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Is the mindset of "cats are easily scared" considered socially unacceptable and offensive nowadays? Or is the word pusillanimous a derogatory term? I'm extremel

Is the mindset of "cats are easily scared" considered socially unacceptable and offensive nowadays? Or is the word pusillanimous a derogatory term? I'm extremely confused by your distain of the phrase "pussied out." "Manned up" is understandable, though.

skybrian 11y ago
It doesn't refer to cats. It's a rude way to refer to women.
- such_a_casual 11y ago
  That's a very interesting interpretation. >if I had only manned up and broken out sed, but I pussied out and wrote some Python Sounds to me like the author was speaking about being tough vs being weak. It doesn't sound like he was referring to women at all. I wonder if we asked the author if he would say he was talking about how weak women are? Cause I seriously doubt that.
  - skybrian 11y ago
    Yes, he wasn't talking about women specifically but it's like "manned up" or "throws like a girl". It's a figure of speech based on the assumption that women are weaker than men. At one time such metaphors were common but they're no longer considered polite. Times have changed and if you want your writing to have the effect you intended, you need to know these things. I suspect the author wanted to sound a bit rude, though.
    - such_a_casual 11y ago
      > "if you want your writing to have the effect you intended" And here's where we are in strong disagreement. You know exactly what the author meant. I know exactly what the author meant. We both know that the author did not intend to offend anyone, and being a blog post, was speaking the way he would to himself or to his friends. However, the way that I see things, is that yourself, as well as others in this thread, want to make-believe that the meaning was somehow lost because the author didn't use words and phrases from the PC playbook. This is where I believe I our argument lies (and I think you'd agree). Just because you are offended, or you think someone else was offended, doesn't change what the author meant, and it hasn't prevented you from knowing what the author meant. In my opinion, the use non-PC language is a very effective tool of weeding out people who aren't good listeners.
      - skybrian 11y ago
        I don't know whether the author intended to offend anyone. The article is by Ted Dziuba who likes to publish controversial articles sometimes so I'm not sure how rude he was trying to be. But in any case, I was just trying to clarify English usage for someone who sounded like they might actually be confused. So explaining the meaning of words (including whether they are "rude" or "PC" or not, for some audiences) was on-topic for the subthread (though not for the original discussion). Your idea about being intentionally rude and seeing who ignores it is an odd strategy for a writer; that's one step away from trolling, which is usually done to derail conversations.
    - throwaway_1010 11y ago
      Is it possible that the author's use of "manned up" concerns growth and ascension, i.e. boy -> man? There is nothing wrong with being a man, some boys in this society should try it some time. Example, from my father when I was a boy: "Son, sometimes you'll be in situations where you just need to man up and go through it alone. I won't be there, your Mother won't be there. It will be just you and any wisdom you may have."
      - skybrian 11y ago
        Yes, I agree, "manned up" didn't used to be considered rude. I'm sure a lot of people still wouldn't consider it rude. I'm not personally offended. But still, if you knew Spanish and someone gave their product a name that was rude in a common dialect of Spanish, you'd tell them, right? Especially when the language is changing, not everyone is going to know, and opinions about what's rude sometimes differ. It's still useful as a writer to know how different people interpret things.
        throwaway_1010 11y ago
        Stop thinking for "a lot of people"..you're doing it wrong. I speak Spanish, Hombre. I think you are over-sensitive and distracted...it's an article about Taco Bell. The author was speaking to himself, aka self talk...so you posit he was being rude...to himself. If you and like-minded individuals consider "manned up" rude...you are either over-thinking, trying to be the thought-police, are over-sensitive, or have never been in a situation where you manned-up. Rude? Seriously. Thank the stars society has someone like you to interpret someone else's words and translate to all languages censoring and removing all ambiguity. -Hombre
- AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
  Do you have a reference on that? I've always interpreted as in 'scaredy cat,' since female genitalia aren't traditionally considered afraid of anything, and cats are.
  - skybrian 11y ago
    I don't really want to search for a reference, but one other person posted with the same interpretation and this one got upvoted, which suggests at least some other people understood it the same way.
    - AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
      I'm not claiming it's the correct interpretation, and honestly my googling is coming up short because of the vast usages of that phrase on urban dictionary, but honest to god I had never heard a misogynistic interpretation of it before this thread. I never use the phrase in real life because it sounds vulgar, but it's surprising. If my interpretation was correct, I wonder if it's sort of a 'niggardly' situation, where people stop using a word because it sounds similar to something vulgar.
      - skybrian 11y ago
        Yeah, that's why I didn't google it. Like all words its meaning depends on what most people think it means. I'm not all that surprised that you never heard of it. Maybe I just had rude friends when I grew up.
    - throwaway_1010 11y ago
      skybrian, not everyone thinks about pussy the way you or some others do. Pussy = scared cat or uncertain cat. Insert the word vagina into the author's sentence and see if he meant he took the easy way like a prolapsed vagina. Over-sensitive, usually wrong, pussy.
dschulz 11y ago
s/distain/disdain/g
spoiler 11y ago
> Or is the word pusillanimous a derogatory term? I'm extremely confused by your distain of the phrase "pussied out." I think they meant "manning up" signifies to act like a man, while "pussied out" is use in a derogatory fashion to signify acting like a woman (especially since the term "pussy" is often used to describe a vagina). I could be wrong, though. However, even though I am a proponent of equality (and know quite a few developers who are women), I don't find those expressions offensive (neither do they). Also, I don't even find LGBT (I'm gay) derogatory terms offensive. Being offended is, in my opinion, always a choice. With all this said, I do believe that such language doesn't belong here, because this type of behaviour likely has deterred some people from being more active in this industry (it's irrelevant if they're "overly sensitive" or if the author lacks decency/respect/politeness/tact/diplomacy/whatever).

skybrian 11y ago

It doesn't refer to cats. It's a rude way to refer to women.

such_a_casual 11y ago
That's a very interesting interpretation. >if I had only manned up and broken out sed, but I pussied out and wrote some Python Sounds to me like the author was speaking about being tough vs being weak. It doesn't sound like he was referring to women at all. I wonder if we asked the author if he would say he was talking about how weak women are? Cause I seriously doubt that.
- skybrian 11y ago
  Yes, he wasn't talking about women specifically but it's like "manned up" or "throws like a girl". It's a figure of speech based on the assumption that women are weaker than men. At one time such metaphors were common but they're no longer considered polite. Times have changed and if you want your writing to have the effect you intended, you need to know these things. I suspect the author wanted to sound a bit rude, though.
  - such_a_casual 11y ago
    > "if you want your writing to have the effect you intended" And here's where we are in strong disagreement. You know exactly what the author meant. I know exactly what the author meant. We both know that the author did not intend to offend anyone, and being a blog post, was speaking the way he would to himself or to his friends. However, the way that I see things, is that yourself, as well as others in this thread, want to make-believe that the meaning was somehow lost because the author didn't use words and phrases from the PC playbook. This is where I believe I our argument lies (and I think you'd agree). Just because you are offended, or you think someone else was offended, doesn't change what the author meant, and it hasn't prevented you from knowing what the author meant. In my opinion, the use non-PC language is a very effective tool of weeding out people who aren't good listeners.
    - skybrian 11y ago
      I don't know whether the author intended to offend anyone. The article is by Ted Dziuba who likes to publish controversial articles sometimes so I'm not sure how rude he was trying to be. But in any case, I was just trying to clarify English usage for someone who sounded like they might actually be confused. So explaining the meaning of words (including whether they are "rude" or "PC" or not, for some audiences) was on-topic for the subthread (though not for the original discussion). Your idea about being intentionally rude and seeing who ignores it is an odd strategy for a writer; that's one step away from trolling, which is usually done to derail conversations.
  - throwaway_1010 11y ago
    Is it possible that the author's use of "manned up" concerns growth and ascension, i.e. boy -> man? There is nothing wrong with being a man, some boys in this society should try it some time. Example, from my father when I was a boy: "Son, sometimes you'll be in situations where you just need to man up and go through it alone. I won't be there, your Mother won't be there. It will be just you and any wisdom you may have."
    - skybrian 11y ago
      Yes, I agree, "manned up" didn't used to be considered rude. I'm sure a lot of people still wouldn't consider it rude. I'm not personally offended. But still, if you knew Spanish and someone gave their product a name that was rude in a common dialect of Spanish, you'd tell them, right? Especially when the language is changing, not everyone is going to know, and opinions about what's rude sometimes differ. It's still useful as a writer to know how different people interpret things.
      - throwaway_1010 11y ago
        Stop thinking for "a lot of people"..you're doing it wrong. I speak Spanish, Hombre. I think you are over-sensitive and distracted...it's an article about Taco Bell. The author was speaking to himself, aka self talk...so you posit he was being rude...to himself. If you and like-minded individuals consider "manned up" rude...you are either over-thinking, trying to be the thought-police, are over-sensitive, or have never been in a situation where you manned-up. Rude? Seriously. Thank the stars society has someone like you to interpret someone else's words and translate to all languages censoring and removing all ambiguity. -Hombre
AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
Do you have a reference on that? I've always interpreted as in 'scaredy cat,' since female genitalia aren't traditionally considered afraid of anything, and cats are.
- skybrian 11y ago
  I don't really want to search for a reference, but one other person posted with the same interpretation and this one got upvoted, which suggests at least some other people understood it the same way.
  - AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
    I'm not claiming it's the correct interpretation, and honestly my googling is coming up short because of the vast usages of that phrase on urban dictionary, but honest to god I had never heard a misogynistic interpretation of it before this thread. I never use the phrase in real life because it sounds vulgar, but it's surprising. If my interpretation was correct, I wonder if it's sort of a 'niggardly' situation, where people stop using a word because it sounds similar to something vulgar.
    - skybrian 11y ago
      Yeah, that's why I didn't google it. Like all words its meaning depends on what most people think it means. I'm not all that surprised that you never heard of it. Maybe I just had rude friends when I grew up.
  - throwaway_1010 11y ago
    skybrian, not everyone thinks about pussy the way you or some others do. Pussy = scared cat or uncertain cat. Insert the word vagina into the author's sentence and see if he meant he took the easy way like a prolapsed vagina. Over-sensitive, usually wrong, pussy.

dschulz 11y ago

s/distain/disdain/g

spoiler 11y ago

> Or is the word pusillanimous a derogatory term? I'm extremely confused by your distain of the phrase "pussied out." I think they meant "manning up" signifies to act like a man, while "pussied out" is use in a derogatory fashion to signify acting like a woman (especially since the term "pussy" is often used to describe a vagina). I could be wrong, though. However, even though I am a proponent of equality (and know quite a few developers who are women), I don't find those expressions offensive (neither do they). Also, I don't even find LGBT (I'm gay) derogatory terms offensive. Being offended is, in my opinion, always a choice. With all this said, I do believe that such language doesn't belong here, because this type of behaviour likely has deterred some people from being more active in this industry (it's irrelevant if they're "overly sensitive" or if the author lacks decency/respect/politeness/tact/diplomacy/whatever).