Whats_your_reasoning

I’m disgusted by how many therapist and counselor offices I see on there.

As a Millennial whose teen years were filled with adults pushing me to gO To cOLleGe constantly, I’m pretty pissed. I could make and fill a Bingo card of bullshit reasons people repeated ad nauseum, yet in retrospect there is one critical reason that nobody mentioned - that if you want to emigrate, other countries only want you if you’re “educated.” (Or “skilled.”)

I can’t imagine most adults I knew were even aware of the requirements for becoming a citizen in another country. I had dreams of moving to Canada at that age, so if somebody had known, it would’ve been a very convincing argument on me. For those that don’t know - the system is set up to prevent most people from going anywhere, but having a specialized degree makes you desirable internationally. It’s one of the few ways that ordinary (read: non-wealthy) people have that allows them to move to a new country.

Way to absolutely miss the point.

I don’t need to be or decide it and it’s not my opinion: the language community is the ultimate authority of their language. Their collective choices establish observable conventions. Linguistics is dedicated to that approach.

A not-insignificant amount of women think using the term "female" is derogatory. Women who feel that way are part of the "language community." You're talking like we're some outsider group, whose use of English is less valid than yours.

Language has conventional, established meanings.

Language is alive - it evolves, it changes. As well, English famously doesn't have an established body to define meanings. Rather, English words are based on common usage. Women commonly experience the usage of "female" in a derogatory sense. We didn't designate it this way - all we're doing is pointing out that it's used in this way. Just because you don't feel a derogatory sense from a given word doesn't mean those that experience it that way are wrong.

If you had gone out to research the usage of "female," including how people perceive it in different contexts, you'd see just how many anglophones disagree with you. But those people would probably, by and large, be those who've experienced that word in a derogatory way - in other words, they'd be women. So how about we stop acting like this is a semantics issue and get to the point you're really saying, which is that women's experiences and opinions are somehow worth less than yours.

If it were an ordinary sentence used in casual conversation, sure. But for a news headline, it makes sense to put the most important information at the beginning.

So, caring about the environment = cool

But caring about animals, which are inextricably a part of the environment (a link which can be demonstrated by the pollution produced by industrial farming) = not cool?

Seems an odd place to draw the line, but ok.

What makes you the ultimate authority on what terms a woman can consider "derogatory"? Where do you get the power to decide what words other people should use to describe their own feelings? What makes your opinion about it more valid than those of others?

Have you considered that the same word can make two different people feel two different ways? Unless you've got the power to know exactly what another person is feeling, there is nothing that makes your thoughts more valid than the thoughts of others in this matter. Doubling down that "derogatory" isn't the right word to use gives the impression that you don't believe "female" actually feels derogatory to a lot of women. Gotta wonder why that might be.

Yeah, mispronouncing AI is strange, but what about her wanting to use AI to educate first graders, even preschool kids?

I just... I don't know what good can come of that.

I often think about how Hank Hill would react to our current political climate. He's too pure for this shit. I think in the last election he would've bit his tongue, voted Democrat, and shivered whenever he thought about it.

It's all pathetic. Devoting one's time to following someone around just to downvote them is a pathetic way to live. It's not less pathetic if they comment - the lack of comments is just something I've observed.

He claimed in 2019 that “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once” as a result of insufficient water pressure.

Uhh, this sounds like a "you" problem, Mr. President. More fiber might help. Anyway, thanks for broadcasting your bowel troubles to the whole world, it sure makes you look strong.

No need to apologize! That's a cool self-fact. :)