I knew a guy who once went to urbandictionary to make an entry for a
fake word in the middle of a facebook argument so he could lord it over
people who didn’t know what it meant.
It is context-dependent. I’ve been taken aside at a party and asked not to use the word “dude” which I generally use in gender-neutral fashion, because in the particular group I was in it’s considered gendered. Apparently a trans woman at the party I didn’t know very well found it hurtful, even if unintentionally so, so I regulated how I used it as a result.
I guess I would differentiate someone not liking to be called something from "context-dependent".
To me context-dependent would mean "it's inappropriate in this type of situation" which I have not found to be the case.
If you're using it to mean "some individual people dislike it so I don't call them that" then sure, cosign all that.
Social mores dictate influence every aspect of language from syntax through grammar to the meaning of individual terms. This is undisputed. What motivates your differentiation other than instinct?
What leads you to make the differentiation in this particular case, given that social mores already dictate the meanings of terms? Why is “dudes” gender-neutral because one pocket of society uses it as such, whereas another pocket of society regards it as not neutral?
That sounds to me like two questions:
1) why do I separate "context specific" and "personal preference" to mean different things?
Because I prefer more concrete language when possible and although you *could* say that individual person's preference is "context", to me the question becomes "why not just say that then?".
2) Why is “dudes” gender-neutral because one pocket of society uses it as such, whereas another pocket of society regards it as not neutral?
The size of the pocket and as I said in a previous comment, the history of the word.
It's not like trying to build a shaky argument that "guys" is inclusive - "dude" is a word that doesn't have a direct etymological link to male, has no counterpart word for other genders, and has for the course of my entire life been used by men and women to refer to men and women.
(1) is a normative preference which bears no relation to how and why language exists, wordplay and emotions all exist for example, and since language is a social art, the meanings of terms are necessarily subservient to the conditions which create or ground that meaning. Even essentialists like Saul Kripke would agree on this point.
(2) The size of the pocket is irrelevant. If I shout “fire!” in a theatre of 1000 people it will have a different meaning to my doing the same in a comfortable room of four.
Language is a sophisticated albeit messy form of communication, relying as much as it does on reception as it does on utterance. No single term has a fixed “meaning” even beyond the syntax of its place in a sentence, let alone the cultural confines which imbue it with connotation. To generalise and say that the peak of some bell-curve of a particular usage is the real meaning of the term is to deny that there even exist meanings further down the hill.
>is a normative preference
Well, you asked why I said I used words in a particular way, I said "here's the way I prefer to communicate, here's my reasoning" Not trying to say anything broader or persuade you out of grouping "personal preference" under "context".
>The size of the pocket is irrelevant
Again, you asked me why I made a choice and I said why... that's all I understood us to be discussing. So the size of the pocket is how I'd ballpark the likelihood that people will use the same definition for a given word that I do.
>No single term has a fixed “meaning” even beyond the syntax of its place in a sentence
Yep, I agree that essentialism is bunk.
It seems like we agree on everything here, maybe I just could have been more clear about the fact that aside from the etymological and prevelance comments, the only thing I'm saying is "here's why I do this".
I didn’t ask you why you made a choice, I asked why that choice should generalise as the correct meaning to the wider population
You are the one who said this:
> Not really, that's been an established norm for years and it doesn't have a direct etymological link to a word meaning "male".
In response to the correct claim that usage is context-dependent.
Before that you said this:
> dude" has been gender neutral for a long time
So you’re obviously expressing an opinion about how language works *in general*, so it isn’t just how you prefer to communicate, you were making a judgement originally about how people do and should talk. I appreciate that you’re walking that back, but it feels like kind of a cop-out to say you that what you *really* meant was that you choose to use a word the way you’re used to. But the problem is that the original objection was that *making that choice* is a problem in and of itself, and your responses as quoted above impose on the people listening to you that they should just deal with it because ‘it’s just how people talk’, so to speak.
>I asked why that choice should generalise
>I appreciate that you’re walking that back
Oh, we've been operating under totally different understandings of what this conversation is then.
I've been trying to say from the beginning that I am explicitly *not* telling people what they should say, and don't have any interest in doing so. Beyond that, as I've said repeatedly if someone says "I don't being liked called 'dude'" then I'll stop.
>So you’re obviously expressing an opinion about how language works in general
I brought up the etymology and usage of the word when other people told *me* that I was using a word incorrectly. I was unpacking my reasons. If other people disagree with those reasons, that's cool with me, I don't have any preferences about that.
Sorry that I didn't communicate that well! I do not have strong feelings about other people's usage of the word "dude" haha
OK I can see that.
I’d only point out that language isn’t just about an explicit agreement to “stop” using a certain word, it also involves a pre-utterance sensitivity: reading the room, but I don’t think you fell at that hurdle with your initial reply
Fair enough
It's a connotational problem that afaict doesn't really have a solution. I happen to be without gender, and most words used in the place of "dude" or "man" have some kind of gendered connotation.
Don't feel bad, I'm just riffing. I like wordplay. And I like the idea of secret dudes.
Is this mf really trying to imply that this previously extrememly
obscure racist dr Seuss book selling for 100 dollars is merely because
of a reduced supply, and has nothing to do with an increased demand that
comes from the fact that it is now out of print and has become a culture
war talking point for right wing hucksters?
Literally the reason they stopped printing these it is that the
demand was very low
Nobody won that ‘argument.’ it was a miscommunication where Eliezer
called his own thing a quibble, but Mason assumed he was calling their
thing a quibble.
It’s silly that they were both wrong about the original thing,
though, and neither acknowledged it!
I knew a guy who once went to urbandictionary to make an entry for a fake word in the middle of a facebook argument so he could lord it over people who didn’t know what it meant.
Well he got one thing right
Bonus points to the tweeter who pointed out both explantations were rather obviously incorrect.
let them fight.
and actually succeeds in just tripling down on being a dick
Is this mf really trying to imply that this previously extrememly obscure racist dr Seuss book selling for 100 dollars is merely because of a reduced supply, and has nothing to do with an increased demand that comes from the fact that it is now out of print and has become a culture war talking point for right wing hucksters?
Literally the reason they stopped printing these it is that the demand was very low
Nobody won that ‘argument.’ it was a miscommunication where Eliezer called his own thing a quibble, but Mason assumed he was calling their thing a quibble.
It’s silly that they were both wrong about the original thing, though, and neither acknowledged it!