55 thoughts on “News/Politics 7-18-19

  1. Since there was some confusion last night, and some folks just assumed the worst, some clarification is in order.

    skank
    /skaNGk/
    INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
    1.
    a sleazy or unpleasant person.
    2.
    a steady-paced dance performed to reggae music, characterized by rhythmically bending forward, raising the knees, and extending the hands palms-downward.

    Unpleasant person.

    Accurate. Not sorry. Perhaps you and Kizzie should learn the definition. No one is implying sleazy, but that’s where your minds went. It has other meanings too. Now you know.

    You’re welcome.

    ——————

    And after using the term she did for the president, a foul mouthed unpleasant person. or foul mouthed skank, is an accurate description.,

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  2. Once again the NYTimes leads the way in the mainstreaming of perversion.

    And folks wonder how Epstein operated freely in these circles of people.

    —————-

    https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/07/17/she-was-16-he-was-27-married-and-her-boss-to-the-nyt-its-a-love-story-we-have-a-screenshot-of-the-now-deleted-tweet/

    “He wasn’t just “already married.” He was 27 at the time, her boss and they didn’t really wait:

    “I was 16 and very shy, John was 11 years older than me,” Ms. Mouzakitis-Fazio said. “I liked him. I didn’t think he liked me back.”

    He did, even though he was married at the time. Over the next two years, there were deep glances and flirting. The two would have breakfast or coffee together, they would hold hands, and he would walk her home.

    “We would write little notes to each other, he would kiss me on my forehead,” she said. “A slow love was happening without either of us knowing it. I always wanted to be with him, talk to him, but it wasn’t allowed because he wasn’t Greek and he was married, but not happily.”

    —————

    The term is grooming. That’s what this pervert did. It’s not love, it’s preying on the young and immature.

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  3. United?

    Hardly.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/07/house-beats-back-impeachment-resolution-democrats-divide.php

    “Nonetheless, 95 Democrats rejected an attempt to “table” Green’s effort — in other words to kill it. 137 Democrats voted with the Republican members in favor of tabling.

    The 95 Dems who opposed the motion to table included some in House leadership. According to the Washington Post:

    Rather than tabling the resolution, several Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee tried to persuade Pelosi and other leaders to refer the articles of impeachment to their panel. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a private supporter of impeachment, said that is how such matters are historically handled, but was rebuffed, according to congressional officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal talks.

    Nadler and several of his committee members who are in Pelosi’s leadership circle voted against the motion to table.

    Green has been offering impeachment articles since the first year of the Trump presidency. Each time, he has been thwarted by a motion to table.

    But he’s gaining votes. In the past, his support hasn’t exceeded 66 Dems, according to the Post. This time, he nearly reached the century mark and obtained the backing of Nadler.

    I’m not sure whether future impeachment attempts will command a majority of the House, but they might well soon command majority support among House Democrats.

    ———–

    And that support, along with 2 bucks, will get them a cup of coffee, but not impeachment. You need the Senate for that, and you don’t have it. 🙂

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  4. Yawn.

    It’s not working anymore.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/07/racism-its-not-what-it-used-to-be.php

    ““RACISM”: IT’S NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE
    It sometimes seems that conservatives are accused of being “racist” any time they disagree with a black Democrat. The converse, of course, isn’t true. No one has ever called a Democrat a racist for disagreeing with, say, Thomas Sowell. It turns out that, crazy as it may seem, there are a great many Americans who think it is racist to disagree with a black politician (assuming that he or she is a Democrat).

    This is Rasmussen’s stunning finding:

    Thirty-two percent (32%) of Democrats, however, say it’s racist for any white politician to criticize the political views of a politician of color.

    So being a “politician of color” means that your views are immune to disagreement. Unless–once again–you are a Republican. This, however, I can’t explain:

    That’s a view shared by just 16% of both GOP and unaffiliated voters.

    I can only assume that 16% of GOP voters didn’t understand the question.”

    ————-

    The Rasmussen piece.

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/july_2019/trump_a_racist_32_of_democrats_say_any_white_criticism_of_politicians_of_color_is_racist

    “Trump A Racist? 32% of Democrats Say Any White Criticism of Politicians of Color Is Racist”

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  5. Beaten again at their own game.

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/07/17/cnns-tapper-house-democrats-admit-trump-won-the-fight-with-ocasio-cortez-and-he-n2550242

    “‘The President Won This One’: CNN’s Tapper Details How Trump Outflanked Ocasio-Cortez And Her Leninist Girl Scout Troop”

    “House Democrats may have appeared united in the resolution condemning President Trump for a series of tweets aimed at Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), but behind the scenes we have chaos. A few talked to Tapper off the record and noted this whole fiasco has been a massive win for the Trump White House. There was infighting between AOC and Speaker Pelosi, which is good, but what’s even better is forcing the Democratic leadership to re-embrace this Leninist Girl Scout Troop from Hell and their extremist agenda and anti-Semitic remarks. Oh, and Omar made sure to make it clear to CBS’s Gayle King that she doesn’t regret her remarks.

    “The president won this one,” said one House Democrat to Tapper, “What the president has done is politically brilliant. Pelosi was trying to marginalize these folks and the president has now identified the entire party with them.”

    He noted all of this in a lengthy Twitter thread:”
    —————-

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  6. Yep.

    ———–

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  7. ———

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  8. That’s racist. 🙂

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  9. Pelosi has a message for Omar and her planned BDS legislation. .

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  10. Good. Let him rot there.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/jeffrey-epstein-bail-hearing-in-child-sex-traffic-case.html

    “A federal judge denied bail to wealthy investor Jeffrey Epstein, who has been locked up since his arrest nearly two weeks ago on child sex trafficking charges. Epstein will not remain in jail pending his trial.

    Epstein, 66, was asking a judge to release him on a bond of as high as $100 million or more, with conditions that would include requiring him to remain in his New York City mansion, round-the-clock security monitoring and an electronic trafficking device.”

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  11. Color me skeptical that this ever sees the light of day. Too many powerful people are about to be implicated.

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque

    ““IT’S GOING TO BE STAGGERING, THE AMOUNT OF NAMES”: AS THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN CASE GROWS MORE GROTESQUE, MANHATTAN AND DC BRACE FOR IMPACT”

    ———–

    “The questions about Epstein are metastasizing much faster than they can be answered: Who knew what about Epstein’s alleged abuse? How, and from whom, did Epstein get his supposed $500 million fortune? Why did Acosta grant Epstein an outrageously lenient non-prosecution agreement? (And what does it mean that Acosta was reportedly told Epstein “belonged to intelligence”?) But among the most pressing queries is which other famous people might be exposed for committing sex crimes. “There were other business associates of Mr. Epstein’s who engaged in improper sexual misconduct at one or more of his homes. We do know that,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Courtney Wild, one of the Epstein accusers who gave emotional testimony at Epstein’s bail hearing. “In due time the names are going to start coming out.” (Attorneys for Epstein did not respond to a request for comment.)

    Likely within days, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will release almost 2,000 pages of documents that could reveal sexual abuse by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders,” according to the three-judge panel’s ruling. The documents were filed during a civil defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former Mar-a-Lago locker-room attendant, against Epstein’s former girlfriend and alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell. “Nobody who was around Epstein a lot is going to have an easy time now. It’s all going to come out,” said Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies. Another person involved with litigation against Epstein told me: “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names. It’s going to be contagion numbers.””

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  12. AJ – Words have their dictionary definitions, true, but they often have a connotation within general usage that is different from the definition, or narrowed down to only one of the possible definitions. In general usage, “skank” means something much worse than an “unpleasant person”. And I’m sure you are aware of that. I have never heard or read the word used in the milder way you say you intended. It is always intended as a strong insult.

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  13. Call me naive, but I never heard that word until yesterday.

    That said, when a word has more than one meaning — I don’t care which meaning is the allegedly more common usage (where is it more common?) — it’s presumptuous to assume one knows which meaning was meant by the user of a multiple-meaning word, unless it’s very clear from the context.

    Look at the context around AJ’s comment yesterday:

    Ladies?

    I usually reserve that term for women who don’t use the term mother…… and then say, oh it’s just how we talk where I’m from….

    Foul mouthed skank is the term you’re looking for.

    [Bold emphasis mine.]

    He wasn’t saying anything sexual about them. He was talking about their use of foul language, an unpleasant thing indeed to read or listen to.

    Hwesseli said,

    <blockquote…why not use a less vulgar term instead of questioning their sexual behaviour?

    With that statement, he just declared AJ to be questioning their sexual behavior. That’s presumption.

    No one knows another’s heart. It’s not right to automatically presume a person meant a more derogatory definition of a multiple-meaning word, especially when the context doesn’t support it.

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  14. Sorry. Messed up the second blockquote. That should read (quoting Hwesseli’s words:

    …why not use a less vulgar term instead of questioning their sexual behaviour?

    The last two paragraphs of my 1:01 are my words.

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  15. Sorry ladies, but around here skank is used for men, women, and children. Skanky covers all. Just because some use the narrow, sexualized meaning, doesn’t mean we all do.

    And the way you folks took it would be completely out of context. Their sex lives and promiscuity were never part of the conversation until you two HRW/KIzzie inserted it there. The discussion was about her foul mouth, and general unpleasantness of the bunch, not their level of promiscuity.

    You’re reading things into it that were never intended. And that should be obvious.

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  16. Christians should not be name calling, period — especially using such highly-charged terms that the culture has essentially defined. But you knew that. How about next time just calling them “unpleasant people,” if that’s what you really meant? 🙂

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  17. But moving on …

    Interesting email from our top editor (of both our so and no cali papers) today saying that after much discussion, they’ve decided that anytime Trump’s tweets are used w/the term “racist,” that has to be with some kind of attribution, we can’t just be saying that as journalists.

    ______________________________

    “In the end, we must put aside politics – which are not and should not be the determining factor in newsroom decisions – and focus on what is accurate. …”
    ______________________________

    I’ve seen the term “racially-charged” used to describe the tweets and I think that’s an accurate description, I’d have no problem with that. Calling them out-and-out “racist” seems to get into a whole other (very subjective) territory for journalists.

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  18. And if one wants to talk about foul language, how about the president using the term God-d***** in a talk just the other day. Nice.

    The culture is circling the drain but our Master calls us to resist that downward pull, amen? We are not to be like those around us.

    I can mix it up with the best of them on politics (not as much anymore, admittedly, though) — satire, strong and blunt words, calling politicians out are fine — but there also is a crossing of the line we can all so easily slip into when the fury of our emotions take over.

    Liked by 4 people

  19. I do think the term “racist” has been overused so much by the left that it’s become almost meaningless, at least to many of us.

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  20. AJ – Re: “You’re reading things into it that were never intended. And that should be obvious.”

    Obvious to whom? Not to those of us who understand the word to mean something much worse than an unpleasant person.

    This kind of thing (two people having a different understanding of a word or term) has happened before. The way I usually handle it is to explain that I understand the word in a certain way and was not aware of that other definition, or to point out that the other person and I put different connotations on the word. But I would not accuse the other person of reading things into what I’d written. I might be surprised by their understanding of the word, and say, “Oh, no, I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant was. . .” without assuming bad motives on their part for having a different understanding.

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  21. From AP:

    https://apnews.com/f2b66f5807cd44d78745a7be8f342829

    (politically wise of him)
    ________________________

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he was unhappy with his supporters chanting “send her back” after he assailed a young Democratic congresswoman who he’s suggested should leave the U.S.

    Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump claimed he tried to stop the chant, which came after he recited a litany of complaints about Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who fled to the U.S. as a child with her family from violence-wracked Somalia. Video shows the president pausing his remarks, appearing to drink in the uproar and not admonishing his supporters as they chanted.

    “I was not happy with it,” Trump said a day later as some prominent Republicans criticized the chant at the president’s re-election event. He said he “would certainly try” to stop the chant should it return at a subsequent rally. …
    ____________________________

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  22. Donna,

    That’s fair game, and the president is out of line using it. There’s never a need to curse to make your argument. And he should be called on it.

    But he didn’t say anything you won’t hear on tv any day or night of the week. Repeatedly. While we find that most offensive, most people don’t. MF on the other hand……

    Yet none of you have addressed this. Why is that? Is Trump using what he used now considered more offensive than MFs? Really?

    Sorry, but there’s no moral high ground for them.

    ————-

    Also, as I’ve demonstrated Kizzie, it has other meanings. Just because you let foul mouthed lefties dictate what’s now offensive, doesn’t mean we all do. They redefined it, as they have many terms, and that’s the truth. Except that redefining if you wish, I choose not too.

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  23. the ladies here have pretty much expressed my opinion. There was no need to use the term if you meant unpleasant, rude, etc. Why lower the discourse.

    This isnt a leftist redefinition of a word. Sexual promiscuity has always been a part of the definition. in fact, the terms skank and MF are generally seen at the same level here. For teen girls the former is worse and teenage boys tend to the latter distasteful.

    I do find it rather ironic you refuse to accept Omar’s explanation that MF is just the way they talk where she is from yet you expect people to accept your area’s definition of skank. Personally both terms will get you thrown out of my classroom. And in fact skank will probably get you a longer lecture from me.

    This discussion prompts me to think about our expectations of male and female politicans. When Trump and other men use foul and degrading language, its excused as style, strategic trolling, etc. However when strong opinionated women use similar language….they are condemned and called foul mouthed. No discussion of strategy and style are entertained.

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  24. Racist as an epithet does seem to have lost its insulting nature. Although it has to a certain extent been overused, it appears a significant portion of the Republican party is willing to accept racially charged comments as the price for voter support.

    An other term overused is anti-Semitic. To criticize Israel is not anti Semetic. To use the term concentration camps is not anti Semitic. To continue to use the term to silence opposing voices is to risk crying wolf once too often.

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  25. Last week, many Republicans gloated about Democratic disunity. This week Democratic unity is seen as a strategic victory for Republicans.

    Most Democractic politicians have no backbone and fear taking a position on anything. Not sure why they worry about the four ladies. Leftist Democrat presidential candidates. Warren and Sanders. are polling better Trump. Their voters want them to have a backbone and not triangulate.

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  26. Ever since I visited Auschwitz a year ago and cried my way through the horror thinking of extended family members who died there, I have trouble with references to concentration camps that are not historically accurate and especially if tossed around for debating points.

    I’m having trouble reading novels that use a concentration camp trope.

    That all feels like cultural appropriation to me–and I’m not Jewish.

    So, I don’t read anything nor do I trust anyone that tosses the term around, anymore. It hurts too much.

    As to the vulgar language–I don’t care who uses it. I don’t read it and my opinion of the individual who does declines.

    I read past all the childish arguments “he said-she said” on Twitter and I can read through the feed very quickly, now. 😦

    I like the billboard I saw the other day, “Any adult for president.”

    There don’t seem to be many running with that title these days. 😦

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  27. I’m sorry, AJ, but no, the left did not redefine the word. Your neck of the woods seems to have a different definition.

    Definition of skank from various dictionaries:

    From Merriam-Webster –
    slang, disparaging
    : a person and especially a woman of low or sleazy character

    From Your Dictionary –
    a skanky person; specif., a woman or girl considered sleazy, sluttish, etc.
    Slang
    One who is filthy or foul.
    One who is considered to be sexually promiscuous. Used especially of a woman.

    From Dictionary.com –
    slang a promiscuous female

    From the Cambridge Dictionary (it starts out with your definition, but look what it adds) –
    an unpleasant person, especially a woman who has sex with a lot of different people

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  28. AJ – I wouldn’t be belaboring this except for the fact that you seem to have cast aspersions on me and HRW for having a different understanding of the word than you do.

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  29. Michelle. I visited Auschwitz in December 1991. A very bleak and dark day. And at the time you could wander around Birkenau without supervision. I was at the far end of the camp when dusk.fell. A very strange experience walking back through the camp.in the dark.

    The orginal camp with the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” is a concentration camp. Auschwitz Birkenau, the second camp, with it’s own train spur line, is a death or extermination camp. The distinction is important.

    Auschwitz I mostly housed Polish POWs and political prisons. Polish Jews lived in the ghettos. Birkenau was built later to exterminate Jews, gypsies, homosexuals etc from conquered territories. Similar death camps existed elsewhere in Poland.

    Modern concentration camps have their origin in the Boer War. The British imprisioned Boer women and children to eliminate Boer guerilla support and to force the men to give up in exchange for their family’s freedom. The death rate in those camps approached the level of Dachau and other German concentration camps. The British in response to domestic criticism claimed they were overwhelmed and ill prepared. Several Nazi Germans have used the Boer (and American-Japanese) camps to justify their own camp system.

    However, the death camps is where the German experience differs and it is here where one can argue the use of terminology such as death/extermination camps and Holoacaust need to stay within Jewish history. There is a healthly histiographical debate on whether the Holoacaust should be regarded as an exclusive Jewish cultural experience or or can apply to other groups (gays, Roma, etc.) and other time periods (Rwanda). I tend to agree with the latter group. In response Jewish groups sometimes use the word Shoal instead.

    Thus to my orginal point, concentration camps is a generic term not directly associated with just Jews and Germany. It’s interesting to note that several Jewish groups are involved in protest at migrant prison camps because they see the comparison as valid.

    Sorry quite the lengthy post…lots of free time in the summer…

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  30. Kizzie,

    That’s because at no time did anyone mention their sex lives or levels of promiscuity. There was no mention of sex, until YOU and HRW put it there.

    And last I checked dictionary.com is a real dictionary, and it’s the first thing up when you Google skank. You took the secondary, or derogatory meaning.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=skank&oq=ska&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i65l3j69i57j0.2113j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    Now who’s casting aspersions?

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  31. Chas…No. You didnt miss a thing. It only means you stayed out of the trailer park and didn’t associate with women of low morals.

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  32. And before anyone says sleazy has to refer to sex too…..

    No, it doesn’t.

    slea·zy
    /ˈslēzē/

    adjective
    1.
    (of a person or situation) sordid, corrupt, or immoral.
    synonyms: corrupt, immoral, sordid, unsavory, unpleasant, disreputable; More
    2.
    DATED
    (of textiles and clothing) flimsy.

    https://www.google.com/search?ei=tO4wXb_5MtKb_QaKooLgAw&q=sleazy&oq=sleazy&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i67i70i249j0l9.35732.39528..40007…0.0..0.134.696.1j5……0….1..gws-wiz…..0..0i71j0i131j0i67j0i10.82M7AKUFsSc&ved=0ahUKEwi_o_uyvr_jAhXSTd8KHQqRADwQ4dUDCAo&uact=5

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  33. I looked up “skank” on my phone dictionary. It was first used in 1954 (after I left the trailer park) and refers to a person, especially a woman, of low character.
    Skank, as I understand it, is a type of music that came from Jamaica
    How that applies is beyond me.
    And I’m finished with “skank”.

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  34. I wonder how the US would react if a foreign power shot down a US drone just 50km from the US coast?

    US policy in Iran is probably Trump’s biggest error. He ripped up a treaty which was working and was followed by Iran. He did this without support from NATO and the EU. Now his policy is being manipulated by Saudis and Isrealis for their own benefit.

    Why is the US there? Its self sufficient in oil. it doesn’t need to protect the tankers most of whom are destined to the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. The EU gets its oil via pipelines from Iran/Iraq via Turkey and its natural gas via Russia. So why does the US have a large military presence in the Straits?

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  35. Interesting, Chas. I’d never heard of “skank” as either a musical form or any other term.

    Here’s more about skank/dance, via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skank_(dance)

    My takeaway from this conversation is that it would have been better to look at the context of AJ’s comment, and if in doubt about what he meant by it, then simply ask him what he meant. Don’t imply you knew what he meant when you clearly didn’t.

    My two cents, and the end of my comments on this sub-topic. It’s soon time to head off to a string quartet rehearsal at church, where we won’t be playing any Jamaican music. 🙂

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  36. AJ I’m not sure why you have difficulty understanding that where I, Kizzue and others live, skank has sexual connotations inherent in its meaning. Apparently in your area it doesnt and can apply equally to men and women. And where I live it has sexually disparging connotations to women only. English is an amazing varied and fluid language and definitions do vary according to regions.

    Now to start another debate….sleazy…does indeed mean immoral or sordid but I would argue all three have sexual connotations. Perhaps I’ve taught middle school too long …. it’s a place where everything somehow has sexual connotations. Or perhaps it’s the sexist nature of our society that words used to insult women almost always infer some sexual promiscuity or deviance. Or maybe being a single dad to a strong opinated daughter has made reevaluate how women are discussed and treated in public. Or perhaps it’s all three.

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  37. “There was no mention of sex, until YOU and HRW put it there.”

    All I did initially was like HRW’s comment. I didn’t say anything about sex.

    This whole stupid discussion could have been / should have been more like, “The way I meant it was. . .” “Oh, I’d never heard that definition. Interesting. Okay.” But instead you insisted that we were wrong (and that our minds “went there”, which has a bad connotation in itself) and told us that we should “learn the definition”, and then I got involved with the discussion.

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  38. 6 Arrows – You wrote “. . . if in doubt about what he meant by it, then simply ask him what he meant. Don’t imply you knew what he meant when you clearly didn’t.”

    If I knew there were other meanings to the word, then that would apply. But I have never heard it used merely for an “unpleasant person”. Of the four of us on here who have heard of the word, three of us understand it to be much worse than that, and several dictionaries agree.

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  39. I’ve never heard it used anywhere near neutrally (‘unpleasant person’) either. I think the popular usage of the word is pretty much exactly what some of us thought it was and that’s why the rather visceral reaction to it.

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