Sex and Talk Radio
Aug. 12th, 2003 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serenissimaAt my previous job, there was a small portable radio that we shared to provide us with a little noise in the quiet basement. I liked listening to either rock or classical music, until I got tired of noise after a few hours. Two of my three male coworkers enjoyed listening to talk radio as much as music (the third was in the other room, even though the radio belonged to him).
My male cousin, who drives the carpool to work most mornings, has a talk show on the radio about as often as he puts on music. I mentioned it to him this morning; he says it "stimulates the mind."
My boyfriend often puts on talk radio on his long drives to & from school, to help keep him awake. He says he occasionally likes to get angry, just as some people like to be frightened sometimes.
Most talk radio hosts are men.
Are men more likely than women to appreciate talk radio?
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Pedantic grammar peeve:
People (and animals in general) do not have the attribute of "gender." "Gender" is an attribute of parts of speech. Parts of speech are masculine or feminine, or neuter. Creatures have the property of "sex." They are male or female, or hermaphrodite.
But people are so used to "sex" referring to the act that they don't like to use it to refer to the attribute. Hence, they fall back on the technically incorrect "gender." This is so well established now that it's pretty pointless for me to quibble over it.
My male cousin, who drives the carpool to work most mornings, has a talk show on the radio about as often as he puts on music. I mentioned it to him this morning; he says it "stimulates the mind."
My boyfriend often puts on talk radio on his long drives to & from school, to help keep him awake. He says he occasionally likes to get angry, just as some people like to be frightened sometimes.
Most talk radio hosts are men.
Are men more likely than women to appreciate talk radio?
---
Pedantic grammar peeve:
People (and animals in general) do not have the attribute of "gender." "Gender" is an attribute of parts of speech. Parts of speech are masculine or feminine, or neuter. Creatures have the property of "sex." They are male or female, or hermaphrodite.
But people are so used to "sex" referring to the act that they don't like to use it to refer to the attribute. Hence, they fall back on the technically incorrect "gender." This is so well established now that it's pretty pointless for me to quibble over it.
I Like Pie.
Date: 2003-08-13 06:36 am (UTC)More pointless than you think.
Lots of languages rely upon context. An extreme example of this is Japanese, which often doesn't address a subject in a sentence unless the subject is changed.
"I like pie. Like cake. Do not like long walks on the beach. Am a terrible driver."
Okay, so it's not much of a paragraph. I suppose you get the general idea. Actually, even the first 'I' is probably unnecessary. Weird, huh?
English has extra rules. I'd call it about even because we don't conjugate differently based on a nebulous system regarding one's relation to someone and how polite they should be. However, 'who uses all those rules?' Is a question to anticipate with your remark.
In colloquial English, one must give a little regarding propriety in matters of subject-verb agreement, pronounciation, and so forth. It also may mean misspelling or misuse of words like 'colloquial,' or sometimes both at once. Of course, it's not for a term paper, so it's not really a big deal.
Yet, the plot thickens:
Gender (from dictionary.com)
Grammar.
A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms... (snip)
Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.
The condition of being female or male; sex.
_______________________________________________________________
In the same way that 'ain't' is in most dictionaries, so has this "error" become, well, not an error! Language evolves just like religion, science, and pretty much anything people get their grubby little mitts on. Frankly, I'm not troubled by it.
Not the way I'm troubled by all the little erriors I find in newspapers. Rome fell before the barbarians came to their walls. Pardon the implications there. I hope that the impending Dark Age won't be hundreds of years this time. We've got plenty of monsters for superstition and myth, though-- SARS, AIDS, Hillary Clinton, Osama bin Laden, Sean Hannity, and the other evils that plague us. Perhaps these things are gaining mythic quality and have us quaking in our boots already.
I'd argue that Hillary stories could be used to good effect to scare little children around campfires.
I digress. In a period in which men outside of Scotland wear skirts, I'd argue that 'gender' and 'sex' are definitely two different things, one pertaining to birth and plumbing, another to appearance, manner, and preference in regard to behaviour as relative to established norms. "Gender" can refer to this exteriority-in-relation-to-a-societal-norm, and, really, unless you lift that skirt, you won't be sure.
Heck, even if you did lift the skirt, you can't be completely sure. Plastic surgeons aren't what they were in the sixties and seventies, you know. So, the last definition of "gender" notwithstanding, I'd say, since appearances are all we have unless the person presents their medical records, "gender" can pass for technical reasons.
By the way, be sure to include 'sexless' under creature-sex properties. We mustn't exclude amoebae. They'll get angry and sue, or worse yet, engulf us all, and I don't want to be amoeba chow.
Now I know why I'll never be a columnist; I can't stick to my topic. Just another sign of degradation. I think I hear the barbarians outside now.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-13 06:47 am (UTC)Many people like to be told what to think. It saves them an awful lot of trouble and can be quite comforting. It's like hearing about a scary monster and going to Mom, knowing she'll make it alright with some kind of rationalization to make it all go away.
Personally, yeah, I listen to talk radio to get ticked off at what millions of people line up to accept as pure, distilled truth. Fox News is a temple, and Cavuto is an oracle. Let us pray.
Nietzche called religion the opiate of the masses. He also said it was going down, hard. He NEVER said we wouldn't replace it with some things, or, better yet, many things. Fundamentalist Nationalism, Fundamentalist Religions, and the happy disinformation they spew at the speed of light.
So thank Comcast for their fiberoptic cables; they're bringing you the new God. Unlike Paul's deity, this one is approachable and sends a burning bush at all hours of the night in the form of the ticker. Yes, fear is getting a bit harder to sell, but who cares if people aren't dodging imaginary bits of brimstone so long as you can get them to when you really need them to scurry?
The new God demands your mind and soul, just like Paul's did. It's just got more to offer in the here and now. Really, I can't say that it's much worse--both can reduce the required price to ashes, both have been used to support military dictatorships, and both have claimed lives.
I'd make a pun on the 'Twilight of the Idols' about now, but I ruined my good mood.