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What is a straw figure? Any meaning you put to it is through the implicit association with straw man. And it is amusing because because it is irony is so plai

by JackFr 4y ago

What is a straw figure? Any meaning you put to it is through the implicit association with straw man. And it is amusing because because it is irony is so plain. The author is telling us there is no coddling, and yet he changes a perfectly harmless English language idiom because it has a reference to gender.

lukas099 4y ago
> Figure: bodily shape or form especially of a person Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/figure https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/figure
s1artibartfast 4y ago
Based on my reading, I don't think that the author would argue that there is no change and censorship on campus. "blaming a massive generational psychological shift for censorship on campus, instead of the real cause: a political problem of powerful administrative structures promoting repression at colleges" If they use the word figures instead of men, perhaps it is not because they fear offending some student, but other powerful and repressive groups.
nathan_compton 4y ago
I think its really weird to get bent out of shape about this stuff. I doubt seriously that the author believes that "straw-man" is "harmful." Even if one did feel it was harmful, one would have to be dumb indeed to believe it was important on the grand list of harmful stuff. That said, its also harmless to modernize the idiom. When straw man was coined, women were much less a part of public life, and now they aren't. I don't see the problem updating the idiom to reflect a fundamentally less gendered world. Like clearly if you think "strawman" is harmless then you must also believe that "strawfigure" is just as harmless? Language changes for all kinds of reasons.
- JackFr 4y ago
  > I think its really weird to get bent out of shape about this stuff. Hardly bent out of shape. Literally amused. Unintended irony of all sorts is generally amusing.

by JackFr 4y ago

lukas099 4y ago

> Figure: bodily shape or form especially of a person Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/figure https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/figure

s1artibartfast 4y ago

Based on my reading, I don't think that the author would argue that there is no change and censorship on campus. "blaming a massive generational psychological shift for censorship on campus, instead of the real cause: a political problem of powerful administrative structures promoting repression at colleges" If they use the word figures instead of men, perhaps it is not because they fear offending some student, but other powerful and repressive groups.

nathan_compton 4y ago

I think its really weird to get bent out of shape about this stuff. I doubt seriously that the author believes that "straw-man" is "harmful." Even if one did feel it was harmful, one would have to be dumb indeed to believe it was important on the grand list of harmful stuff. That said, its also harmless to modernize the idiom. When straw man was coined, women were much less a part of public life, and now they aren't. I don't see the problem updating the idiom to reflect a fundamentally less gendered world. Like clearly if you think "strawman" is harmless then you must also believe that "strawfigure" is just as harmless? Language changes for all kinds of reasons.

JackFr 4y ago
> I think its really weird to get bent out of shape about this stuff. Hardly bent out of shape. Literally amused. Unintended irony of all sorts is generally amusing.