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I posted my story "Immune Response" on Fictionmania yesterday.
I received a bunch of reviews / comments.
This one pleased me:
"Reviewed by Kirafair on 05/16/2022
"In case anyone is curious and since Maryanne put in a nice description at the beginning, an immune response to your own body components is an autoimmune type response and not technically an allergy. There could be some overlap in the observable aspects of the immune reaction that can lead to using the terms interchangeably
"Interestingly the testes are one of the few organ sites that are what we call immunoprivlleged and the body really doesn’t want to allow local inflammation. A way to preserve the ability to reproduce at all costs?
"Anyway I started studying Immunology in 1986 and my first textbook was the size of an iPad. Now we could fill a room with book on the subject and still so much to learn
"But Maryanne isn't really that far off. it can still happen and there is a condition called autoimmune orchitis where the person makes anti-sperm antibodies and the testicles painfully swell."
Wow!
This one puzzled me:
"Reviewed by Karen on 05/16/2022
"The moment you used the word fag, you turned me right off and stopped reading.
"There is no reason to use that word in a story or anywhere else anymore.
"It is no different than the N Word or other ethnic and gender slurs.
"You should be ashamed."
For clarity, the story teller says at one point - "I wore the outfit with a pair of red trainers. I felt like a fag in it...".
Yes, I used a derisory word to show how mixed up and lacking in self worth he/she was.
Should I be ashamed?
Maryanne
Comments
Language
Adult characters need to be able to speak like adults. Used sparingly, supercharged words are effective in conveying your characters emotions and mental state. My question to people who want you to stop using a word because they find it "offensive" is why do you let others control you? Words only have power over you if you let them. Do we really want our books and stories reduced to childish phrases like "you doo-doo head"? One person gave one of my books a bad review (1 star) because of my use of realistic language. It wasn't excessive. It's just how these characters speak. How does this person even survive in the real world?
Melanie
Melaine, I find you slur
Melaine, I find you slur against Doo Doo's offensive and shall be writing to my Doo Doo MP!!!!
Leeanna
the F word?
The first time I heard the word 'fag' used was by one of my father's coworkers, who had spend a few years in Great Brittan and picked up some of the accent and slang terms.
Even now a days when I hear that word, the first thing that comes to mind is a cigarette.
That said, people use profanity and derogatory slang.Depending on the class of people and the surroundings, foul language can quite possibly be the only thing you would hear. Think of a group of construction workers kicking back drinking beer after work and the language they may use? And of course the term 'cuss like a sailor' came about for a very good reason.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Welll that is their problem
A lot of derogatory words or terms are dependant on your personal point of view.
I personally find anyone using First Nation, indigenous, or aboriginal to describe American Indians very offensive.
I am Native American.
Shawnee, but could have some Cherokee in the mix. As to using off color words, I think it shows a lack of culture.
What would you suggest?
People use? I grew up in Oklahoma, and the three terms you find offensive were basically much preferred over the derogatory terms I heard. In fact, many natives considered "American Indian" to be highly offensive. As one put it, "We ain't from *ucking India so don't call us Indians!" Any of the three you dislike were what the locals preferred. I follow their lead.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I’m metis
I was making a point that it depends on point of view.
Current terms used that are acceptable are Native American ….but native Canadian should also be acceptable.
While I wouldn't use the term in one of my stories or in person
I'd say that the use of such term is situational. The one sentence hardly sets the scene for us to judge whether the word was out of place. It really would depend on your characters background and station in life. With some characters it would be out of character to not use the word.
Dick Gregory (See Wiki) wrote a book entitled "Nigger" He dedicated the book to his mother. In the dedication he simply said, "Dear Momma -- Wherever you are, if ever you hear the word 'nigger' again, remember they are advertising my book."
Should he not have used the word? No other word in that sentence would have expressed the message he wanted to convey to his mother.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I Wouldn't Have Thought...
..."fag" had fallen into the slime pit. ("Faggot", maybe.)
But I have to admit that I'm not much of a judge of modern cultural norms.
Eric
I reviewed it last night.
I reviewed it last night.
I'm not sure where Maryanne is from Karen. In the UK, Fag was never really used to hatefully describe a gay man. When I was young words like queer ond poof were used.
It is obviously something that upsets you. I'm sure that wasn't her intention. It was just word in a story.
Strangely enough, most autoimmune diseases are far more prevalent among women than among men. They generally have a better immune system than men, hence man flu. men probably are affected worse. More men died of covid.
They pay the price later in life. Rheumatoid arthritis is a common autoimmune disease.
I think the ratio is 80% plus female sufferers with autoimmune problems.
I'm from the UK. It's very rare that "fag" is used. Never heard anyone say "faggot"
If you say faggot to me this is what I think of LOL
The "Brains" name used to put me off. They are basically meatballs.
Leeanna
This overlooks a different early use of the word
In England anyway.
It was used for small wooden sticks or branches, primarily when employed as firewood, which is where I first encountered the word during my very early reading days, in fairy stories, where country people often went into the woods to collect faggots. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered it also referred to meatballs.
Best wishes to you all. Isn't language intriguing!
Dave
There is another meaning of the word 'Fag'
The novel 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' uses it quite a lot. This is where a younger boy would be a sort of servant to an older boy/prefect at a public school.
For the working-class majority, 'Fag' is a slang word for a cigarette. To me, it has no meaning when it comes to gay men when used in the UK.
I can remember a colleague getting some really dirty looks when he said, "I'm popping out for a fag" meaning that he was going to go outside and smoke a cigarette. He was soon put right.
Samantha
Kindling
I used to always get a laugh when driving through the rural English countryside and seeing handpainted roadside signs advertising faggots for sale, often with a small price in shillings added on.
In the US we generally call that kindling. Faggots is a derogatory term, generally used in an insulting way. But I knew a few people (in the US) that would have been thrilled to get a faggot so cheaply! ;-)
Yeah, sometimes I have a dirty (and crude) mind.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Kindling is extremely finely
Kindling is extremely finely split wood, or thin twigs.
A faggot can be a bundle of kindling, but it can also be a bundle of larger pieces of wood. Specifically, it's a standardized measurement of 2 feet in diameter, and three feet in length. (there's a 'Long Faggot', that supposedly matched the width of fire dogs)
Older meanings match that of a bundle. So a broom would have been made from a faggot of straw, bound to a stick. A package of cigarettes is a bundle, so thus one cigarette became a single 'fag'.
How that became associated with British school abusers, who knows, unless it's that women were associated with brooms, which were faggots of straw? substitute wives?
Roughly 134 faggots in a cord. (Shids, billets, faggots, fall wood, cord wood..)
https://www.sizes.com/units/cord.htm (Just for fun)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
You say
I don't believe I included any description of the material, not even as to it's composition, much less the size. (Raw cotton works quite well.) Just that in general useage in the US it's all kindling. I've been to or lived in 46 of the 50 states, and not once ran into the term faggot used as fire-starting material. I did do firewood cutting, sales, and delivery/stacking. So I'm well aware of cords, ricks, half ricks, etc. Been dry behind the ears for many years.
So, whatever.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Um...I went back and re-read
Um...I went back and re-read your previous post. You are the one that said that faggots in the UK were called kindling in the US. Not I. I've been through half of the US and part of Canada, and I've never seen anyone selling kindling in a size or shape that I would call a faggot. As for your being in that business? I'm impressed - truly. That's not an easy job, and there's a lot to it. I'd manage to end up with half the wood rotting and the other half full of termites. (Yes, that's exactly what's happened when I tried to store wood to season it)
I've _seen_ faggots for sale, but frankly, I never stopped to see what they were called by the sellers. From memory, mostly in the Blue Ridge mountain states and Ohio. Not so much down here in Texas. Usually the signs just said "fire wood". I'd probably know if I actually had a wood stove or fireplace; I'd have talked to those folks.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
We
Used to get faggots (the food) with mash and peas at school - they are balls of meat, often offal, meatballs a la Swedish they are not being much bigger and with a unique taste that personally I’m not keen on.
Apart from food and kindling the other use of the term and where the ‘gay’ connotation comes from, is the use of the term for a sort of man servant, usually an underclass man at a ‘public’ school or university. So to be someone’s fag was to be their servant but only in that context.
As for fag in relation to tobacco products - who knows but may be associated with the kindling.
Some uneducated people should spend their time with a dictionary instead of reacting to everything they have been told!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Hi Maddy.
Hi Maddy.
I asked my son's (Mega Woke) American girlfriend what terms she found offensive a few years back. She was shocked that there was food called faggots. I asked how the hell can a bundle of firewood or a meatball relate to a gay person. She told me she thought it was because the person saying it thought they should be burned?
I any of you guys know where it comes from. I would love to hear. The insulting word in the UK in the 70's and 80's was Poof or poofta.
Definition - used to express contemptuous dismissal."‘Oh, poof!’ said Will. ‘You say that every year.’" Still doesn't make much sense, I suppose
express contemptuous dismissal does a little. Isn't language strange?
Definition Poofta - / (ˈpʊftə, ˈpuːf-) / derogatory, slang. a man who is considered effeminate or homosexual.
Leeanna
Well aware
Of the coarse usage of poof or poofta, one joke sticks in my mind, from BBC radio show, "Hello Cheeky!" back in the early '70s, that I had to explain to almost every US citizen I tried to tell it to.
A new junior officer is posted to a remote army brigade and is being shown around by the CO.
"You'll find all sorts of activities to keep you occupied when offduty. We have bridge and whist tournaments on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays we play rugby and tennis or badminton."
"Sir, I don't play cards nor do I care for sports."
"I say, are you a poof?"
"Sir! Not in the slightest!!"
"Oh well, then, you won't enjoy Saturdays, either."
The wording may be off, by the gist of the joke should be obvious.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Wood
Just to throw additional "wood" into the fire: ;-)
The german word Fagott means bassoon in English.
Martina
Perspective
For clarity, the story teller says at one point - "I wore the outfit with a pair of red trainers. I felt like a fag in it...".
Yes, I used a derisory word to show how mixed up and lacking in self worth he/she was. The expression is not just self-deprecating - it's not just how he/she felt but probably how he/she has been made to feel by others? That fits completely with the excerpt.
Love, Andrea Lena
Do they still do that?
Putting aside cigarettes, twigs edible and otherwise, or homosexual, I was reminded of that British "public school" tradition and a story I wrote for an ex-public school boy (I think) which I have just posted here!
Maryanne
There is a whold wiki page on
There is a whole wiki page on it. This may shed light into the gay insult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging
Sexual abuse
Fagging was sometimes associated with sexual abuse Christopher Tyerman, writing about the history of Harrow School, stated that in some situations, fagging could either encourage or conceal sexual activity between boys, and that at Harrow, fagging began to decline at around the same time as homosexuality was eradicated as an acceptable part of the boarding school environmen but continued in formal school life until the 1990s
You got a review today in support.
Sorry to disagree Karen but words are just noise. You might want to stick your head in the sand and pretend that it doesn’t exist since you cannot hear it but it is just like statue smashing and book burning. Things change over time which is history and to attempt to bury it and act like it never occurred is no way to handle anything.
As far as the story goes, it is an interesting look at a problem and wouldn’t surprise me if it has and will happen. Excellent job M Peters for another thought provoking and entertaining story.
Leeanna
Unfortunately, you've run
Unfortunately, you've run into what's been called "Political Correctness". It's someone attempting to force "modern" (i.e. their personal prejudices) morals on something that's from a totally different time/society. These are people that believe that if they whine loudly enough, they can magically recreate history in their own beliefs by denying that the activity at the time actually happened. (Such as attacking Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn because it contains the slang word 'nigger' - despite that being a normal word for people of that time and social strata) Yes, cartoons in the 1920's and 30's contained insane stereotypes of all SORTS of groups - yet suddenly they're considered evil, and nobody should be allowed to see them at all. Who knows, in another century, maybe people will be attacking the Transformers for its unhealthy portrayal of transforming robots.
Basically - tell the person that if they don't like the story, they can write their own. I don't get upset about stories from certain time periods having things I think are reprehensible - as long as those things actually existed!
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Sometimes on FM you can get
Sometimes on FM you can get some stupid comments. One of the reasons is anyone can comment anonymously.
I had someone say I wrote in wrote in really bad England language. They went on to criticise my spelling. Colour should be color, realised should be realized etc. While I admit I do misspell and my grammer can be ropey, "really bad England language" is a huge mistake.
I pointed this out and anonymous got angry, the row went on for about 20 comments. The admin deleted the whole thing in the end. Anonymous admitted that English wasn't their first language. So why bloody criticise in the first place? Some people are idiots.
Leeanna
Not Me!
The Karen mentioned by Maryanne above is not me. My registered name on FM is Karen J. just like it is here on BC. Frankly, that person on FM needs to learn that she doesn't make the rules for the entire world. Nobody is required to avoid upsetting her in their writings, or even in the real world.
There are words and phrases that shouldn't be used out of respect for others, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to come about. Frankly, using "Karen" as a derogetory name/term, as if their bad behavior was limited to a certain age and gender really pisses me off. But I can't change it, so just *uck it.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
A-yup
Absolutely - but those terms drift, and there's absolutely no reason not to use the terms in literature (or movies, etc) if the setting is appropriate.
Imagine a mobster (or film noir in general) movie where they couldn't call women 'dolls' or 'tomatoes'. Or a gun a heater. The Maltese Falcon would be a much stranger movie.
Years ago, I dated a girl named Isis. I'm betting she was REALLY upset when the media started misusing the ISIL initials to make 'ISIS'. (you only get 'ISIS' if the first two initials are from English, and the second two are from Arabic. In English, it's ISIL)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I meant
IRL, not in fiction, but I didn't make myself clear. I should have because I know, based on firsthand experience, that there are many people that can't seem to tell the two apart. My mistake.
BTW, thanks for the ISIS/ISIL explaination. I've been wonder about the difference for a long time.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin