Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T.

[Alan Meyer]

Steven,

Our postings have crossed in the ether.  I didn't see this before
posting a reply to your last one, and of course you hadn't seen
my reply.

Steven D'Aprano <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Perhaps if more of us would transpose remarks like Stallman's,
> > substituting our own favorite gender, religion, race,
> > nationality, or cultural group for "women", we'd better
> > appreciate the vulgarity of Stallman's remark.
>
> That is excellent advice. While you are working yourself up
> into a frenzy of condemnation, did you even bother to take your
> own advice?
>
> "The virgin of emacs is any programmer who has not yet learned
> how to use emacs. And in the church of emacs we believe that
> taking their emacs virginity away is a blessed act."
>
> "The virgin of emacs is any white male who has not yet learned
> how to use emacs. And in the church of emacs we believe that
> taking his emacs virginity away is a blessed act."
>
> Sounds fine to me. And I don't even use Emacs and don't
> particularly like it.

Your first one eliminates the gender bias and, for me, turns it
into legitimate, if not particularly funny, humor.

Your second one on the other hand strikes me as strange.  It
doesn't appeal to the standard stereotypes.  I think people would
have trouble understanding it.  They would ask the question, "Why
white males?"  That many in the audience do not ask, "Why
females?" is part of what women find offensive.

And how about the ad with the young woman?  How would it look
with a pretty young man, with similarly large lips, and all the
text exactly the same?  Will the corporate manager who sees the
ad think it's funny that he is being appealed to as a man who
would ask a young fellow for a blow job?


However, maybe you're right and I'm making too strong a point.
One of the things that happens in discussions like ours is that
the people on each side, in this case you and I, try to justify
ourselves and wind up magnifying the differences between us.  I
don't want to do that.

I hope I haven't worked myself up into a frenzy of condemnation.
As I've said in all of my previous postings, I don't regard the
perpetrators of bad jokes as bad guys.  I'm not condemning
Stallman or you or anyone else.  I'm only claiming that
Stallman's story, and the ad with the young woman, have a
demeaning, humiliating component to them.  I'm trying to
sensitize you to that and appealing to people not to make those
kinds of jokes.

> > Or perhaps more directly, and following Duncan's analysis of
> > the difference between "take" and "take away",
>
> What analysis?
>
> Duncan merely *claimed* that there was such a difference. He
> gave no reason to believe so, no examples, he even asked for
> counter-examples (and full marks to Duncan for at least
> considering the possibility that he was wrong). But a few
> moments thought or even the most cursory look at the way "take"
> and "take away" are used in the English language demonstrates
> that such difference is entirely illusionary.

Duncan's example was, "He took the keys," versus, "He took away the
keys."

The distinction between the two that I thought he was making was
that, "He took the keys," can mean something like: "He took the
keys from the table."  "He took away the keys," is stronger, more
like "He took the keys away from me."

Saying "He took away the keys from the table," is perfectly
plausible but a little odd precisely because it stronger.

Saying "He took the keys from me," is not as odd, but "took away"
does have a stronger connotation of being done against my will.

However, as I said before, I agree with your counter examples.
They show common uses of the terms where the connotation Duncan
found is not present.

> > we should imagine
> > something more dramatic like being locked in a cell with a
> > powerful and aggressive male prisoner who decides to take away
> > our virginity with respect to what he has in mind.
>
> Or we could imagine somebody saying "Won't somebody please take
> away my damn virginity? It does me no good, I don't want it."
>
> Or we could imagine somebody saying "Take me, take me now!".

I can imagine a male writer putting such words in the mouth of a
woman.  I can imagine a male writer dreaming of a woman saying
such a thing to him.  I can imagine a writer of either gender
writing such a thing in a book of fantasy.

But I'm having a real tough time imagining any woman I know
saying such a thing - though I suppose it's always possible that
women say such things all the time, but never to me.


> But if you're a fan of Firefly, you're probably having a hard
> time *not* thinking of Zoe in "War Stories", after her jealous
> husband Wash had wrongly imagined she had sexual feelings
> towards Mal and suggested that the two of them sleep together
> to get it out of their system, she turns to Mal and, absolutely
> deadpan, says "I understand. We have no choice.  Take me, sir.
> Take me hard.", and thereby completely shredding the last
> vestiges of Wash's jealousy. (As well as being a deeply funny
> scene in an otherwise dark episode about the best and worst of
> human nature.)

I don't know Firefly, but I can see that that is pretty funny.
But I don't see the parallel with either the ad or the Stallman
story.

    Alan