"Cheap date" redux

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jan 27 05:54:23 UTC 2010


That's certainly a viable interpretation, IMO, but do - or did - you
ever decide which women to date according to the amount of money that
you'd have to spend in order to seduce them? If that's the case,
pimping wouldn't be hard for you! ;-)

And wouldn't you be at least discomfited, if a woman felt that she had
to sell herself to you as inexpensive, in order to get you to ask her
out?

-Wilson

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 11:35 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Cheap date" redux
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-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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