"Cheap date" redux

[Joel S. Berson]

Is this like the N-word -- you're allowed to use
it if you are one, but if someone else applies it to you, POW!!!?

Seriously, If I heard a woman to say she was a
cheap date, I would take that as a
self-compliment and a lure being thrown out --
she was telling me that my dating her would not
be expensive, extravagant, ruinous.  But if I
said that to a woman, I would expect annoyance to anger.

Joel

At 1/26/2010 11:12 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Somewhen, a few years back, I wondered aloud what motivate a woman to
>define herself, of her own free will, as a "cheap date," when the
>phrase is an insult. The consensus reply of both men and women was
>that the phrase is *not* derogatory. So, why *shouldn't* a woman
>define herself as a "cheap date," if she so wishes?
>
>A current TV commercial has dialogue between two buddies about a date
>that one of them had been on. IT is approximately as follows:
>
>A, And she ordered only from the cheap menu!
>
>B. Yeah?!
>
>A. Yeah! So, I said to her, "Whoa! You're a cheap date!"
>
>B. Yeah?
>
>A.  She answered, "What?!" So, thinking that she was hard of hearing,
>I said, "YOU'RE A CHEAP DATE!"
>
>[POW!!!]
>
>
>There's a clear implication in the commercial that this woman didn't
>appreciate being described as a "cheap date."
>
>Clearly, a TV ad is not necessarily meant to be a reflection of
>reality. It's relaxing, nevertheless, to know that at least one other
>person - whoever wrote that commercial - also feels that "cheap date"
>is demeaning and that my own grasp of reality is probably not much
>weaker than anyone else's. ;-)
>
>-Wilson
>­­­
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"­­a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>­Mark Twain
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org