Posted on 12/06/2013 6:06:07 AM PST by ConservativeStatement
There are actually companies which market nail polish and makeup to men. Youtube has instructional videos for men who want to learn how to apply cosmetics.
I don’t know how much lower the culture can sink.
A local commercial for a salvage company runs on our ABC affiliate station. It shows a man who wants to restore an old car, but instead has to get rid of it because his wife won't allow it. She shakes her finger in his face and takes the keys, and he runs after her like a child, begging for them.
You're right that this mindset has been internalized. I see and hear outright disdain and contempt for men from many women.
I don’t know about feminization but I do know that the language has become permeated with vague weasel words with no clear meaning and, thus, no way to truly refute the speaker for their ignorance.
I trace it all back to when “used cars” became “pre-owned vehicles”. There was nothing wrong with “used cars” and it was simpler to say but somebody got their feelings hurt about “used” being less than “new” so they gummed up the language hoping you weren’t smart enough to figure it out.
There’s a lot of new age pop psychology terms out there that just make me cringe whenever I hear them. We had perfectly good words for many of these before somebody decided to gum up the language with longer, vaguer descriptions.
Imagine if a black guy was called three times less the man than a bunch of whites?
George Carlin was wrong on a lot of things, but he was dead on here:
I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth. So they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it. And it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse.
I’ll give you an example of that. There’s a condition in combat, most people know about it, it’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can’t take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped, or is about to snap. In the first World War, that condition was called “shell shock.” Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. “Shell shock.” Almost sounds like the guns themselves.
That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by, and the second World War came along. And the very same combat condition was called “battle fatigue.” Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say, doesn’t seem to hurt as much. “Fatigue” is a nicer word than “shock.” Shell shock. Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea in 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time. And the very same combat condition was called “operational exhaustion.”
Hey, we’re up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been completely squeezed out of the phrase, it’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion, sounds like something that might happen to your car!
Then, of course, came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years. And thanks to the lies and deceit surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called “post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.” I’ll bet you if we’d have still been calling it “Shell Shock”, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll bet you that. I’ll bet you that.
Sometimes that might be the objective. I know how you'd feel if I'm here posting to refute you for your ignorance. Think about it, nobody sells anything by setting out to "refute ignorance."
This has become a bitchin’ thread.
***I avoid saying the word “sixth”.****
QUICK! Say ...”The sixth sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick!”
I had to type that slow as even I can’t say it.
***She couldn’t say “r”s.***
I wonder if she could say...”rubber baby buggy bumpers” real fast.
Had to type it slow again.
****in fact many early radio DJ’s would chain smoke just to keep their “radio voice”.***
Several years ago I was watching some TV show in which the moderator was talking t a guest in the audience.
As I listened I said to my wife...”that man is a professional speaker because his voice is too good and his wording is perfect.”
The moderator then asked the guest..”What line of work do you do?”
The guest said ..” I am a radio announcer.”
Voices are born. Many people don’t realize the power of their speech. Many more should be singing.
George Carlin was pretty good on a lot of things. Some might have found him harsh and he was a liberal douche, but, the man flat said what he wanted and didn’t care if it pissed anybody off.
Men used to talk like men. Especially with other men. Of course, apply the niceties in the company of ladies but when it came time to talk business you got down to brass tacks linguistically. I work in an office environment now and I’ve found myself, when talking with male co-workers, letting go and just saying “it.” Four letter words and all. Feels good sometimes, too.
***“you know”,***
This is not a “valley girl” speech pattern as I remember back in 1976, our welding school teacher at a vo-tech school was telling us some story.
In a five minute story, dragged out over ten minutes, he used the term “you know” more than fifteen times. I know because after he used it so much I started quietly counting.
“This old boy, you know, went over to a bar and, you know, got a drink and while there saw this, you know, good looking girl and , you know, blah blah, you know, blah blah blah, you know,...”
mark
I’ve always inclined toward the definition of critical meaning “skillful judgement” as opposed to critical meaning “inclined to find fault.”
I was raised to be a critical thinker insomuch as I thought outside of the box and raised every avenue of analysis possible before making a decision, often to the detriment of haste.
F-ing A. Emphasis on the A!
Put it down. Problem solved.
Whoa, I was not trying to pick a fight.
Since you said, “What is really wrong with that, if it’s what nature gave one?”, I guess you would not approve of a woman’s use of make-up and hair coloring products.
The commercial I really hate is the one where the couple is in the car and the conversation goes something like this:
“Why didn’t you get gas? I can’t believe you didn’t get gas.”
“Because I’m not smart.”
“Why did you pull in here? Did you see the price of gas?”
I still don’t know the product for the commercial, I’ve never made it that far. Plenty of us are so exposed to nagging that we don’t want to see it on TV too.
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