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In response to
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livredor, who is uncomfortable with the way I used the term "grownup":No apologies necessary. Text doesn't always convey tone as well as we'd like.
As for the term, I'd say that--and I can't speak for
rysmiel here, of course, though that's where I picked up this usage--there are varied grownup ways of addressing such matters, and I hope my attitude is one of them. For example, simply not wanting to cuddle isn't childish. And assuming that of course you can snuggle people is a thing children do; tagging that with sexual and social reasons not to is an adolescent thing. Adults, I hope, would be able to say, at least to themselves and usually to the other people directly involved, things like "I'd like a hug now" or "I'm not comfortable being touched." It's not in any way grownup for a person to sulk if an acquaintance doesn't want to hug them: that, like other aspects of friendship and affection, should be a gift, and is not something that a person has a right to demand just because they're in the same place as you are, or because you're hugging someone else.Having expanded a bit, or at least rambled, I'll go back to what you actually wrote and add that I'd be happy to look at better terms for this. Ideally terms that aren't already overloaded and don't have worse implications.
In response to
james_nicoll's statement that, if and when he dies, that is the term he wants used, not "passed away" or any other phrase that implies I went on a trip but neglected to purchase a return ticket":Me too.
Should it be relevant, I have no objection to specifics being stated: "died of X disease", "was killed in a crash", that sort of thing.
I'm not sure why I care, since I'm reasonably sure that there are no gods and no afterlife, and thus that I'll never know what terms anyone uses. Unless, of course, the rumors of my death prove to have been exaggerated.
In response to a friends-locked comment thread in which someone asked why people lie/don't keep their word:
I don't know.
Or, rather, I can identify some of the reasons--there is a cluster of reasons for lying that fall under self-protectiveness, fear, and laziness (in a Venn diagram sort of way, not that those three are the same), and a maybe-connected selfishness that doesn't see good reason to keep promises to others--but I don't understand the latter, I just try to identify those people before I've given them too much of my time or heart. I sort of understand the former, especially in power-differential situations where it may be genuinely unsafe to tell the truth. And that sort of lying can be a hard habit to unlearn.
Axiom lock: In response to someone in
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statements writing that "There's nothing better than getting a 61 dollar dress for nine dollars.":I could probably list ten better things that I've experienced in the last fortnight, though not all of them are the business of anyone other than the people involved.
Yes, I know it's hyperbole: but this is Yet Another case of radically incompatible worldviews. Perhaps less compatible than, say, my pagan agnosticism and some of my friends' sincere belief in exactly one god.
ozarque has been posting about Ozark English pragmatics, and specifically about communication with elders in that dialect and culture. This morning, she wrote about elders' critical statements. After reading that post and a few comments to it, I wrote:This post helped me clarify something I'd been thinking about with regard to your recent posts.
My objection to the idea that elders are entitled to respect automatically is not to that idea but to the converse: the idea that only elders are entitled to that respect.
That is, I do think elders are entitled to respect, but not because of age. They are entitled to respect because they are people. And that respect, human to human, isn't something that you have to accumulate over time.
I'm not thinking of formalisms here: there's nothing necessarily wrong with customs under which an elder is "Grandma Jones" and a youth is "Mary". The problem comes when Mary's opinions, desires, or experiences are disregarded because of age. Or when Grandma Jones's are.
Yes, it's useful to have peaceful/deflecting ways of responding to hostile criticism from elders or others in a position of power. But I don't think it's useful for people to spend decades being pressured to bottle up their opinions, and then when they get old enough "get their digs in" at anyone younger than themselves.
Similarly, while it may be effective to respond to criticism by pretending the remark hadn't been made (you know your culture and its pragmatics), it doesn't feel respectful from here. You've noted that much of what people--including but not limited to elders--want is to be listened to.
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From:
About "died"
To a Euphemist
She died a horrible death
When the rock crashed through the glass
From the overpass above.
She did not pass away, friend.
Those who pass away die calm,
After long, hard illness,
Ceasing upon the midnight
As John Keats wrote long ago.
Do you fear the bald word “died”
As our parents feared “cancer”?
That word can’t just strike you down
Or make you “catch” death yourself.
There’s no shame in being dead
That you have to whisper low
Turning your face to shadow
As if a criminal passed.
Using soft words will not help
Assuage the grief in our hearts.
May as well come out and say
The truth. She’s dead, she’s just dead.
7/7/03
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Re: About "died"
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Well, if I have to. But I will not pass away, I will not be lost to you (what? you forgot the claim check?), or any other euphemism. And I'd prefer it if that was the term people used.
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I don't want anyone sugarcoating my life. Tell it as it is, not this namby-pamby "he was a good man" crap from someone who never met me, representing a religion I don't espouse.
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Died: That's what I say about people I know who have died. Lost: That is how I feel about some of them; I have lost them, I am lost without them. That feeling is too... intimate and tender and raw, to make public. I stick with public facts. Died.
Lying: Children tell what they believe you want to hear. So much of it is about making people happy to make one's own life easier.
Dresses: My better thing is *not buying it* and spending the money on books. A common phrase in my family is "Oh wow - I wish I could afford to do that, I would do something so much more interesting with the money."
Respect: Up to a point, assumptions are useful and respect is earned and things. But there's a base level people get for existing. That's politeness. Paying attention to - basing actions or opinions on - other people's opinions is a lot more complicated, and MAY have something to do with age. See also: Grownup.
Hmm. Interesting. Thank you.
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it is, perhaps, similar to the usage of the word "civilized". Most of us who are walking around on two legs, living in modern society, dwelling in boxes, and eating food that was prepared somewhere else would have to count as being part of civilization, and thus civilized. The use of the word is a distinguisher often refers to something beyond the basic connotations,a higher level of attainment or achievement, at least in the areas dear to one's own heart.
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Of course, I'm also the same person who defines "sane" as "capable of responding to things in an appropriate way, either on your own or after things have been explained to you." (With overtones of "understands and asks for necessary explanations when things don't make sense, and reacts according to the content and value of said explanation.")
They're both somewhat fluid concepts, though -- I was a "grownup" when I was 12, and would like to think that I am again now, but I wasn't when I was in college. Of course, I also think that "childish" and "childlike" are two different meanings, where the first is pejorative and the second isn't (at least when applied to people who are not age-wise children).
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I like the word "civilized" better here, or possibly even "peer." Both in my own native-idiolect and as a new father I tend to think of the word grown-up as a differentiator between small children and adults. Now, I can relate just fine to the word grown-up meaning a person who regardless of their age eschews acts of pettiness and frivolous contempt -- this is a fairly common usage that I'm familiar with.
"Civilized," for me, though means that I see qualities in a person that help them function well in society. It goes a little deeper than that, though, because civilized, for me, means that I can have respect for that person regardless of their level of achievement or place in society. I have respect for the person who serves me behind the counter at my favorite bakery and the guy at Margie's Candies (classic Chicago ice-cream shop) who always asks about how my son is. I see them as civilized. I have respect for and see as "civilized" a particular professor who I actually loathe on a personal level -- he is a mean old man, but a strict Confucian: bitterly honest, highly developed sense of society's various strata and his expected resting position therein, values tradition highly, is intelligent, and hardworking. These are all qualities I think of when I think of the word "civilized", but the list is by no means complete nor exclusive nor do I claim or even desire to fit all the characteristics I just listed myself. It basically defines a list of people who I can work with and relate to in the context of their place in a civilized society.
Personally, I know I have an odd definition of "peer" because I can't think of any other word along the lines that isn't loaded with meaning beyond what I can lend it. A peer to me is a person who I can see myself developing a close personal friendship with, or at least someone I can understand and interact with on a deeper level that is strictly available via the above definition of "civilized." Actually, that's a fairly poor and convoluted statement of it, but it's the best I can think of to say -- you'd have to know me to know whom I consider a peer. It's something I've never found myself trying to explain, and so my explanation.
I'll try to cut the rest of my comment short... I tend to say "died" or "died of X" or "succumbed to X" -- I see no evidence for, nor do I particularly care about a life after death, so "passed on" and such have little meaning to me and I don't use them.
And finally, being from the area myself, Ozark English pragmatics are very familiar to me. In fact, my distaste for the phrases "Yes sir/ma'am, no sir/ma'am," stem directly from being called out and forced to say them to my elders back home lest I "not show proper respect". Meh. Still fills me with distaste.
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That said--
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>Axiom lock: In response to someone in [info]statements writing that "There's nothing better than getting a 61 dollar dress for nine dollars."
The $61 dress isn't really the point.
The savings of $52 isn't the point, either.
Those are just ways of keeping score, in the Mighty Gatherer Contest, which this person apparently takes seriously. There can be "You Are A Mighty Gatherer" prize certificates, or some other evidence that a person has attempted something difficult and done it well.
It's still hyperbole, and it's still a contest I don't play. But it makes more sense to me than it did when I thought it was all about the dress or the money. (Or when I thought collectors did what they did only because of the stamps or books or whatever they were collecting. A lot of it is the same Mighty Gatherer impulse.)
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Looking at it as being good at something I don't consider terribly important/interesting helps. The odd part is, I do have some Mighty Gatherer impulses--you saw me at the used bookstore, and I can do much the same at the Greenmarket on a good summer morning--but while thrift is something I value, it's not as shiny as finding something that I've been looking for, or didn't know existed but immediately want.