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posted by [identity profile] library-keeper.livejournal.com at 06:27pm on 22/01/2010
Agreed, except that I don't think it's true to say that these are acronyms 'everyone will understand'. Everyone doesn't. In practice their use is restricted to internet-savvy members of Generation Y, a smaller group than you might suppose. (Personally, I recognise most of the acronyms you list, but what is WWD? Wikipedia suggests Women's Wear Daily but I wouldn't say this 'comes up a lot' in your writing.) I don't get hung up about correctness -- I'm a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist -- but I think there's a risk of excluding people by using acronyms; it can come across as a way of saying 'are you cool enough to be in my gang?'

As for 'fuck', you don't always realise the effect it has on other people. This is fresh in my mind because of a conversation I had with Petra a few days ago which went as follows:

P: Daddy, why doesn't Sasha like me?
Me: I'm sure she does, darling; whatever gave you that idea?
P: But she called me 'your fucking daughter'. Why did she say that about me?

I was certainly at fault in not asking you to mind your language around Petra, but I do think (and I hope you won't mind my saying so) that you were also at fault in not considering the effect of your words on one hurt and confused little girl who is now convinced that you dislike her. I feel embarrassed about mentioning this (please don't take it as a rebuke), but I thought you'd want to know.
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posted by [identity profile] sashagoblin.livejournal.com at 12:45am on 23/01/2010
Of course i want to know, i hope you assured her otherwise, and will do so mysel at the earliest opportunity. Maybe sometime this weekend, orare you busy? And i will of course be careful in future.

But, several factors i think are relevant:

1)Petra's attitude to linuistic taboos is a product of yours an Alison's, just like kids who say 'fuck' all the time because Mummy and Daddy do or they watch Eastenders or somethig. Children are different from adults, and 99.9% of tse i talk to these days are adults, and i'm usually not bad at gauging their likely reactions. Even i i then proceed to invite censure.:oP

2) The circumstances o that conversation, if you recall. I haven't been quite so angry fr some time, as i'm sure you can imagine, and am unlikely to be so for a while. And Ihad at that stage said i'd gobecause i was finding it difficult to be civil, and you'd begged me not to, so i'deven warned you i was beyond my normallevels of rationalcontrol. I'd imagine Petra's reaction was inspired not so muchby the word itself as my manner, which i'm sure was scary, but was damn carefully never aimed at her. In fact i recall hissing that phrase right at you, which i'm sure was scary,but more because she didn't understand where the sudden ucontrollable venom came from than simply the vocab i used to express it. Poor darling might eventhink it was her. I hope you explained that i was cross with you??
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posted by [identity profile] library-keeper.livejournal.com at 10:26pm on 23/01/2010
AAMOF Petra hasn't grown up in a fuck-free household, whatever you may think. In a tantrum, aged six, she threatened: 'I'll use the F-word', and then, when this didn't produce the desired effect, yelled 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' and was very disconcerted when Alison and I burst out laughing. She has heard me say 'fuck' at moments of stress (usually while driving) and knows that I don't make a big issue out of it. We don't treat it as a taboo. At the same time we try not to normalise it.

Seriously (or should that be 'srsly'?) I hope you carry on blurting out 'fuck' at inappropriate moments, because it's part of the impulsive, uninhibited, shoot-from-the-hip Sasha I know and love. You might want to avoid it at academic job interviews, though. TANSTAAFL.
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posted by [identity profile] sashagoblin.livejournal.com at 10:57am on 26/01/2010
:oP if that's the case, Arnold, you then have even *less* case for suggesting it was my vocabulary itself, rather than the manner in which i pronounced it, for which you were largely responsible, as stated above - that upset her so much. Poor darling probably thinks she'd done something wrong. :o(
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] library-keeper.livejournal.com at 01:01pm on 26/01/2010
It was *both* your choice of words *and* the way you said them. Petra said nothing at the time, but mentioned it to me about a fortnight later, so she'd obviously been brooding on it. Don't worry, I reassured her that she was not the object of your wrath.
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