(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

[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.)