Fatties on airplanes controversy

[kupocake]

It's strange because only an hour before I read his comment, I heard a 'commercial' on the radio about not using the word 'gay' to describe something that isn't good.

The scenario was 2 girls at a party. One girl was like, this party is gay. And so the football player guy comes in and tells them a brief history of the word and tells them that it's not nice to use the word negatively, and then he leaves. The girls say (in different words), "Oh no, that handsome and cool football guy won't like us any more."

Or something. That is all.

Please tell me he spoke with Phil Hartman's voice. Well, a soundalike obviously.

 

[flamingdts]

Using 'gay' as an insult isn't offensive to gay people, it offends linguistics itself. No one is offended that people are using 'gay' negatively. They're offended that you have a barely tweenage ability to describe negatives. It's used in the same way that as a six year old, I called another kid a 'condom' after hearing the word and realising it meant something naughty.

Regardless, you're making it sound like there's some kind of deep seated tradition of the use of the word, instead of it being a faddish slang-term churned out by the current generation. I don't agree with the level of offence a minority of people think it causes, but it's not exactly a usage I ever expected to be tearfully defended.

Actually it does offend some of them, because I know some friends with gay friends that do not like the term "gay" being used in a context to describe something negative. Different people have different opinions, it may or may not offend them.

Obviously, I'll admit I'm a little childish for using that term in place of other negative connotations. But hey, sometimes it's done simply as a joke and nothing more. Of course, I'm not stupid enough to use it when involved in formal matters, but when amongst friends it's a jest with no discrimination intended.

My point was to imply some people's oversensitivity, and I'll admit I used a horrid example to do that. My intention was definitely not to make the term "gay" sound like some age old traditional word of sort that is discriminated against by insensitive others.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

Reminds me when i went on a short flight from Manchester to Heathrow. This really fat guy was barred from getting on the plane because he was too fat and would mess the weight balance, it was a small plane. So instead they decided to leave the luggage of loads of people behind mine included so that he could get on, that really pissed me off as i had no luggage to take on my connecting flight all because of one fat bastard.