I’m surprised this comment was made and is so highly upvoted because it doesn’t meet your usual standards.
I, surprisingly enough, disagree. In the context of casual conversation the meaning is well enough understood. Normal people having conversations don’t use precise technical terms but they get along fine—and often wouldn’t even understand the formal and precise terminology very well anyway.
It just isn’t reasonable to dismiss “‘women prefer jerks’ is something which is commonly believed” as undefined.
Mind you I myself don’t particularly find the “women prefer jerks” belief to be all that useful (or even necessarily have an opinion on just how common the belief is). It just isn’t the most practical foundation on which to self-improve (even though it does work for some). Myself I recommend “quit being a pussy” alongside the kind of deeper insight that you allude to in “3.”
I still a not sure if you are asserting that the phrase “women prefer jerks” has a single, commonly understood meaning among everyone, or among men, or what.
Normal people having conversations don’t use precise technical terms but they get along fine—and often wouldn’t even understand the formal and precise terminology very well anyway.
Their understanding of formal terminology is barely relevant. If a someone says that their printer “is shit”, I want to know if they mean that it burns through ink cartridges, jams frequently, prints with low quality, or what. I am unsure as to what an informal phrasing means, specifically I am unsure about the extent to which it means the same thing to different people. I’m not blaming people for being informal, I’m questioning how much agreement there can be among the people around hundreds of thousands of water coolers in the world when such an imprecise phrase is used. That around any individual water cooler people communicate well enough is not in doubt.
It just isn’t reasonable to dismiss “‘women prefer jerks’ is something which is commonly believed” as undefined.
It’s not being dismissed, it’s being partitioned according to my best estimation of what its speakers and listeners actually mean. There are probably different meanings because the phrase is not very specific.
Meta-statements about something like “the belief shared by people who believe this statement is true” are being dismissed.
If we must have these sorts of conversations could we while doing so please refrain from using terms for female genitalia as negative descriptors? Although the linked SMBC is amusing thist really doesn’t help keeping things calm or help the signal to noise ratio.
Terms meaning cat have been slang for the female genitalia in more than one language, or so The Great Cat Massacre claims about “le chatte” in French, at any rate..
Huh. Interesting. I did not realize what the etymology of that word was. The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
Huh. Interesting. I did not realize what the etymology of that word was. The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
While I don’t doubt that there has been some bleed over, I am not sure this is actually suggestive of it; typical gender roles would have “pampered” or “soft” also be seen as more negative when directed at a male, and I don’t think there is any related bleeding going on there.
I prefer to avoid them, for approximately this reason.
Although the linked SMBC is amusing thist really doesn’t help keeping things calm or help the signal to noise ratio.
Objecting to the use of unsophisticated terms is one thing—it would be pointless to argue with that. But if you are moving to a claim about “signal to noise ratio” then you are simply wrong. The signal there is extremely important.
I, surprisingly enough, disagree. In the context of casual conversation the meaning is well enough understood. Normal people having conversations don’t use precise technical terms but they get along fine—and often wouldn’t even understand the formal and precise terminology very well anyway.
It just isn’t reasonable to dismiss “‘women prefer jerks’ is something which is commonly believed” as undefined.
Mind you I myself don’t particularly find the “women prefer jerks” belief to be all that useful (or even necessarily have an opinion on just how common the belief is). It just isn’t the most practical foundation on which to self-improve (even though it does work for some). Myself I recommend “quit being a pussy” alongside the kind of deeper insight that you allude to in “3.”
I still a not sure if you are asserting that the phrase “women prefer jerks” has a single, commonly understood meaning among everyone, or among men, or what.
Their understanding of formal terminology is barely relevant. If a someone says that their printer “is shit”, I want to know if they mean that it burns through ink cartridges, jams frequently, prints with low quality, or what. I am unsure as to what an informal phrasing means, specifically I am unsure about the extent to which it means the same thing to different people. I’m not blaming people for being informal, I’m questioning how much agreement there can be among the people around hundreds of thousands of water coolers in the world when such an imprecise phrase is used. That around any individual water cooler people communicate well enough is not in doubt.
It’s not being dismissed, it’s being partitioned according to my best estimation of what its speakers and listeners actually mean. There are probably different meanings because the phrase is not very specific.
Meta-statements about something like “the belief shared by people who believe this statement is true” are being dismissed.
If we must have these sorts of conversations could we while doing so please refrain from using terms for female genitalia as negative descriptors? Although the linked SMBC is amusing thist really doesn’t help keeping things calm or help the signal to noise ratio.
Eh? That term means “cat” to me.
EDIT: In fact, wedrifid’s meaning has a different etymology from either yours or mine.
Terms meaning cat have been slang for the female genitalia in more than one language, or so The Great Cat Massacre claims about “le chatte” in French, at any rate..
Huh. Interesting. I did not realize what the etymology of that word was. The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
And at no niggardly pace, either.
While I don’t doubt that there has been some bleed over, I am not sure this is actually suggestive of it; typical gender roles would have “pampered” or “soft” also be seen as more negative when directed at a male, and I don’t think there is any related bleeding going on there.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of the origins of, well, any of the various usages for that word.
I prefer to avoid them, for approximately this reason.
Objecting to the use of unsophisticated terms is one thing—it would be pointless to argue with that. But if you are moving to a claim about “signal to noise ratio” then you are simply wrong. The signal there is extremely important.