The Meaning Of Words
I recently read an excellent post about how friendly people indeed can be skilled people by Elleiras over at Fel Fire. Go over there and read it, I am not gonna discuss her post here, except by saying I agree with her.
What I am going to talk about is a sentence in her post that caught my eye,
And once he found out that it bothered me to hear the word “rape” used metaphorically, he made a point of spamming it at every opportunity — including in public chat channels, like General and Trade.
Sometimes I have felt like I am the only one in the whole world of Azeroth that is bothered by people using this word as a substitute for owned or pwned or massacred or over-charged.
People are getting raped by other players charging tall prices for their AH’d gear and mats and whatever.
Healers are getting raped by mobs and bosses running amok in between them.
The loser of the duel is getting raped by the winner.
Once I even saw a guild advert on the lines of “Poor girl, what are you doing out there all lonely and naked and raped? <insert guild name here> pwns, come join us!”
(I still don’t understand if they meant they were to be a shelter for abused young women in WoW or if they thought they were cool throwing out this advert in /general all over Outland. Needless to say, evem though I was guildless at the time, it was NOT a guild I felt like applying to.)
I know words can evolve over time and sometime they change their innate value, words that once were used as a derogatory term can with time come to mean something positive, or at least something that can be used without risk of getting death threats aimed at you.
But “rape” is not one of them. It is a word that never will be neutral to me, and every time I see it used in contexts like those I mentioned above I feel uncomfortable and uneasy.
And slightly nauseated.
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Yes yes YES!
I also feel like I am the only one who is bothered by this word and it’s usage.
I really very strongly agree. More people need to understand that it’s not a word that can be bandied about so casually.
Anea’s last blog post..Push me
You shouldn’t mind those ppl(and i think that they aren’t wemen) and first of all they are the bored onces trying to be “smart” or “cool” (as you said). I agree that this word should keep his primary value [many bad things are happening in the world(of not warcraft) and some words should "show"/remind about what's really happening @ us], but this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t use it rarely in good/stupid jokes; as i say sometimes “After all, the mankind is bad.”
I have an entire rant written on this subject that I could never quite bring myself to publish; I honestly felt a little sheepish for admitting that it bothered me, because so many gamers seem to take the secondary meaning in stride.
I’m glad I’m not alone.
Elleiras’s last blog post..Reflections of a Twilight Vanquisher
It is indeed good to hear I am not alone feeling uneasy about this.
I wonder how many of those out there who don’t seem to care at all actually feel like we do.
I’d suggest people who misuse the word maybe look at something like http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/
But I think we all need to delinate our personal boundaries. When I hearing a comment like “what are you, the Vent Nazi?” I don’t feel that it is degrading a very real and very awful portion of the history of humanity. Someone who said such comments all the time though, even after being instructed on the more serious side behind them – well that person is just a complete waste of space. Possibly even guild space.
Yes, it bothers me too. If it’s in general I just assume that it’s a bunch of boys or girls who never had a woman in the family to take them aside and talk about how awful that word can be if you’ve ever had a family member or friend raped – and how we should all be caring enough human beings to assume that someone within earshot might be personally effected by such a word.
But I worry about sounding too preachy/stuffy, so I never say anything in general – though I always wish I had. But there’s always the thought that you’ll be the next target for the jerks in general.
Our guild has that as one of the words that we don’t ever use – and we’ve never had any complaints. (In fact, several people have given us thank you’s for it.) But then, we’re an all adult guild, which may have something to do with it. The longer you’ve been on the planet the more you realize that kindness towards others, even those you don’t know, is a wonderful thing. I think there’s a lot of us folk out there, who silently don’t like the word, and happily put those using it on the ignore list.
I think one of the reason it bothers me is that the real meaning of this word is diminished when people are using it as a metaphor in other circumstances, like the ones I listed.
I rarely say anything either when I encounter people who flaunt their arrogance and/or ignorance like this. Like you say, it’s hard not to feel sheepish or preachy or to worry about being targeted next.
Maybe I should speak up, and remind people that it’s not hard finding words for what you want to say without having to resort to words people might find offensive, like Nazi or racial or sexual abusives.