LOL...you guys are funny.
You're agreeing with each other and acting like you're not.
Gossip is the tool of every self serving human being on the planet. Gossip can be both harmless and shameful. I know from experience (and before Whob comes into the thread and talks about gay people who talk too much) that straight guys talk just as much, if not more, than do women. It's human nature to gossip.
Calling everything gossip is like calling killing murder, though.
Gossip is specific. Men standing around talking about cars and women standing around talking about other people's social lives are two different things.
Again, of course men gossip, just like there are women who are massively into cars or other typical male things. I'm just trying to point out why it's typically female, the traditional idea of gossip.
-AC
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Calling everything gossip is like calling killing murder, though.Gossip is specific. Men standing around talking about cars and women standing around talking about other people's social lives are two different things.
Again, of course men gossip, just like there are women who are massively into cars or other typical male things. I'm just trying to point out why it's typically female, the traditional idea of gossip.
-AC
But, I never specified gossip. And while I understand that your point is that it is often associated with women, I wasn't addressing what does and does not qualify. I was addressing the typical notion of gossip. That being the spreading of rumors without a basis, in proven truth, for telling someone else as though it were factual. I'm just saying it's a basic human instict to side with one person over another in any given situation...and you're both saying that.
Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I complitely disagree with this, firstly because gender is a socially constructed term. It is not a dichotomy, and characteristics other than obvious phyisical differances cannot be associated with sex - this includes use of language.
The thing with a broad discussion is that you generally apply your hypotheses in general terms. Hence, my agreement with Crystals supposition that the language use of women is different to that of men.
Originally posted by lil bitchiness
When you say ''men'' do you mean white, middle class, straight westerners?
No, not exclusively.
Originally posted by lil bitchiness
David Crystal's extensive research of language is ethnocentric and as far as I can see, cannot and does not apply to a 'general' rule.
An ethnocentric evalulation does not negate its relevance to the subject of gossip, and it certainly can be applied as a general rule.
Originally posted by Capt_Fantastic
LOL...you guys are funny.You're agreeing with each other and acting like you're not.
Gossip is the tool of every self serving human being on the planet. Gossip can be both harmless and shameful. I know from experience (and before Whob comes into the thread and talks about gay people who talk too much) that straight guys talk just as much, if not more, than do women. It's human nature to gossip.
I tend to disagree with this as well. It is so often said that certain things are ''in our nature'', while I do not believe they are.
Socialisation created gossip - Its not in our nature.
Originally posted by Ya Krunk'd Floo
The thing with a broad discussion is that you generally apply your hypotheses in general terms. Hence, my agreement with Crystals supposition that the language use of women is different to that of men.No, not exclusively.
An ethnocentric evalulation does not negate its relevance to the subject of gossip, and it certainly can be applied as a general rule.
Enthnocentric evalutation applies exclusively to the people Crystal is arguing are gossiping.
As The Omega already pointed out, it is a social weapon which is used by people of both sex, and it cannot be exclusively attributed to either sex.
I don't actually know a girl which can gossip more than my boyfriend. I think I know everything about who slept with whom at his work. I also know what his co-worker said about his girlfriend to the girl hes cheating with. I also know how Jullian asked my boyfriend if he knows any hotels around Brighton cos he wanted to take girl into a hotel room, because his girlfriend was at his house.
WTF?
I don't even wanna know what they talk about between themselves. I for a fact know that they (boys) talk about women at work, and which one is easy and which one slept with which one.
Im not saying my boyfriend is the general rule, but he is the exception to the stereotype, and im sure there are plenty more.
Gender has nothing to do with gossip - it has to do with what kind of things are being said, but they are not neceseraly NOt gossip.
Nobody is saying gossip is exclusive to one gender and reading my post would have revealed this to you.
The fact is (yes, fact) that it's a typically female trait. Both genders do it, like both genders have people who love cars and sex, but it doesn't stop these things (former more than latter) being typically male. Typically, not exclusively. As is gossip typically female, let's not deny this. It doesn't reflect on you.
-AC
Originally posted by The Omega
Now you are gossiping about lonely housewives 😉
No I'm not, I'm just making a statement about them. Gossip would be - "OHHH MY GODDD! Did you guys hear? I heard from my sisters friend while we were eating icecream and watching All my Children that housewives gossip more than anyyyyone! Like wow! Let's watch the Fashion patrol! Joan Rivers is soooooo funny and witty, she says what we think!"
Omega, gossip is a typically female trait, nobody is saying it's exclusively female, just typically so, which is a fact. Why you and Lil are getting on the defensive is baffling.
Originally posted by The Omega
Bardock/Backfire> It is in the combination of the inherent negativity of "Lonely house wives", "the E! channel" and "gossip" that it did indeed become ... gossip 😉
No, it's not, by any stretch of the term. It was a statement, a statement regarding certain things. Not a discussion.
Originally posted by Bardock42
I think I am very much able to see the difference in a general joke and gossip. Backfire's statement just doesn't qualify as gossip.
Haha, leave it, she's a woman. She'll get the point, it just takes them longer.
-AC