I'm also sick of this whole "bitch" thing. You'll see bumper stickers that say "Number 1 Bitch" or girl who'll say "So what? I know I'm a bitch, blah blah blah." Like it's okay or something. I'm guessing they think bitch means assertive. It's pretty much the same with the whole "nerd" thing, though. It's not a positive thing and I'm sure people wouldn't go around calling themselves all these negative things if they knew the real definition.
When you look at the history of language you realize that words are what people have made of them. Words change meaning all the time. You could change a word's meaning or create a new word right now if you wanted to! It's fun! (I recently created the word wildspace to refer to an open space in an urbanized area that has a naturally diverse range of wildlife living in it, as compared to a monocultured lawn. Now that word is in Wikipedia. Who knows, it might catch on...) Now that we are living in the "information age" it's even easier to affect change in our language. In ten years the two words "a lot" may become one word if the trend in smooshing the letters together continues (though I wish that wouldn't happen).
As for me, I'm a geek. And I'm fat. These are not negative words when I use them, they simply represent reality. And who am I to argue with reality? To me, I could be all offended and feel bad about myself when people call me fat or geeky, or I could say, "Yes, I am! You are absolutely correct! I'm so proud
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Yes, that's exactly what the above definition says :)
No, it doesn't have a nice origin, but most of us are happy to embrace it. My husband's a big geek; I'm very happy to geek out on sci-fi; the linguistic shift is such that it's been effectively reclaimed. Nigger is not a word that has been effectively reclaimed - there's too much recent baggage, and my understanding is that many Black people find it too deeply offensive under any circumstance for it to be reclaimed any time soon (if ever). The use and reclaimation of derogatory terms is both fascinating and deeply uncomfortable.
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As for me, I'm a geek. And I'm fat. These are not negative words when I use them, they simply represent reality. And who am I to argue with reality? To me, I could be all offended and feel bad about myself when people call me fat or geeky, or I could say, "Yes, I am! You are absolutely correct! I'm so proud ( ... )
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gook /guk/ Pronunciation[gook]
-noun Slang (disparaging and offensive).
1. a native of Southeast Asia or the South Pacific, esp. when a member of an enemy military force.
2. any dark-skinned foreigner, esp. one from the Middle East.
3. anyone who is offensive to others because of stupidity, coarseness, etc.
[Origin: 1930-35; of uncert. orig; cf. earlier googoo, gugu, as opprobrious term for a Filipino, and perh. comparable relationship of kook to cuckoo]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
geek /gik/ Prounciation[geek ( ... )
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No, it doesn't have a nice origin, but most of us are happy to embrace it. My husband's a big geek; I'm very happy to geek out on sci-fi; the linguistic shift is such that it's been effectively reclaimed. Nigger is not a word that has been effectively reclaimed - there's too much recent baggage, and my understanding is that many Black people find it too deeply offensive under any circumstance for it to be reclaimed any time soon (if ever). The use and reclaimation of derogatory terms is both fascinating and deeply uncomfortable.
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