(no subject)

[prog]

You know, I'm actually rather uncomfortable with the current popular usage among the Daily Show-watching set of using "[has] balls" and "[is a] pussy" as slang for possessing admirable bravado and contemptible cowardliness or passivity, respectively.

Since the people employing the phrase are the furthest thing from ripsnorting redstaters, I suppose that there's a sense of ironic fun to be had by stepping briefly into George Liquor's shoes for a moment, passing an indictment as one who believes that men primarily validate themselves by going in there and changing the world, and women do it by quietly submitting to authority.

It's a little shocking to hear it coming from you, and so we all laugh. But when I hear you say it over and over again, I do start to wonder.

Comments

[ex-colorwhe.livejournal.com]

the whole thing is complicated but i don't like it some of it. i'm more comfprtable with people of any sex being ascribed balls as courage than with people of any sex (though it's said far more often about men) being called pussy as wimp.

this is also why i never liked the word "wuss" as it is a combo of wimp and pussy.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I dunno about "wuss". I'd buy that etymology, but I'd also think that it's joined words like "sissy" and "dork" as being a mild insult that technically has a literal referent, but has through wide use become divorced from it and grown a meaning all its own.

[ex-colorwhe.livejournal.com]

yeah, to me that makes it all the worse...

[ex-colorwhe.livejournal.com]

in fact i am completely offended by sissy.

[prog.livejournal.com]

You're not the first. I still think of it in this category as it's one of those words I heard for years and years before learning what it "really" meant, as an adult, from someone who took great exception to it (calling the first speaker a homophobe, confusing him and launching a flamewar).

(Hm. I almost said "launched drama" but this was in on a messageboard in the late 1990s, before drama was invented. Or anyway drama was called "flamewars" back then. I think they are exactly the same. Speaking of language.)