Tag Archives: language

An Iowa newspaper editor is suing on the grounds of religious discrimination after being fired for using the word “gaystapo” on his personal blog. Via the Des Moines Register: Bob Eschliman, former editor of the Newton Daily News, filed a complaint this week with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office in Milwaukee arguing that he was terminated May 5 …

Early this year former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe declared that Vikings Special Teams Coach Mike Priefer had called for rounding up all gay people, putting them on an island, and “nuking it until it glows.” Kluwe has contended that his departure from the team came, at least in part, because Priefer objected to his nationally famous advocacy for LGBT …

Stereogum raves: A masterfully assembled lyric video for “Word Crimes,” which transforms Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” into a slightly priggish grammar lesson. Yankovic, you see, is taking a stand against Twitter English. He’s also doing a nice take on Thicke’s smarmy falsetto and credibly delivering his version of T.I.’s verse, as well. The end result is, as you can probably …

Via ABC News: Native Americans are sending a loud message to the Washington Redskins. A northern California tribe paid for a commercial to air in seven major U.S. cities during halftime of Tuesday’s NBA Finals game, their latest plea for the NFL team to change its “racist” name and mascot. “In my opinion, the ‘r’ word is just as derogatory …

Two-time Oscar nominee Jonah Hill appeared on the Howard Stern show yesterday to apologize for a calling a paparazzo a “faggot” after the man insulted him. Last night Hill again delivered a heartfelt apology on the Tonight Show.

UPDATE: Take a visit to their full Twitter feed. As you’ll see, the account’s author is a vegan and a pet lover (presumably because Hitler was supposedly both).  Also, the Nazis really like to cite Matt Drudge.

San Francisco’s famed performance art and drag event Trannyshack is changing its name. Drag impresario and Trannyshack founder Heklina (Stefan Grygelko) announced via Facebook on Tuesday that the 18-year-old club night will henceforth be known as “T-Shack,” bowing to pressure from the transgender community who have long felt the use of the word “tranny” to be pejorative in any context. …

Spanish is #2 in 43 states, French is #2 in four. More maps. (Tipped by JMG reader Win)

Logo today announced that it has pulled an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race after transgender activists complained about a skit in which contestants were asked to view photos and declare whether the images were of “females or she-males.” The issue has been a hot topic on some activist sites since the show first aired. From Logo’s statement: We wanted to …

Details.

Yesterday’s quote from Andrew Sullivan generated a firestorm of scathing responses here on JMG – as posts about Sullivan typically do. At this writing there are over 500 comments on that post. This morning a JMG reader emailed to complain about the tone of many of those comments. Here is his message is full: The reader comments for your latest …

“I like the term ‘homo’! I use it all the time – about myself and others, although I also often use ‘fag’ as well. The gay thought-police would be aghast, but the intent is what matters. Mine is mostly benign. Mostly. But mainly, one great legacy of the gay community has been our love of freedom, especially of speech. For …

The New York Times yesterday explored the vanishing use of the word “homosexual” by almost everybody except anti-gay groups. Consider the following phrases: homosexual community, homosexual activist, homosexual marriage. Substitute the word “gay” in any of those cases, and the terms suddenly become far less loaded, so that the ring of disapproval and judgment evaporates. Some gay rights advocates have …

The Family Research Council just retweeted the above denouncement of media bias when it comes to language on social issues. “Pro-family,” anyone?

Via the New York Times: After a year dominated by upstart words like “selfie,” “bitcoin” and “twerk,” the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year for 2013 seems slightly banal: “because.” Ben Zimmer, chairman of the dialect society’s new words committee, explained that casual online usage had transformed “because.” “No longer does ‘because’ have to be followed by of or …

According to this New York Times quiz, I have the dialect of somebody from Augusta. You give it a try.