Posted on 02/28/2005 2:39:51 PM PST by franksolich
I just got an e-mail from a long-time member of Free Republic, gently chiding me for using the term "Free Republican" rather than the term 'FREEper.'
No particular argument with anybody, but I am wondering why the slang term is acceptable, and the formal term is not.
Of course, there are Free Republicans who are not members of the Republican Party (for the record, I am one of the most fervent members of the Republican Party one can hope to meet), but one generally assumes most on Free Republic make the distinction--that a Republican (a member of that political party) and a Free Republican (a member of this web-site) are two entirely different things.
One supposes it is a matter of 'taste;' I had a most-memorable fifth-grade teacher who instilled in her pupils the idea that 'slang,' acronyms, and 'cute' nicknames, were used only by careless, negligent, sloppy people.
This might have been too harsh of an assessment, but observation since my fifth-grade years shows that, yeah, it is apt more times than not.
When I go to a restaurant and read 'veggies' instead of 'vegetables' on the menu, I thank the waitress and take off; the food is more likely than not to be just as bad as the language, or it is a place habituated by the Birkenstock-Ben&Jerry's ice-cream crowd.
On a personal level, because my own communication is interpretation by lip-reading and body-language, 'slang,' 'cute' nicknames, and acronyms can be a horrific nightmare, especially when one is prone to fuax pases, social gaffes, and misunderstandings anyway.
Things such as 'CIA' (rather than the 'Central Intelligence Agency') or 'FBI' (rather than the 'Federal Bureau of Investigation') are irksome to figure out, and oftentimes leads one to believe the conversation is about piano-tuning, or the mating habits of silkworms.
Anyone who uses six- or seven-syllable words, instead of short terms, in my presence becomes a friend for life, principally because he is giving more clues about what he is saying.
But generally, are Free Republicans who are not members of the Republican Party (two entirely different things, remember), bothered by the formal use of 'Free Republican' rather than the cutesy-wootzy 'FREEper'?
Ummmmm, that's 'FReeper" (with the FR standing for Free Republic)
You can't be serious.
It's from the name of this forum, "Free Republic".
Yeah, I'm not all that crazy about being labeled a Republican.
Har, great minds and all that.
Free Republican is ok with me as long as your heart is in the right place.
A woman about a week ago called herself a 'FReepie'.
I like ta died.
language is a very cool thing. It is alive, and visible proof of this is that we can make up words, evidenced by President Bush in the word "strategery." Well, there is a verb "to freep." It means 1) to surf Free Republic for news and information; 2) to show a conservative presence at a liberal function. Add the suffix -er to this and obtain the noun freeper. This means one who freeps.
No chance of that.
FReeper.
Free Republic Member
It is not a slang term.
Yes. I'm a Freeper but a Conservative, not a Republican. Imho, they are no longer Conservatives.
This site was never intended as an endorsement of a particular party, so the name implies something that was not intended. I been here a long time and have never heard anyone use Free Republican. Besides, FReeper is much cooler than DUmmie.
Well, I suppose I shall do a little linguistic dance here, and stop using 'Free Republicans' in favor of 'members of Free Republic'--one hopes that offends no one, but assumes it might.
But I'll be hanged if I use a "cutesy" word to describe us.
I once worked with a 'liberated' woman, a Ms, 'gender-neutral' language and all that; she was upper-middle management (or lower-upper management), I was middle-middle management.
I was in charge of 'customer utilization bases' (plural of 'base'), numbers that took a lot of tracking down and analyzing.
I called them what they were; 'customer utilization bases;' some others called them simply 'cubs' or the acronym 'CUB' (see-you-bee), but this particular woman called them 'cubbies'--which to me seemed a rather childish way of referring to numbers.
She constantly interrupted me when I was giving reports, calling the thing that I gave by its real name, 'he means cubbies, you know.'
This same woman had the habit of adding consonaut-'ie' to a lot of words, as if learned from baby-talk or something.
This was a grown-up, liberated, woman doing this.
The normal person speaks at a rate of, perhaps, 200-300 words per minute; I speak at a rate of 20, maybe as fast as 30 words per minute. So under usual circumstances, 'customer utilization bases' already seems long.....but so as to irk her, I could drag that phrase out for a mile, making it ten miles long if I wished to.
Many times I was hollered at by her, 'WHY DON'T YOU GET WITH THE PROGRAM????', in reference of course to my refusal to baby-talk about serious numbers.
From other sources--I myself never went to her house--I learned this liberated woman had a 'thing' for teddy-bears (she was in her late 40s, and single), and the headboard over her bed was a half-circle some seven feet high, colored pink and lavish with ruffles and frills.
Such are those who use "cutesy" names for things.
Bah, humbug.
I don't think 'Free Republican' is all that bad, heaven knows we've been called worse.
If anyone gets offended, just ask them where the constitutional right NOT to be offended IS.
That'll shut them up! :)
Freeper isn't a cutsie term, really. Now, freepie, I think, would definitely be considered cutsie.
Perhaps, in your line of thinking that FReeper is "cutsey" as so would be Free Republic-ans, since this is not a Republican party site, and the "-ans" would be just as slang as FReeper.
However, with that said, you can call me anything you want, as long as it is not an insult - and you don't call me late for dinner. LOL. Hope that helped to clear it up for you.
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