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 Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:55 pm Promiscuous/promiscuity |
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There is the same term in Spanish (promiscuo/promiscuidad), where it is, as in English, far from uncommon. Personally, I don't really make a regular use of it, no!
Out of curiosity (and being in a bit of a feminist mood, be it said -- let's face it: these negative terms are mostly applied to females  ), I wanted to compare the use of 'promiscuous woman' versus 'promiscuous man'. Google shows 40.800 hits for the first and 965 for the second. No comment. |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
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Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Tue Jan 16, 2007 13:43 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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My sentiments exactly, Conchita.
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Yankee
I'm a Communicator ;-)
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Posts: 7827
Location: USA
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| Tue Jan 16, 2007 13:50 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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And there was me innocently thinking that Google was female!
A
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Womens' Day |
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Alan
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Posts: 7376
Location: UK
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| Tue Jan 16, 2007 15:23 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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hehe
Well I, ah, never use "promiscuous" when referring to myself... because I'm not. No, really, I'm not promiscuous.
---
Stacy Ferguson [AKA "Fergie" & "The Dutchess (sic)"] is also bringing "promiscuous" back en vogue... via her song "Fergalicious".
How embarrassing -- misspelling one's own nickname (well, it's only the title of her debut solo album, but the girl from the Black Eyed Peas is also naming herself with it).
http://fergie.blackeyedpeas.com/
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee. |
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prezbucky
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Location: Nashville, TN (USA)
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| Tue Jan 16, 2007 16:07 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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| prezbucky wrote: | hehe
Well I, ah, never use "promiscuous" when referring to myself... because I'm not. No, really, I'm not promiscuous. |
Phew, that's one big load off my shoulder, Tom!  |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Tue Jan 16, 2007 16:11 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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har har har
My lack of promiscuity may or may not have something to do with my penchant for ruining a romantic moment by telling the female how she has just erred in her attempt to speak our glorious language.
hehe
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee. |
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prezbucky
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| Tue Jan 16, 2007 16:20 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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TMI for 'too much... information'? No, don't tell me -- I'd rather work it out myself.
TTFN (ta-ta for now)! |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Tue Jan 16, 2007 16:42 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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well I don't want to ruin your search for truth, Conchita, but:
TMI = Too Much Information
You had it right.
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee. |
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prezbucky
I'm a Communicator ;-)
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Location: Nashville, TN (USA)
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| Wed Jan 17, 2007 13:30 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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| Torsten wrote: | | Hi, I've noticed that ever since Nelly Furtado released her song "Promiscuous Girl", hundreds of people find our site googling 'define promiscuous'. I'd be interested to know who of you uses the word 'promiscuous' on a regular basis? I must admit I hadn't before the song became popular.... |
I use the word "promiscuous" quite a lot, not only about women, and not only about sex.
Last night I wrote the sentence, "I come from the advertising and communications industry, where management fires people quite promiscuously."
I'm annoyed with that word game that feminists from the 1960s and 1970s play to "prove" that "all the negative terms apply to women". This is just a trick of selecting the negative terms that do apply to women, and not bothering to look for negative terms that specifically apply to men. I have sat in corporate "gender sensitivity" seminars where the (female, from the 1970s) head of human resources cherry-picked ugly words referring to females, and ignored equal or uglier words that are used only in reference to men -- most of the ones used about men were too obscene to write here. When I would give these male-specific terms, the head of HR just stared at me. She couldn't deny that these expressions were just as common, or even more common, than the ones referring to women, and that they were just as bad or worse, but my bringing them up threw a monkey wrench into her feminist theory, and she wasn't able to comment on it.
Let's play at this Google game some more. Here are some terms I tried:
abusive woman - 9,810
abusive man - 94,700
abusive wife - 58,800
abusive husband - 407,000
abusive mother - 74,300
abusive father - 362,000
This one is especially interesting, because it has been statistically shown that the parent most likely to physically abuse a child -- or even murder one -- is a divorced mother.
thinking with her little head - 0
thinking with his little head - 130
("Little head" as opposed to the big one.)
angry mother - 72,200
angry father - 90,100
Don't forget also that some terms are considered to belong to one gender or another by default, and only in unusual situations do people add a gender designation. Here's an example:
male nurse - 372,000
female nurse - 113,000
Obviously, this does not mean that most nurses are men. It means that when people think of a nurse, they automatically think of a woman unless someone indicates that the person is a man.
male psychopath - 294
female psychopath - 16,400
This does not mean that people think most psychopaths are women. It means that if a psychopath is a man, they simply say "psychopath", and that they have to use the term "female" overtly if they don't want people to think of a man automatically. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Wed Jan 17, 2007 18:11 pm How often do you use 'promiscuous'? |
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I feel hurt by this discrimination. What an abomination this is!
Woe unto men, for their plight groweth.
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee. |
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prezbucky
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Location: Nashville, TN (USA)
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| Should be WHEN instead of IF: "Mind your head if bending" | meaning of "in one respect" |
