this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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Political Weirdos

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A community dedicated to the weirdest people involved in politics.

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[Meta] Misappropriation of the word "weirdo" (self.political_weirdos)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by BumpingFuglies to c/[email protected]
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While I agree with the message of most of the posts in this community, I must admonish y'all for your gross misuse of a positive word. It's good to be weird - a weirdo - as the alternative is being normal, and that's something everybody should strive to avoid.

In fact, I'd argue that most of the people y'all call weirdos are actually normal. And that's the problem - their shitty behavior is normalized. Co-opting "weird" to use as an insult to normal assholes only corrupts the word without adding anything of value.

It's like how "literally" is now literally its own antonym. Nobody benefits from that new definition - all it does is cause confusion.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As originalucifer said, language is fluid; it always has been, and will continue to be so. Its mutability one of the many things that makes it so incredible.

Many, many words mean different things in different contexts. The fact that "weirdo" is used negatively sometimes does not mean it can't/doesn't get used positively elsewhere.

[–] BumpingFuglies 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I'm all for the evolution of the language, but this is a case where the language becomes more complex and less precise. Now, thanks to this new use of "weird", when somebody uses the word, more context is needed to understand the meaning.

Used to be that all that was necessary to understand one's implication when using the word was situational and maybe cultural context. Now, personal context is needed for both the speaker and the subject - you need to know the political/ethical proclivities of both the speaker and subject to know whether it's meant as an insult, a compliment, or a neutral statement of fact.

Kids and non-native speakers who hear the word now will be less able to intuit its meaning.

Same goes for "literally". More complexity and less precision.

This is not linguistic evolution - it's just another hurdle in an already difficult-to-learn language.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Used to be that all that was necessary to understand one's implication when using the word was situational and maybe cultural context.

When do you feel this has changed?

Because from what I can tell, it still is that way. Both meanings of "weird" that we're discussing (and, surely, the rest of its meanings) ARE the result of cultural changes.

Now, personal context is needed for both the speaker and the subject - you need to know the political/ethical proclivities of both the speaker and subject to know whether it's meant as an insult or compliment.

You understood what those people meant when they used "weird" negatively. Did you know the political/ethical proclivities of every single person? Did you have to comb through their post/comment histories for information to be able to translate what they said? Or, did you infer what they meant based on the context of the post and the culture of the community?

Yes, non-native speakers will struggle more; this language is a particularly difficult one to learn, and envy no one who is trying to learn it as a 2nd/3rd/ect. language. English's fluidity isn't exactly something that is unique to it, though.

What do you propose is the alternative? We can't exactly stop cultural evolution... why would we want to, anyway?

Really, the only difference now is that we have the internet, which just makes it change a lot more rapidly. It's all still the result of culture, though.