Me too. Thanks.
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
441 points (86.1% liked)
Political Memes
5603 readers
3074 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
to be clear, i googled pansy prior to this, and the only thing that came up was the flower, so i figured it must not be important. Anyway it's literally defined as "a weak man" Which is exactly how im using that, specifically to describe a specific type of right winger. Who could arguably be defined as "weak men" oh and also, i've used that word a lot to define people. I've never once been yelled at for using it, even though i hang around quite a few queer people on the regular. This is my first instance of such, maybe it's becoming a slur now? I don't know. I would think it used to be a slur about 30 years ago, but probably not anymore. I could be wrong, if you have the etymological history of the word at the ready feel free to bring it out.
also i know it doesn't matter, i just thought it would be funny to mention it. The usual "i can't be racist because i have a black friend" joke type beat. I mean, it's the internet after all, if we can't shitpost, then why bother doing anything at all. Right?
Anyway, I can claim to be absolutely anything on the internet, perhaps you should go have a look through my post history, and find out that i'm relatively neutral to everything, except for people explicitly denying others rights. I'm unsure if you're calling me pro-gun, i'm not, i would appreciate it if you didn't pull shit out of your ass, and try to define me as such when i could literally just be making fun of you to amuse myself (i'm not) seems rather hypocritical for you to tell me that i can't state who i am, and then for you to explicitly state who i am, if you are doing that.
Speaking of the pro-gun community, there are a lot of problems in it, notably the fact that there seems to be a specific subset of people who fully "back" 2a, only to immediately double back on it when they realize that it means queer/left leaning people get to own guns because "well it makes me feel unsafe" which for someone who opposes all forms of gun control because "it violates 2a" seems rather authoritarian to me.
but yeah no, continue to tell me how i'm a piece of shit righty, even though i'm not, and continue to exclaim that i'm homophobic even though the contextual usage of that word makes literally zero sense in a homophobic manner. How many gay pro 2a "the government isn't going to take our guns away" conservatives do you know? Definitely not enough to classify it as such.
Just because it's fallen out of fashion with homophobes doesn't magically make it not a slur. Did you go to highschool when kids still described everything as negative as "gay"? Was that fine, as long as they "didn't mean it that way" or were never called out for it?
It's defined as meaning "a weak man" because people used to accuse those "weak men" of being homosexuals, the same way people use "pussies" today. The definition you're ignoring was what it meant and the definition you're clinging to was who it used on.
yeah, and just because it's still technically a slur, doesn't make it automatically offensive. There are a lot of words that we use now that used to be highly offensive, and vice versa, the times change, language adapts, people move forward.
Queer used to arguably be a slur, though more accurately a derogatory term. Now it's literally in the acronym of LGBTQ. A lot of people call themselves queer.
Regardless, looking into the history of the word pansy, it seems to predate the slur usage of it. At a time when women generally had a different place in society, and men were considered to be much more physically active, for lack of a better descriptive term. It quite literally just defines itself out to "a man who is as physically strong as a women" which given the time period, explains the insult. That shifted over time to mean "effeminate" which is basically just the same thing. And was picked up as a slur. And is now currently defined as a slur because nobody uses it anymore (except for me, because i think it sounds funny)
so in some effect, the definition you're using, exists based on the definition of it from hundreds of years ago. And it was just co-opted by shitty people. Hitler manufactured a lot of industrialized weaponry. I don't see anybody calling industrialized weaponry offensive towards jews. Likewise i see no reason for slurs to be offensive when not used in the context one would expect it to be used in.
Part of the reason why slurs are so offensive, is because they're used to denigrate a certain group of people. Of which, i am not doing. Perhaps i'm wrong about the historical definition of this word in particular, but from my knowledge slurs are sourced from words with related meanings, and the thing that makes it a slur, is the colloquial/societal usage of that word at regular, in that context.
In fact, the very definition of the term slur itself is generally used to describe things that "are roughly like this" or more homogeneous. Which ironically, given the typical usage of slurs, and how they generally work. Lines up pretty well with my definition of them. If what it meant was all that mattered, then we wouldn't be here right now arguing the contextual relations of the slur itself, because everybody would agree with you when you state that "what it meant" matters more than "who it was used on" and like i've said, so far you're the only person that's particularly upset about this.
or was it that it was being used to accuse homosexuals of being "weak men" questions and answers that will never be satisfied...
Excuses and apologism that could be used to justify everything from high-schoolers saying "that test was gay" to 4chan constantly calling people "removeds".
You're reading the first three Google results then declaring yourself a higher authority than the dictionary.
first of all, i'm not using google. So.
Second of all, i'm not the one sitting here declaring themselves to be the all knowing martyr of etymology. Or should i say, entomology. You are literally declaring yourself to be the arbiter of what slurs are and aren't i'm merely following what people around me say i can and cannot do.
Also, dictionaries can just be wrong. Dord was an entry in the dictionary for quite a few years. It was supposed to be D or d. not Dord, but it was Dord. Because of a typo. I'm not saying the definition of pansy is wrong, but i'm also not saying it's accurate to modern usage of slang.
Pull up cap in the dictionary, see what it tells you. Google it and see what the slang means.
If you struggle with figurative speech I can try and avoid using it but otherwise, you don't score points by being deliberately obtuse.
Bullshit double standards. You're asserting that arguing over the definition of a word is "declaring themselves a martyr of etymology", but only when I do it -- you get a free pass. You're asserting that saying something is a slur is being "arbiter of what slurs are", but only when I do it -- the "people around you" get a free pass.
If you're not saying the dictionary is wrong then everything you said before that is completely irrelevant but sure, you're claiming that the dictionary isn't the ultimate authority on words, people are.
But as we've already figured out, the bullshit caveat to that is that those people have to be your friends for that authority to count.
The dictionary doesn't count, I don't count, the opinions of the people who existed when it was a slur don't count, only you and your friends count.
I don't use Google.
One of the results is dictionary.com, which isn't a valid authority on words
My friends don't use "cap" to mean "lie" so it doesn't mean that and has never meant that
But let me guess -- those arguments are only valid when you use them.
ik i was just being obtuse because i thought it was funny, and ironic. It's the internet, nobody takes anything seriously here.
i mean if you look at like i'm defining myself as the right party, and you as the wrong party here, than sure, but that's not what im doing i'm just pointing out that you can define things differently, and that claiming a word to have any specific set of definition is not ideal, especially when generalizing the usage of the word. Plus i will note my explicit contextual usage of the word, which i mentioned numerous times, which makes it much harder for it to be the slur, because obviously, if you just used the slur against the group it was directed at, that's basically just a slur.
Also i would recommend that you read into my funny word usage, i'm just being dramatic to play it up. Words aren't that complicated and they aren't a big deal, saying anything otherwise is rather silly. Unless you're making a new one i suppose. Also i merely referenced the people around me because i tend to align with the groups that i'm involved in, and for the most part, nobody seems to really care. So, it's probably fine. I would've been yelled at otherwise. It's not like they're afraid to yell at me or something.
Yes. Is that not what the entire point of a dictionary is? To commonly define the usage of a word as people use it at a specific point in time? I feel like that's pretty much the only use case of a dictionary? It's not like we make up words to use because it's fun.
you say that like it's a group of 5 people whomst i regularly interact with or something, and to be fair, it is a relatively small group of people that i interact with on a fairly regular basis. But they are nothing like me, and that's why i interact with them lol. They're interesting people and i like hearing what they have to say. Hell we even had a discussion on this very thread itself. One of them did think it was technically slur usage, but didn't seem to care, and the other parties just thought it was funny. At the end of the day, we're all just trying to be a little amusing.
i'm not saying you don't count, i'm just saying that your opinion probably isn't the authoritarian rule behind the definition of one specific word. Neither is mine, or the people i interact with. The people who existed when it was a slur don't count mostly because it isn't that time right now. On account of it being about 30 years later. And given the pretty fucking amusing context that i used it in, they probably wouldn't care, nor would they care if they were called one today tbh. At the end of the day, it's just a fucking word, who cares, we've got more important shit to be doing.
very funny, i appreciate this, DDG i presume? Or are we a sear type user?
weird, wonder how they get money, and why they exist, and what classifies a dictionary as a dictionary, and i wonder why urban dictionary is so painfully accurate with slang definitions. Anyway, what was the definition they used? Probably also the slur form i'm guessing. Probably on account of being a dictionary, huh.
yeah, and maybe mine do, or maybe people you interact with will, and you will be confused. Such is life, shit moves on without you, shit moves on without me. We move on without shit. Words are a socially imagined concept that come from nowhere. Why do you think the UK has such a different vocabulary than the US? Why do you think the US has different accents in different places, and why do you think they use slightly differing vocabulary depending on where you go? It's almost like words hold no significantly strict meaning.
i mean idk, you tell me. I was never arguing anything other than the fact that explicitly declaring something to be such way for such reasons, is probably not going to accurate in every situation.