I think a discussion needs to be started on the use of powerful and emotionally laden words in our speech, both here and in "real life." I dimly remember seeing such threads in the past, but not for a while.
What are words that should NOT, in any circumstances, be used lightly or in the wrong context?
This is what I can think of:
-rape
-insane (as someone who has had a VERY difficult battle with her psychological disorders and the discrimination and judgement that comes with it, and as someone who has been locked against her will in a HELLISH mental institution, this really pisses me off)
-anorexic as a synonym for "skinny"
-Nazi
I'm sure I will think of more later.
retard, as in "This is retarded."
The use of this word to describe something bad undermines the struggle of people who deal with certain disabilities.
Gay. Yes, gay means happy if you whip out your dictionary. But using gay to describe something boring or useless undermines the everyday struggles of the queer community.
Find other, more appropriate words.
the word "slut".
i don't think the word slut should be used. period.
and i also agree with the other terms you mentioned.
especially "insane". my SO has bipolar disorder and i used to get so angry when i would see people wearing those stupid "Psychiatric Ward" shirts as a joke. Remember those? They were infuriating.
bitch
along with insane, maniac
also, bitch even if you say, so and so was bitching about something, it still is anti woman and there are always other ways to say it.
That just reminded me..."manic" too.
Unless you've ever been in a manic state, there's no way you can know what it's like, it's indescribable.
another phrase that really makes me angry:
"baby mama drama"
like. what the crap.
i swear to goddess i posted bitch, and i even saw it. i hope it didnt get posted to another thread
it's posted up there, erinn.
erinn- its there, i posted right after you and said pretty much the same exact thing.
pullupastar, I am just curious how is "baby mama drama" offensive to you?
that would be very funny and very sad if it ended up somewhere else. and also very difficult to explain.
Good idea to post these words.
Ive had to catch myself, because I have used the word "retard" or "retarded" in posts before. I knew it was wrong, and got the mods to fix it for me.
I think generally, we just need to think about the words we use. If it can be used to describe someone mental, phsyical or emotional incapability...than dont use it.
I just a BIG project on this for my race, class, gender and ethnicity class. I am going to post our definitions sheet. Of course, we could not include even a small portion of words that we need to be careful with, but this is just what we could fit into a 50 minute lesson (we had a quiz right before it grrrrr). We were comparing the eytomology of the word to what urban dictionary says these words mean now.
Word Definitions
Broad (noun)"Woman" (1911) may be suggestive of broad hips, but it also may trace to Amer.Eng. abroadwife, for a woman away from her husband, often a slave.
From http://www.etymonline.com/ an online etymology dictionary
Word for a woman. Man, look at those two broads. They are smokin.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Slut â
A slovenly woman, a promiscuous woman; especially PROSTITUTE, a saucy girl
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
A female who will screw anyone who asks her to. Dude...Faye is such a slut.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Ghetto (noun/adjective) â
Venetian dialect ghèto island where Jews were forced to live, a quarter of a city in which Jews were formerly required to live, now where any minority group lives especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
Cheap-o generic. Did you see those new Indiana license plates? Damn they ghetto!
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Basically meaning black or relating to the black culture.
Person 1- Yo look at what those ghetto kids are wearinâ!
Person 2- Yea I know, their shorts are so ------ low that they could be pants.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Wetback-
From the practice of wading or swimming the Rio Grande where it forms the U.S.-Mexico border usually offensive : a Mexican who enters the U.S. illegally
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
Racial Slang. Refers to any Hispanic immigrant, particularly those of illegal origin (the implication being that a wet back results from crossing river borders by swimming). Every summer, they hired a bunch of wet backs to work the fields, and paid them under the table.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Dumb-
lacking the human power of speech, lacking the ability to speak SILENT
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
Dumb (dum) adj. below normal intelligence.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
F-- and F----- (noun) -
1. hard, tiring work 2. A boy in an English public school who acts as a servant for another boy in a higher form 3.[Slang] a male homosexual; a term of contempt and hostility. 4. [Slang] a cigarette.
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
1. A cigarette. 2. A homosexual. 3. Short for ------, a bundle of wood, once used to burn homosexuals at the stake during less enlightened times. 4. A loser.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Gook (noun) â
Any sticky, greasy, or slimy substance 2. A native of Asia, esp. of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.: a hostile and contemptuous term.
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
1. Slanty-eyed, rice-eating, bad-driving, math-excelling, short, yellow bastard. 2. Gook was a term used during World War II to define the natives (non-Japanese) of Okinawa and the south pacific islands, whereas the Japanese were referred to as "Nips" or "Nippons". Later it evolved to include other peoples of East and Southeast Asia, in particular the Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. 3. An Asian person associated with a gang.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Hobo (noun) â
A migratory worker 2. A vagrant, tramp.
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
1. A bum, or poor person; usually living in a box. 2. A beggar with one or more drug addictions, a bum leg and/or minimal skill with a musical instrument. 3. Someone who buys cigarettes or alcohol for minors.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
N-----(noun) -
1. Negro. Originally simply a dialectal variant of Negro the term nigger is today acceptable only in Black English; in all other contexts it is now generally regarded as virtually taboo because of the legacy of hatred that underlies the history of its use among whites, and its continuing use among a minority of speakers as a viciously hostile epithet.
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
1. A slang word used to define any black person, usually the black people who donât work hard and donât do shit. 2. Describes an ignorant, uneducated, foolish individual regardless of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. 3. A bald dark skinned ape which is able to mimic human behaviors and sounds with similar physical features. It walks on its hind legs and survives by stealing a variety of objects from whoever it sees. N------ are lesser intelligent animals, much lower than the common porpoise. Familiar recognizable features are big lips, wide noses and pubic like hair on their heads. They also smell very bad and are often found in prisons. 4. A black man/woman who is a drug dealer. 5. A racist word for black person.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Retard/Retarded (noun) -
1. [Slang] a retarded person (an offensive term of contempt) 2. [Slang] a stupid or foolish person.
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
1. A person with a mental deficiency. 2. An offensive term used to refer to someone acting in an irritating or generally stupid way. 3. Used to label someone as stupid. 4. A kid a little on the strange side. 5. Someone without friends.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
-Nazi (suffix) â
A member of the German fascist party controlling Germany from 1933 to 1945 under Adolf Hitler.
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
Someone who needs to get their head out of their asshat, and bans anything. The most common form is a Grade-Nazi, or a parent who bans everything from their kid on the basis of their grades, even if you have a C or a B average; kitchen Nazi, Road Nazi, Bethesda Parking Nazis etc. Someone who hates people from the Jewish religion.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Wigger (noun) â
Not in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or any other dictionary that I [Dani] found.
A white guy pretending to be a black one. You know the kind of guy who walks around in Puffa jackets, with afros, and then wonders why people beat him up when he goes out at night. W(annabe-N)igger. A White Kid pretending to act like heâs Black, s/he has appalling spelling and grammar skills and usually finds it hard to speak proper English.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Fruity (adj.) â
Relating to, made with, or resembling fruit; having the flavor or aroma of ripe fruit.
From http://www.m-w.com the Miriam Webster Online Dictionary
A person or action that is extremely homosexual; a person who acts gay or is gay.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Dyke-
probably shortening of morphadike, dialectal garbling of hermaphrodite, a source from 1896 lists dyke as slang for "the vulva"
From http://www.etymonline.com/ an online etymology dictionary
Commonly used towards a lesbian with more masculine physical characteristics and mannerisms; A dyke is an ugly lesbian, and only an ugly lesbian. Common traits of a dyke are short hair, deep voices, and overdress in plaid and denim.
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
Kike (noun)-
Slang for "Jew," perhaps originating among Ger.-American Jews in reference to newcomers from Eastern Europe, whose names ended in -ki or -ky. In Yiddish kikel is "circle." Jewish immigrants signed their entry forms with a circle, eschewing the "X" as a sign of Christianity. Ellis Island immigration inspectors began calling such people kikels.
From http://www.etymonline.com/ an online etymology dictionary
A Jew. A Jewish person who complains about everything; A Jew who is the epitome of Judaism. The kind of Jew that screams, âOh my god! Pennies!â
From http://www.urbandictionary.com
I'm curious about this as well.
Is "baby daddy drama" also offensive to you?
I agree with [not using] most of these words but bitch & slut I'm conflicted about. I agree we shouldn't be using them as anti-woman insults but didn't we have a thread a few months ago about reclaiming words. I'm not sure if anything was really decided. A lot of people were saying it's okay to use cunt & then there were some saying cunt made them really uncomfortable. Bitch & slut I'm pretty sure were brought up too. I'll see if I can find the thread to bump.
ghetto - as in that is so ghetto, should be added to the list
lame. it means people who cant walk properly. i have a permanent leg injury and need to use a cane from time to time. and i think lame is sexy.
also I can kind of understand where baby mama drama would make pullupastar uncomfortable. I don't agree with banning it's use but the phrase reminds me of maury povich & montel williams & all the talk shows that portray teen moms as uninteligent woman who have no idea who their babys dad is & need to get a free dna test to figure it out. I have nothing against the woman who go on the talk shows. i hate the way they are portrayed & teen moms asking for dna tests are the only place you see teen parents in the media.
I take baby mama to be the same as baby daddy because I have a baby mama.
Anything denigrating drug users or addicts.
i don't have any problem with someone being called "baby mama" or "baby daddy" but i live in a not-so-great part of town in the south, and a lot of the time, people will throw "baby mama drama" around to mean "stupid and trivial stuff that i don't have to deal with," and when it's being used by men to trivialize mother-father relationships, i find it really offensive.
i didn't mean that it should be banned from girl-mom.
I personaly took back the word "bitch". So, is it ok to refer to myself as bitch or bitchy?
Can someone clarify what it means to "reclaim" a word or phrase?
from merriam-websters (basically):
to retrieve or recover. to recover for reuse. to redeem from a state of vice.
so to reclaim a derogatory word and use it to mean something new, different, empowering.
like the magazine called "bitch" is a play on reclaiming the word 'bitch' as refering to a rant "to bitch" but also as a feminist publication by and for women.
inga muscio's book "cunt".
i think it's the aim of reclaiming a word and reappropriating the meaning to expose how harmful the word was, how words are value laden and construe meaning, but that there is a shift/sliding between what the word is and what is 'means'. which also changes culturally and historically etc.
so to expose that a word is not fixed in meaning, therefor it's implied or construed meaning can be reorganized.
I dont think it is because the word is still degrading. thats just my 2 cents
You may have reclaimed it for you but it still could hurt / offend others. I personally don't want to see bitch bitchy used here.
THANK YOU for posting that. I've said it before, but I HATE seeing the word dumb used as an insult, as my aunt has a problem with hearing and speech, and really it's just as offensive to some as using lame or retarded.
Oh, and please do not use the term "Indian" around me to describe native americans
More:
- Jewed ("He jewed me!")
- Gypped (er.. "He gypped me!")
- whore, hoe, hooker used as insults
what is gypped in reference to?
Taken from Gypsy, in reference to people of Roma descent, same context and insinuations as saying "he jewed me".
I find "baby mama drama" offensive also, for a similar reason to what pullupastar gave. I'm big on looking at the social context, and here in the States (and elsewhere as well, I imagine) is it quite common for a man to have little to nothing to do with his offspring, to skip on child support, and generally place all responsibility on the mother because, well, he can. So when you hear a phrase like "baby mama drama," you're hearing a guy complain because, presumably, the mother of his child is expecting something from him. Poor f-ing baby. :roll: It's like another one of those trivializing comments that paints women to be nags and [insert ant-woman insult]. you know?
Like insane and maniac, I find psycho really really offensive and a term that is used way too lightly. I dont know why I am so sensitive to it but I am.
My personal opinion is that though you (general) may have reclaimed a word that it doesn't mean everyone has done so, so saying it or using it in a certain context can still trigger negative feelings for someone. I think also that if we allow it in some contexts that it gives more leeway for abuse (not really by members but trolls..).
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