By avoiding the word, you avoid insinuating the target's gender is part of the issue, and/or avoid insinuating that the target is effeminate when they "should not" be, i.e. you avoid homophobia.
I guess babies also count for screeching.
Is the word "sobbing" or the word "weeping" derogatory? Visibly-emotional crying is also associated with women, and isn't a stereotypically "manly" thing to do.
It's not.
>You generally wouldn't say a man was "screeching".
Sure you would. I've never seen it posed any other way or with any other intent.
A screech is a high pitched sound, nothing more unless otherwise indicated.
I am under the impression that, on average, men's voices are lower than women's voices. Hence some connotation.
Doesn't mean men cannot screech, though. Just that there is some reason for making that connection, so at least some folks will make that connection.
To be clear (and conciliatory): I see how you connect the dots here. I just think you have to have your antennae extended extra high to pick this signal up, high enough that you'll need to be careful walking under overpasses and stuff.
To determine the meaning of every word as they've ever been and attempt to remove any that have ever been used in a way that could've upset anyone ever, just makes sure those words will continue to upset people and be painful. There are words with stronger denotations that would take generations to heal but these are words and concepts that the children of today might not even recognize. Should we attempt to solidify pain by hiding truth? Or would it be better to let the youngins change things the way they always do.
If you take their words, they'll just make more. And those new words will not have the ambiguity of our current language.
Looks like the character “Screech” will have to adopt a new (nick)-name.
You’re implying that homosexuals are effeminate?
Screeching is most definitely more commonly used for women. That doesn't make it a bad word to use.
I mean, you won't catch me dead with these bowdlerized versions. The prose is atrocious and the motives for the changes are dubious.
But screeching is high pitched and when it's used for people is used mostly for women. I'm not going to pretend it's not. That's a comical rewriting of what is true just because you don't like some other rewriting.
I fail to understand why using these words is bad, though.
You didn't watch Saved by the Bell?!
When HN can't tolerate such an obviously true statement such as this, yet plenty of dog-whistles supporting homophobia and racism and transphobia in this thread stay upvoted, it tells me I probably shouldn't be spending time here anymore. I don't know if I've changed or the community has changed. Probably a bit of both. Maybe it's time to grow up and move on.
I see a lot of people with no knowledge or experience with this common usage. That's fine, but it's arrogant to assume things you don't know are nonsense.
Maybe worth reconsidering if your understanding of the term is truly "common."
> That's fine, but it's arrogant to assume things you don't know are nonsense.
It also seems pretty arrogant to assert you know better than everyone else.
IE: Describing a straight male as shrill might make passersby assume he’s abnormal and abnormal men are viewed as homosexual and it would be really awful if you accidentally did a homophobia so stop using the word shrill.
It'd be really cool if someone familiar with what I'm linking to below could comment, especially regarding the word screech and its related forms!
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1720347115
Interestingly the examples in both the entry from Oxford that Google brought up when I searched the term, and the second example in the Cambridge dictionaries are both boys doing the screeching. The other examples are inanimate and screeching describing the experience of tinnitus. So it seems the UK is similar.
So potentially for much of the English-speaking world this term wouldn’t bring up thought of any kind of gendered slur. So it goes both ways - just because something is the case in your region doesn’t mean it’s true across the board.
> He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
There's an easy test to see if you understand someone's position in a disagreement. Just summarize their position back to them. They'll tell you if you got it right.
> a modicum of sensitivity towards historically disadvantaged minorities is the end of civilization.
This absolutely isn't my position. I don't think you understand why people disagree with you here.
[The full quote by Mill, if anyone is curious: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/66643-he-who-knows-only-his... ]
> [HN believes] a modicum of sensitivity towards historically disadvantaged minorities is the end of civilization.
Do you have any evidence? Can you show me the comments where people “tell you who they are”, and say that having “a modicum of sensitivity toward minorities” will be the end of civilisation?
Your comment just reads as a bitter, low effort ad homenim attack.
I never said nor suggested that it did. I was criticizing the people saying it is not a common usage because they hadn't heard it. You and the other user trying to correct me by repeating how you are from a place where the meaning is different both completely missed the point.
The meaning exists, and is used derogatorily, and definitely commonly in some places. None of what you wrote has any bearing on that.
I did not assert that. I made a correction, which was in fact correct.
The meaning does exist, and commonly, even if in regions you are unfamiliar with. I did not misuse the word common. I think you just emotionally reacted to being called arrogant, when in fact it was a merited criticism.
For example, sitcoms used to do this all the time. You'd have two big buff contractors or whatever talking about some work they did, and one of them would say something along the lines of "Hey Frank, that's real cute." Then they'd both realize what was said, get real uncomfortable, the canned laughter would hit, and they'd both stand up, brush themselves off and change the topic hastily.
I understand it's pretty subtle, but jokes and insinuations like this have been a regular part of (at least North American english) culture for a long, long time now.