if they're justified or worth the fight they cause. Mellowing my language out helps me avoid all sorts of trouble when I don't have the foresight to see it coming. Like tone arguments. Edit: I'm not sure I've deployed the last sentence correctly since I'm unfamiliar with the particular way people encounter tone arguments. I don't want to say "there's no place for harsh language" as much as "I hate derailing things because I've escalated my language without thinking and have caused what I wanted to say to fall aside in order to apologise to someone I've offended (or just opened a door for a particular kind of troll)."

Oh and going back to the use of silly it's also a handy word to use when you want to call someone out for being mystifyingly absent minded. People are so used to harsher words that they don't get as defensive when you call an action 'silly' because it often doesn't register on their offence meter. It might be incredibly naive to hope that using a less offensive word leads to less of a knee jerk reaction, followed by an eventual consideration of the point I'm making. But it's what I like to think, and I think it works.

I have had and still have (to an extent/context) a very foul mouth. I'm working on it. I can deliver whole payloads of phrases without pausing to see if they're justified or worth the fight they cause. Mellowing my language out helps me avoid all sorts of trouble. Like tone arguments.

[Deadpan]

In Austria 'silly' is a word? I did not know that. In Germany it's only English.

 

Well, share historically. We still have selig, and that dates back to the same common ancestor.

[Gwardinen]

Oh by the by, I often use the word "numpty" and encourage everyone else to do so. I've yet to find someone take offence at it, and it's fun to say.

[JonCole]

One thing I've been finding myself saying more is "mental" in lieu of crazy, mostly because I listen to a fair amount of podcasts from the UK where it seems like a pretty popular word. I guess it's also fairly insensitive. =/

[Mawd]

Numpty can work fine. Have had a bad experience with an aggro person though. But they tend to react to any perceived slight.

I suppose calling someone a 'fool' could supplant 'douche'. I didn't see it on the list. So it has that going for it at least.

[deleted user]

_

[osmosisch]

I think Blambo's response (previous page) still pretty much covers it.

Douching is traditionally more associated with feminine hygiene to my knowledge.

[JonCole]

EDIT: A douche bag isn't a feminine product I thought? You use it up your butt for gay sex, I thought, or would that be an enema bag or something?

 

Theoretically douche is for vagina and enema is for anal, though I don't really know if there is any functional or substantive difference. Also, anal sex != gay sex fwiw.

[Twig]

This once again comes down to a very simple thing:

 

If you can avoid hurting someone by simply not using a fucking word, and you choose to use it anyway? Yeah, you're kind of an asshole. If you're okay being an asshole, then I guess whatever fine but that doesn't mean you're not.