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Community 1x17: Physical Education

(via communitythings)

Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.

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That’s weird because I would hazard a guess serious fandom actually originated with Star Trek.

Maybe “fandom” itself is a newer word, but fan culture hasn’t changed terribly much over the last 30-40 years in terms of how people get excited and what they get excited over (though avenues for communicating said excitement have changed), and Star Trek really kicked off a lot of what we now take for granted in fandom—slash pairings, fanfiction, shipping, cosplay, and so on.

Let’s Be Language Pirates And Raid Other Lexicons For Their Pretties

greencrook:

Part 1 of my Gallifreyan dictionary : the universe, elements, and emotions.

Part 0, basics.

(via zombicorns)

blainetology:

Let’s go to the dictionary!

With “guy” we’re going to focus on 3 and 4, because I don’t think anyone is accusing members of the Glee club of being effigies of Guy Fawkes.

With “bro,” note that it redirects to “brother.” Also feel free to ignore 3, as we have no canon proof that anyone is a minister.

The word “guys” has, for all intents and purposes, become slang - a colloquialism used to refer to a group of people. Harry says something along the lines of “All the guys are here, the bros,” effectively indicating that he’s using both words interchangeably to identify the group in the scene.

With “bro,” other than the definition of an ACTUAL brother, as in a male who shares your parents, the word isn’t bound by gender. The dictionary definitions themselves are gender neutral.

He doesn’t say “Everyone I identify as male” is here. It’s just, the guys, my bros.

I say “Hey guys” when joining a group of friends, be they all male, all female, a mixed group, or other identifications altogether. I also, when I’m feeling creepy, have been known to approach a mixed group of people and say, in a low voice, “Ladies.”

I have bros. I am a bro. There are girls who are bros and guys I know who are most definitely not my bros.

There is a whole other round of meta about Kurt’s general distaste in hanging out with the men of glee club, but that’s not the point here. The point is that you can’t force gender and sexual identification offense onto words that are used regardless of gender. Try again.

I’ve found this whole argument really interesting from a linguistics perspective (for my followers not in the Glee fandom, there is debate over whether it’s sexist to exclude Kurt from a self-identified group of “bros”). I see people squabbling a lot in the fandom about whether words are being used “correctly”, but this one has really taken on a life of its own. 

I tend to agree with all of this—and I also want to add that even if the dictionary didn’t support the definition of “bro” that you’re talking about, the word still holds that meaning, because many, many people use it that way. Any word gets any meaning because people use it to mean something. That might sound silly and too easy, but that’s how it is. 

I use “bro” in two ways:

1. To describe anyone I’m friends with to the degree of being playful and sarcastic but emotionally close.
2. To describe specifically guys who act a certain way. My personal definition here has widened over the years to require degrees of “bro”ness, too. I describe people as “hippie bros,” “hipster bros,” and “bro bros,” the last being people like Chord Overstreet. People (of all genders, though usually males) who hang out, drink, talk shit, get rough, but are overall pleasant people in a very familial way.

I’m sure other people have personal definitions of the word bro, but I also know a lot of people share my definition in #2. And that is what makes it legitimate: because a speech community has a shared established definition of the word.