I've wondered before if this sort of thing isn't a generational divide. Did your cohort become so used to arguing with your parents, who were actually sexist and racist and homophobic, while feeling you had to pay such careful attention to your own attitudes and vocabulary to avoid becoming like them; that you're not equipped to understand your children, for whom all that nonsense is so far behind and beneath them they don't bother to trammel themselves in the same way, when they try to explain why calling something 'gay' isn't a symptom of an underlying prejudice?
Nobody cares about that any more. None of the smart people anyway, who are themselves the most viciously oppressed and under-represented group in modern society.

I'm eagerly looking forward to the decline of gendered nouns and pronouns in general. It's such a bizarrely inappropriate way of communicating, the equivalent of appending "(...and by the way I'm talking about a male here)" to so many words that don't call for that detail.

Your two example sentences honestly, HONESTLY read exactly the same to me. This ought to be welcome news to you. It means the war is over, you can climb out of the trenches into the sunny world of a post-feminist future.

I'm running your experiment in a casual way, though as has been mentioned already those words come up too infrequently and in the wrong contexts to get much out of it so far. I'm afraid you'll be disappointed or assume bad faith if we report an underwhelming experience, but if we find these words as harmless as we say we do then that's all we can report.
Your 'radical' version is unsound because it involves projecting a specific attitude directly in to the experiment. Of course you'll find chauvinism - you put it there.

What do you think is the #1 reason 'girl' as a synonym for 'woman' is in more common usage than 'boy' for 'man'?

>> ^bareboards2:

I was reading Dan Savage's column yesterday (love that man, every bit of his potty mouthed being). The first sentence in one letter asking for advice was this:
"I'm a man who just got out of a two-year relationship with a great girl."
So if we do the experiment, the sentence now becomes:
"I'm a boy who just got out of a two-year relationship with a great woman."
gorillaman Stormsinger SevenFingers, do you honestly experience those two sentences exactly the same way? Are they conveying the same information?
Or are you startled by the experimental sentence? Is a different story being told about the relationship of these two people? Who has maturity? Who has, excuse me for using a charged word, more power? And with that power, do they have more responsibility?
Storm, you said you would be willing to do this experiment ... have you noticed any word situations like this yet? Gorilla, you never answered my question, so I am taking it that you are declining the experiment?

I was reading Dan Savage's column yesterday (love that man, every bit of his potty mouthed being). The first sentence in one letter asking for advice was this:

"I'm a man who just got out of a two-year relationship with a great girl."

So if we do the experiment, the sentence now becomes:

"I'm a boy who just got out of a two-year relationship with a great woman."

@gorillaman @Stormsinger @SevenFingers, do you honestly experience those two sentences exactly the same way? Are they conveying the same information?

Or are you startled by the experimental sentence? Is a different story being told about the relationship of these two people? Who has maturity? Who has, excuse me for using a charged word, more power? And with that power, do they have more responsibility?

Storm, you said you would be willing to do this experiment ... have you noticed any word situations like this yet? Gorilla, you never answered my question, so I am taking it that you are declining the experiment?

*nsfw for the appropriate potty mouth.

>> ^chingalera:

Whatever you have to say about working at a car wash...Let me tell you, it's better than digging a ditch.


Or cleaning out a Pota Potty I would imagine =o/

*nsfw barely, a bit of a potty mouth once or twice [not that there's anything wrong with that] =o)

Exactly...alright then...so it's not just me.>> ^mxxcon:

>> ^Grimm:
Wait a minute...I thought you were supposed to sit facing the tank.
Ya, that's why there's a shelf where you can put your comic books and your chocolate milk, and you got the flusher right here.

>> ^Grimm:

Wait a minute...I thought you were supposed to sit facing the tank.
Ya, that's why there's a shelf where you can put your comic books and your chocolate milk, and you got the flusher right here.

>> ^Dumdeedum:

Well shit.

Well said.

>> ^Dumdeedum:

Well shit.

Oopsy! I have gotten so calloused to his potty mouth!

Fixed now.....


In reply to this comment by Quboid:
Damn, now I'm hungry.

Someone needs to *NSFW all up in this place.

>> ^bmacs27:

>> ^bareboards2:
@bmacs27 -- you mean the fact that these smart-ass cartoon makers with potty mouths write the most successful musical in years and sweep the Tonys last year, selling out every single show for months into the future, while Broadway professionals who have slaved at their craft for decades and have yet to have a hit? That subtext?

How about you kind lady? Could I trouble you for a quick Lewinsky?

Just don't Bro-down against Sondheim, it's suicide!

Is it still considered a subtext when it's slathered on so thick?>> ^bareboards2:

@bmacs27 -- you mean the fact that these smart-ass cartoon makers with potty mouths write the most successful musical in years and sweep the Tonys last year, selling out every single show for months into the future, while Broadway professionals who have slaved at their craft for decades and have yet to have a hit? That subtext?

>> ^bareboards2:

@bmacs27 -- you mean the fact that these smart-ass cartoon makers with potty mouths write the most successful musical in years and sweep the Tonys last year, selling out every single show for months into the future, while Broadway professionals who have slaved at their craft for decades and have yet to have a hit? That subtext?


How about you kind lady? Could I trouble you for a quick Lewinsky?

@bmacs27 -- you mean the fact that these smart-ass cartoon makers with potty mouths write the most successful musical in years and sweep the Tonys last year, selling out every single show for months into the future, while Broadway professionals who have slaved at their craft for decades and have yet to have a hit? That subtext?

Heh well said I was going to side with Gordon at first after seeing the hit, then I remembered he's a totaly dick.

>> ^Quboid:

It really didn't look that bad, I suspect if it had been a professional player on the receiving end, rather than a middle-aged professional potty-mouth, he'd have got up and played on - after rolling around in apparent agony until Sheringham got booked, of course.
The really nasty ones are when the player's standing leg is caught so their leg and foot below the point of contact can't give way due to being planted in the turf. Then the point of contact is what gives away; the bone breaks. This is what can end careers.
Ramsey may actually have caused the most damage himself, he landed jarringly on his elbow and could have dislocated his shoulder. It wasn't a very nice challenge, but there's plenty of people who would love the chance to do much worse to Ramsey.