(no subject)

Biking on the channel trail yesterday, I saw that Chicago has demolished the little dam in River Park that the north branch of the Chicago River tumbled over at it's junction with the North Shore Channel. Now it's just a little bit of splashing whitewater.

(no subject)

I get frustrated when I feel like there's a fight about language that the side I'm on ends up losing. I'm all about descriptivism in language, but I think I can accept and use current understandings of terms and still be angry when the issue behind is primarily political and the change feels like a concession to opponents.

TERF as a slur. My instinctive response to the idea that TERFs are upset about being referred to by a word that's a slur is that that's basically the point of a slur, right? It's a slur that's not racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or anything that otherwise attacks vulnerable groups. It's a slur, in that it is "an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo" (Miriam-Webster online). And you know what? They deserve to be referred to with a slur. Finding out that someone says that some women are not women makes me want to insult them. If you don't like being referred to with a slur, stop doing things that deserve it. In arguing that TERF isn't a slur, it feels like we're trying to wiggle out from under the idea that we're intentionally saying something to upset people. "It's just descriptive."

I feel like saying it's "simply descriptive," or "TERFs created the word themselves so it's ok" is it's own kind of prescriptivism. The word *means* something beyond its literal meaning, and words change over time. To TERFs, it feels like a slur. I'd argue that that's because that is the way it is used. I own that, and I think it's deserved. Rather than say "this word means what *I* say and not what *you* say", in a prescriptivist way, what feels right to me is saying "yes, I use that word because it upsets you and you deserve that."

It feels just like the people arguing that social security and similar things aren't entitlements because people pay into them. Of course they're entitlements; people are damned well entitled to them!

I guess I just had to get that out so I don't still feel so frustrated that I want to block content that I otherwise love, like Assigned Male Comics.

Again, I'm not saying that anybody is doing anything wrong. I just wish things hadn't ended up this way.