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What's Wrong With Our Youth?


Cantabile

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One of the announcers said that during the Michigan/Mississippi State game yesterday... This is just a good ol' SEC take 'em back behind the woodshed & drop the pants..

Both my husband and I looked at each other, "Oh my gawd, I can't believe he just said that!" Wasn't expecting an announcer to couple Deliverance with a college football game. Or to characterize the SEC as ass raping hillbillies, for that matter.

historically behind the woodshed is where beatings were handled. it is a common enough sentiment in some areas of the nation. it has nothing to do with ass raping. you are just sick. ;)

i watch a lot of soccer and british announcers will use the term 'put to the sword' to describe a thorough thrashing of your opponent. it is not actually suggesting that the opposing team was brought to their knees and beheaded. they often refer to going into an opponents stadium and winning a game as 'smash and grab.' there is no larceny being perpetrated.

sometimes words just don't quite mean what people think they should.

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sometimes words just don't quite mean what people think they should.

Compare the number of people "put to the sword" to the number of rape victims. One is a social issue, the other is not, and they're not remotely comparable.

I don't know but it's really annoying when people ignore posts in which you responded to them.

I'm not sure if this is directed at me or not. Did I ignore any of your posts?

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Compare the number of people "put to the sword" to the number of rape victims. One is a social issue, the other is not, and they're not remotely comparable.

I'm not sure if this is directed at me or not. Did I ignore any of your posts?

i was making a comparison to 'taken behind the woodshed' which means to beat not to rape. an announcer saying one team raped another is not acceptable. they are held to higher standards than getting away with that sort of thing. 'taken behind the woodshed' and 'put to the sword' are entirely different. where did i suggest otherwise?

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Yep. But that's okay because I'm starting to figure out that's you're MO on a lot of discussions, so whatever.

It's not intentional. Sometimes there'll simply be multiple people I'm trying to respond to, and I lose track of who I need to reply to still, so if you catch me ignoring a response please just point it out and I'll hop on it.

I understand where you're coming from with the parent's responsibility, but I just see too many variables being involved to lay sole responsibility on the parents. While it's great for a parent to be involved and check up on their kid, there are always times that the parent cannot be a watchdog, such as when the kids are at school, speaking in private, etc.

Since we have a sociologist in the thread they can elaborate more on this, but one of the incredible (for better or worse) things about the past century, is that the primary agents of socialization are changing from what they've been historically. Children spend more time receiving their socialization from media than they do from their actual immediate family in most American homes.

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I'd like to think it's more a problem with dogpiling. It's hard for one person to keep up with several people who are trying to debate them.

I'd have to research the topic pretty intensively to find studies. Conclusively proving how aspects of culture shape the individuals of a society is pretty difficult, if not impossible for researchers.

I understand. I suppose I'm just fishing for anything that is a little more concrete. Since in my personal experience the use of the word 'gay' has appeared to be totally innocuous, it takes a bit more to win me over than "it sort of makes sense that it would be harmful".

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I understand. I suppose I'm just fishing for anything that is a little more concrete. Since in my personal experience the use of the word 'gay' has appeared to be totally innocuous, it takes a bit more to win me over than "it sort of makes sense that it would be harmful".

Grad students have done studies on everything :P but I can't really find anything concrete through Google at the moment. I'll look more into it tomorrow. A simple google of "Gay as a pejorative" shows that there are many campaigns and protests to change the usage, so it's clear that this usage does in fact offend and piss off plenty of people. To me, combined with the fact that 'gay' isn't a very descriptive nor educated adjective, that is a good enough reason to stop using it.

By not using it one: A. Sounds more intelligent

B. Doesn't risk offending tons of people

Good enough reasons to me.

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Subjective.

What isn't subjective? We're talking about culture, not mathematical equations. But I feel like you'd be hard-pressed to explain how the usage of "gay" is intelligent.

Sometimes you want to offend.

Right, but the majority who are using these usages don't do it with the objective to offend, and as others have mentioned often seem shocked when others explain how it is offensive or wrong.

If your actual intent is to offend someone, then you'll say whatever you know will get under their skin. That's not what we're discussing here, though.

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What isn't subjective? We're talking about culture, not mathematical equations. But I feel like you'd be hard-pressed to explain how the usage of "gay" is intelligent.

Why would it sound less intelligent than any of the dozen or so words you could use instead?

Right, but the majority who are using these usages don't do it with the objective to offend, and as others have mentioned often seem shocked when others explain how it is offensive or wrong.

If your actual intent is to offend someone, then you'll say whatever you know will get under their skin. That's not what we're discussing here, though.

The thing is though because it offends it will keep being used. If it didn't offend then it would fall into disuse like all offense words eventually do.

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By not using it one: A. Sounds more intelligent

B. Doesn't risk offending tons of people

Good enough reasons to me.

I have a friend who has a PhD in American History and says retarded and gay pretty regularly... I'm not saying it's ok- but it has nothing to do with class, social, or intellectual rank.

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:huh: I am shocked that a professional announcer would ever say something like that. I truly hope that phrase isn't becoming more popular than I thought.

It's popularity is definitely rising.

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Why would it sound less intelligent than any of the dozen or so words you could use instead?

To me intelligence in speech is manifested in one's eloquence. "Gay" is simply not as intelligent as many other options, because it lacks specificness and complexity of expression. If one says "This song is gay" what do they mean? Because when people make statements like that, I don't think anyone really knows what they mean, because 'gay' is simply a general pejorative. Is gay in that instance synonymous with "cool" and expressing that the song does not fit the criteria for the hearer's norms of music? Is it synonymous with "tasteless"? "Horrid"? "Bad"? All the words it could mean have variations in meaning and intensity, all of which is completely lost if someone says "gay"

The thing is though because it offends it will keep being used. If it didn't offend then it would fall into disuse like all offense words eventually do.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that if we normalize the terms enough they will no longer carry offense and that's a good thing? Another word would simply take it's place for expressing homophobia. As long as there's a sentiment, there'll be words to express that sentiment.

I have a friend who has a PhD in American History and says retarded and gay pretty regularly... I'm not saying it's ok- but it has nothing to do with class, social, or intellectual rank.

I'm not saying that it means the person is automatically of a lower educational or socioeconomic rank, just that when the person uses it they sound unintelligent.

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I want a bit of clarification on the woodshed thing. "Taken behind the woodshed", i.e. to be given a beating, is a fairly common phrase. If "and drop the pants" was appended... well, I can't say I've ever heard that before, and honestly I'd probably come to the same conclusion re: forcible sodomy that Annelise did.

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I've never heard the dropping pants part either, and rape would be my first interpretation. I can see how it might refer to canning of the buttocks, or spanking, but I've never heard of taking someone behind a woodshed and canning their ass.

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