"slut" in the news

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Slut" may be insulting, but it quit being "sexist" long ago:

1989 _Life_ (July) 29: "We talk about guys being sluts too," says one girl.

1995 _Jerry Springer Show_ (synd. TV series): He's really pathetic. He's the
biggest slut I know.

GB disgorges more than fifty exx. of the phrase "He's a slut."  The Web,
32,000.
JL
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 1:05 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      "slut" in the news
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ---
> http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/05/28/slut/index.html
> The word "slut" has been getting around a lot lately. Just this week,
> MSNBC host Ed Schultz was suspended after calling conservative radio
> talk show host Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut." Soon after, he went
> on TV to express his regret at length and, interestingly, became
> choked up when he apologized to his wife in particular. This follows
> the hubbub over emerging global SlutWalks, edgy anti-rape protests
> staged in response to a Canadian official's remark that women should
> protect themselves by not dressing like "sluts." The marches have
> garnered international coverage all month long and revived debate
> about whether the slur can be reclaimed. [...]
> For their part, the women of "The View" were laughing about the
> four-letter word this week. While discussing the Schultz incident,
> Barbara Walters was quick to point out that she had been jokingly
> called a slut before by Joy Behar, who followed up by admitting to
> being a total "Scrabble slut" herself. Jokes! Then, just to keep
> things interesting(-ish), Whoopie argued that we shouldn't see any
> difference in the word coming from a man like Schultz than from a
> woman like her co-host: "No. Slut is slut" (unlike "rape" and
> "rape-rape").
> ---
>
> "Scrabble slut," of course, follows the "X slut" variant of the "X
> whore" pattern -- discussed in the past here and on Arnold Zwicky's
> blog. Arnold calls "X whore" a "snowclonelet composite [meaning]
> roughly ‘one who craves X (or something to do with X) extravagantly’".
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0506C&L=ADS-L&D=0&P=22676
> http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/x-whore/
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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