Tag: Language

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A Cervical Cancer society in the UK recently made a suggestion, and it was a suggestion and not a command, to medical professionals to use the term bonus hole or front hole instead of vagina when talking to trans patients. It isn’t going to happen. One, if someone said bonus hole to me I wouldn’t have a clue what they are talking about. My mind drifted to golf for some reason but it did not go to vagina. There is also a perfectly good word already in use for vagina that would be vagina. I am not sure why it is offensive to Trans people and I am not sure why it needs to change.

But what about Trans people’s feelings? I doubt that many Trans people actually are offended by the use of the word vagina. Has anyone ever checked into this? Or are Trans activists, with nothing better to do with their time, imagining offenses where no offense is being taken. The Trans community would be better served by activists who can explain why Trans people might need medical treatment, how they are not forcing these medical options on Trans people, and helping parents make the necessary decisions regarding their children’s future. Until then, Trans Activists are acting as if they have won the day and that they are in a position to direct people’s language. They are not. Trans activists are going to lose while also alienating potential supporters of Trans rights which is something I would think they would like to avoid.

Then there is the argument that if it is important for people to be comfortable and to use language that supports this comfort, what about all the people who prefer vagina to bonus hole? Aren’t they people too? Last year, Bette Midler got entangled in another controversy because she objected to replacing the word woman with birthing people or menstruators. She wants to be called a women and I am betting that there are billions of other women who have the same preference. Billions, mind you, while Trans people being offended by the word woman is how big a group — I am guessing hundreds, maybe thousands at best. And to make it even more confusing, what about Trans women who want to be called women? Can they use women? Language is around to make life simpler. Menstruator and Bonus Hole makes life more complicated so are doomed for failure.

So in summation, this society is recommending replacing a perfectly useful and widely understood word like vagina to a different word nobody knows so nobody will understand it when used in order to prevent offending a very small group within society who may not even be offended by vagina in the first place. There is a better use for people’s energies than this losing battle.

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A BBC talk show guest recently corrected his host on the proper phrase for seaweed which is apparently marine algae. This is news to me as well. But Ok, yes, maybe seaweed is confusing and isn’t exactly the best way of saying it. On the other hand, people have been saying seaweed for thousands of years. These changes take time and most people don’t take kindly to lectures that make them appear stupid. Since the seaweed/marine algae isn’t a particularly urgent matter, it would be wise to put a lid on it.

It also give the Conservative Press a chance to point out the hectoring ways of some language policing Liberals. Since there are so many more important battles to fight, it would seem prudent to pick the right battles to exert our time and energy. Sometimes you have to fight losing battles but this isn’t one of them.

There is a better way to finesse this. You just start using the correct phrase when speaking with the interviewer. Then, the interviewer can respond to your phrasing and maybe even inquire more about why you prefer marine algae. But to do it in the corrective manner reported is ridiculous. All it does is make me want to say seaweed in the most annoying tone possible: seaweed, seaweed, seaweed. So there.

More importantly, you don’t change people’s minds by making them feel stupid. Once you’ve made someone feel stupid, they aren’t going to listen to a word you say. So, good you are are correct but you aren’t a very effective agent of change. People have to see why they need to change and then they do. Remember Ms? Or should I say, remember Mrs and Miss? Nobody uses Mrs and Miss any more. Ms is just easier. The moment people realized that they could just use Ms instead of inquiring about the woman’s preferred title, the battle was over. I might add that people changed to using Ms in a very short time.

This is also why I think the various personal pronoun options are doomed. It’s too complicated, you have to ask everyone you meet their preferred pronouns whereas, in the past, a quick visual assessment of a person’s gender did the trick and 99% of the time this works. Yes, you might, on a rare occasion, make a mistake but, by and large, you will get it right. I am certainly not going to ask a person for their preferred pronouns and risk getting my head bit off by someone who thinks preferred pronouns are a crap idea which, by the way, is most of middle America. If you want me to use something different, you are going to have to tell me. I will be happy to oblige.

In the meantime, I am telling you now I am not going down fighting to ensure people use the term marine algae for seaweed. Because my reply will be: Seaweed. Seaweed. Seaweed.

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I don’t want to bring any more controversy to the abortion debate but I have seen the term medication abortions numerous times in the past week. If I had only seen it once, I would have chalked it up to author error but repeated use of the same term leads me to believe that the accepted term for an abortion brought about by pills is medication abortions. Here are additional example of this phrase here and here. This seems grammatically incorrect. Why is it called medication abortions instead of medicated abortions?

Medicated is an adjective that explains the abortion process the author is talking about. Since abortion is the subject and not medication, medicated abortion is the appropriate expression for the process. Joining medication and abortion doesn’t change the meaning and the term grates on my ears. What is the point? I am baffled. Or am I missing something?

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I learned a new phrase for going to the toilet. I never liked the ones presently available as they are a bit too crude for my taste. So I am watching an old television show — Supernatural, season 4 if you must know and discovered the use of Releasing the Hostages. This euphemism perfectly encapsulates, at least for me, the bowel movement process. I can’t wait to use it.

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I ran across the above word the other day and was completely stumped. Like I assume everyone else in the world does, I tried to figure out the meaning through the context. No luck whatsoever. I then used my reader’s dictionary. There was no Horren and no Dously. I tried to look up the word with the dash present, my reader’s dictionary, for some reason, probably user incompetence, would not allow me to look up the word with the dash in the middle.

I pondered it a little more. It came to me in a flash, it is a German phrase. Why it was German, I can not tell you but I was convinced. Well, in case you are wondering, it isn’t a German phrase, nor French for that matter. I tried rereading sentence for context again. No, I was still baffled.

In desperation, I went to Google Search where, miraculously, a word appeared but with no dash in the middle. Horrendously. I didn’t bother to read definition because it couldn’t be right, the word is Horren-dously. There is a dash in the middle. I tried google it again and I got the full word without a dash. I read the definition which was something like done badly or done appallingly.

Smug guy that I am, I thought well that can’t be right. The word Horren-dously came in the middle of the line, not the end of one line and the beginning of another line. That would be the only time I should see horrendously separated like that.

I reread the sentence yet again. The author did mean horrendously.

Damn dash.