[ExI] from quora - laugh of the day

[William Flynn Wallace]

re possession:  I am thinking of all the pop songs going back to the 1980s
which feature lyrics like 'my baby', denoting women.  As far as I know not
even the feminists have made a big deal about that, even though it contains
two slurs.  I would not put up with it.    bill w

On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 6:33 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I’m not sure about what’s considered appropriate in polite French, so I’m
> not sure how shocking Ravel’s title was then or would be now. I wasn’t the
> one, though, focusing on ‘tit.’ Reread what I wrote. I was pointing out
> that ‘breast’ too was an Anglo-Saxon word (or is a close cognate to one).
> So, if the standard is going to ‘use the Anglo-Saxon word,’ it doesn’t
> decide the issue here. (I don’t think Anglo-Saxon usage should be the guide
> anyhow — even if anyone did have a clear guide for it. Given what survived
> and surmises, I’m not even sure anyone has a clear idea to what the
> Anglo-Saxon person in the street (when — given that the language was used
> for several hundred years and wasn’t static? where — given that there were
> different dialects, so what was the norm in Northumbria might have been
> weird in Wessex?) would’ve used in the street, at home, at the market, etc.)
>
> The thing with ‘your woman’ is there’s a long history of thinking of women
> as property or at least as lacking full agency and needing make adult
> supervision, so the use of ‘your’ here tends to have a different tenor in
> that context than when saying ‘your friend’ or ‘your gran.’
>
> The ‘gates of hell’ has a long history too. If you recall King Lear has a
> rant against women in Act IV Scene 6. Sure, your prof might’ve been using
> it to be polite. A friend of mine told me that in translating Flaubert, the
> problem is more with English having to choose between medical anatomy terms
> or vulgarities for parts of the human body. He gave me the idea that in
> French reference to these same things in ordinary speech wasn’t as danced
> around as in English. (Modern English usage is heir to Victorian
> prudishness and the Norman conquest. The former brings an avoidance of many
> things or topics in ‘polite’ conversation while the latter gave lexical
> class distinctive, such as the cow being what the cowherd deals with while
> beef being what the lord of the manor eats. Or so goes the simplified
> version.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>
> On Oct 13, 2021, at 3:13 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> 
> 'Your woman' not OK?  How about 'your mate'?  'Your baby'?  'Your
> squeeze'  - an oldie there.  'Your old woman' definitely out.
>
> Women are conflicted the way most men aren't about their body parts.
> Breasts can be 'puppies'.  Ravel wrote a piece called Les Mammelles de Ste.
> Teresias.  Vaginas can be 'down there'.  .  An oldtimer psych prof when I
> started would tell girls to shut 'The Gates of Hell'.  Hundreds of slang
> terms online.  Reason?   Anxiety.  We somehow cannot stand medical terms
> even those are usually without anxiety.  bill w
>
> On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 4:37 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Oct 13, 2021, at 2:15 PM, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> > On 13/10/2021 00:03, billw wrote:
>> >> I also tell guys never, ever call your woman's chest 'tits' much less
>> 'titties'.
>> >
>> > Maybe a cultural thing here, but I need to qualify this: "unless they
>> do".
>> >
>> > Perhaps the standard Anglo-saxon terms are less acceptable in America
>> than they are in their birthplace.
>>
>> Breast is also of Old English origin. Anyhow, I’m not sure how standard
>> it was a thousand years ago or why that should guide current usage. You
>> probably wouldn’t I trust use ‘girl’ to mean a child of any gender simply
>> because that’s how the word was used even after the Norman conquest.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dan
>>
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