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The usage you cite here is indeed common, and the fact that it is common is a terrible thing. I'm not going to repeat a dozen other posts in this thread, but th

• will_brown 14y ago
  >The usage you cite here is indeed common, and the fact that it is common is a terrible thing. +1 because I agree, and I know you disagreed with me on another comment, but I want to make clear I personally do not use this word in this context. > Regardless of the intent of the speaker, this usage encourages actual rapists to believe that their peers don't see rape as a big deal, which in turn makes them more likely to rape. (I'm not an expert on this stuff so I don't have a whole list of links at hand to back up these statements, but pretty much every actual expert that I've seen writing about this topic seems to agree. I've given a couple of links for formal support in earlier posts here.) I will obviously defer to the experts; however, to be honest it is hard to apply that logic to a real life example I have been known to use: Did you see the superbowl? SF was getting KILLED until the second half, then they made it a good game. I have used kill and killed in the sports context, so according to the experts logic my usage of kill/killed does a great to normalize killing in our culture, and it makes actual killing seem a routine part of life. I find it harder to believe that by using kill/killed in this context I may have encouraged my peers to not see killing as a big deal, which in turn makes them more likely to kill.
  • Steuard 14y ago
    "I want to make clear I personally do not use this word in this context." Oh, good! :) As for your later point, again, I'm not an expert on this either, but I'd guess that context is essential for these things. I've lived my entire life in communities where lethal force was essentially never used, and just from the fact that you participate in this forum I think it's pretty likely that the same is true for you. In that context, I don't think there's an existing cultural norm that killing is routine for your comment to reinforce. However, I might guess that the same would not have been true in Northern Ireland at many points in the past century, or in some American inner city neighborhoods today (or in a foxhole in the Vietnam war, for that matter). In those contexts, I would worry a lot more that language like what you describe would indeed reinforce the broad existing societal expectation of violence, and that it would contribute a little bit toward encouraging those around you to devalue human life. In fact, my impression is that it's only been quite recently in the history of civilization that significant fractions of humanity have been lucky enough to grow up without such norms; heck, dueling was still an accepted (or even expected) way of settling grudges in the early days of US independence (e.g. Burr and Hamilton). It's entirely possible that the usage you describe is a linguistic holdover from that earlier era. Women, meanwhile, have been stuck living out their lives in rape-Belfast more or less forever. It's only very recently that that's started to change, anywhere.