Basically just something people say that indicates a position indirectly, like how seperatists from a given region might always say they’re from [region] and not [country] or how trump supporters call AI “SI” now.
I’ll contribute. I refer to my wife as my “partner”.
People on the left just continue conversation no problem. People on the right pause and you can see the wheels turning.
I’m a white not very masculine male.
Very good example, thank you, whenever someone says “partner” I immediately assume they’re at least somewhat woke.
When they say “property” on the other hand…
I mean, if there’s a safe word involved…
“No, don’t worry, Mr. Conservative. I’m male, she’s female, your norms aren’t being broken yet.”
“…Yeh, but partner implies she’s your equal. That don’t sit right.”EXACTLY 🙄
Partner sounds more serious than boyfriend or girlfriend anyway.
“Partner” sounds like “spouse” to me, without the marriage ceremony.
I do this. Someone called me out for pretending to be gay. Stolen valor!
I was just like. Sorry? I tried to be inclusive. Oh well, can’t win 'em all.
I’m sorry to hear that :( some people can’t be happy unless they’re angry at someone I guess.
Another white not very masculine male here - which I think is every bit as normal as being a woman who isn’t an insanely hot babe. It’s weird when things that are almost fringe become unattainable standards for a vast majority who really have no reason to feel inadequate.
The “white not very masculine male” piece was added to highlight that some people make assumptions about my sexuality when I use the word partner.
I’m plenty confident and happy with myself. I’m pretty fit, just not big.
I’m happy to give out hugs though! The marketing world is hell bent on making people feel inadequate so I understand your sentiment.
Reminds me of how someone posted that he likes to tell people that he’s not gay but his husband is. And then watch the reaction.
Yes! Normalize this!
Fuck yeah. Nice
The first time a friend referred to me wife as my “partner”, I questioned his choice of words because he was well aware that I’m not gay.
Like, I would still just carry on in convo, but if I hear “partner”, I make a mental note that they’re gay. The correlation has close to a 100% hit rate.
You know what’s funny about that? A lot of my hetero friends also say partner.
I started using it because it removes the baggage that gendered terms carry. My wife is my best friend. I like to do everything with her. We split chores pretty evenly.
Whereas, especially since gay marriage has been legal here a lot of gay couples very intentionally use wife/husband because of how hard the fight for that was
One day the venn diagram will become a circle.
A lot of my hetero friends also say partner…
…in my region of English speakers.
…in the USA. I have friends and family all over.
Online, at least, I’ve probably heard more hetero people than gay people use “partner.” In some cases they were in fact perfectly conventionally full-blown married, they just weren’t interested in sharing any more details than they had to to tell whatever story they were telling, because that detail wasn’t important for the story.
That checks out. You’d use the term to be deliberately vague. Online, you’d be giving away your gender and marital status to the scraperbots. In person, a vague response lands differently. Particularly when speaking one-on-one.
I know many (myself included) who are in heterosexual relationships and say partner due to not being married. It’s a pretty common thing…
It’s a pretty common thing…
…in my region of English speakers.
Well people who aren’t speaking English probably aren’t using an English word, yeah. No shit.
Same. You’re getting downvoted because lemmy cannot allow for regional language distinctions. Not even different countries, regions. It’s a big world.
No one where I’m at would refer to a married couple as partners. Nothing wrong with that, but it usually connotes a gay relationship.
I promise you it’s not that. It’s the way that individual wrote their comment. Like it was offensive to be considered gay. Why does it matter?
And you keep trying to tie it to a region. I think the only “regional” distinction you can make is rural vs anywhere else. But that’s more population density related not regional. It’s not really a pop vs soda situation.
Maybe you and this other person should reconsider your assumptions about the usage of the word “partner” hahahaha.
Removed by mod
New account troll. Tagged, will not engage with further.
Gawd but he NAILED me. Listening to Wait Wait and rasing chickens. Which are, btw, fantastic for making compost.
They’re also good for making sure no food ever goes to waste. They eat anything and turn it into eggs. Gotta love yard birds.
RIGHT? It either goes to the dogs or the birds. It’s fantastic.
The voters pamphlet was full of them. “Common sense family values” means they hate trans/gays. “Law and order” means they support ICE. “Activist judges have gone too far” means they want to be an activist judge but for the other side of the issue.
I would consider all of those Nazi dogwhistles nowadays. There is no courtesy left for the right, it is very clear what kinds of fucked up shit they support
“No courtesy left for the right” is now going into my back pocket for later. Love it.
Argued with someone that their use of “common sense” was a dog whistle… Sure enough, their next line was about the “family vote”…
This was in response to a Trans Rights comment chain. Like wtf is the “family vote”? Trans people have families too.
Family vote = man of the house votes and women don’t vote anymore. No, they don’t acknowledge anything other than the stereotypical husband, wife, and 2.5 children as deserving a vote.
“Common sense” annoys me from researching gun laws and solutions. It’s shorthand for, “If you don’t believe this way, you don’t have common sense.” I’ve made an effort to drop the term both online and IRL.
Law & order = whatever orders they make up are the law of the moment.
I’m a self proclaimed crazy cat lady. I also work in a field that has a lot of interaction with the police. I used to have a pin attached to my work badge that said “All Cats Are Beautiful”.
What? I just love cats ;)
Now I’m thinking about making badges that say “Assigned Child At Birth”.
This took me a while
It’s taking me longer help me out
ACAB - all cops are bad.
1312
ITT people talking about Nazi dog whistles
I was voting and one of the people I looked up for judge had “EMPATHY” as a big point for her, considering a lot on the right have said empathy is bad/a weakness/the problem and judges are supposed to be nonpartisan I considered it to be a dog whistle. She also had a lot of good stuff in her background but having EMPATHY in big bold letters seemed purposeful
I always throw an occasional “streets ahead” in my conversation just to see if they’re a Community watcher. Most of the people around me are streets behind, though.
That’s usually when I use my escape goat.
They may be a community watcher, or they may be British. Further investigation required.
I’ve never seen “Community” and I’ve never lived in Great Britain but even I know what “streets ahead” means.
I used to do the same thing. Then I decided to actually look up the saying and found out they are both pretty coming British phrases. I was very disappointed.
one shibboleth i noticed is that any mention of “race” strongly indicates that the person speaking is American, especially if it’s conflated with nationalities. “I’m [number]% [nationality]”, any use of “mixed race”, and stuff like “I can drink a lot of beer because I’m German” or “this recipe offends me as an Italian” are dead giveaways (and quite racist in my humble opinion)
After the big protests in France there were a million bots posting racist stuff on Reddit. They kept referring to “liberals” but none speaks like that in France. Liberal is the word you’d use to describe corpo-centrists like Macron, never to describe leftists.
It was kind of like the 3 fingers meme from inglorious bastards.
Need to give Zelenskyy a few more drones to take out Russian datacenter troll farms.
Then go donate!
Then the gestapo would arrest me for “funding terrorism” while themselves funneling millions to both Russia and Ukraine.
Yeah. "Liberty’ and “freedom” here is also defined differently than in the USA. Probably thanks to the french revolution and Napoleon spreading it.
Here it is “liberty/freedom OF” while in the USA it is “liberty/freedom TO”
I think it’s because immigrants wanted to preserve their culture when they came to the US, and that got passed down but was diluted over the generations, so you have people who have a very specific pride and identity that has deviated from the original.
In many cases the “original” deviated even more. It’s not like culture has been static in Europe for four hundred years.
? I’m talking about a scale of only a few generations and the USA hasn’t been around for four hundred years.
I’m talking about the timeline of European colonization of the Americas, which is the point of immigrant cultural divergence. And I’m actually off by over a hundred years, as the oldest continuously-settled Euro city in the West is Santo Domingo since 1496.
But even a shorter timeline an awful lot changed in Europe through the 1900s. A lot of “traditional” cuisine came after WWII.
That timeframe is a much larger cultural gap than what I was depicting, but regardless, it was not meant to imply that other countries remain stagnant.
Someone who’s family came from India two generations ago might still identify as Indian even though they never have been there, for example.
I hadn’t heard this theory before, but it does actually make a lot of sense.
“I know pasta, my great grandmother was Italian”
Yeah, how do you know your great grand mother wasnt the worst fucking cook in the village? Maybe her food was so bad that her family had to get on a boat and move half way around the world where nobody knew about how shit her cooking was.
I think a lot of the nationality stuff is because Americans are desperate for some identity of heritage. America is made of immigrants. Most people have no idea where their ancestors came from, unless it was relatively recently. If you’re in Germany, almost everyone around you is German and you have a shared identity. In America, no one knows where you’re from. American can be considered an identity I guess, but it doesn’t have much history. The history it does have is the lack of a homeland, and stealing it from others.
So yes, I guess it’s a dog whistle (usually those are intentional though), but I don’t see it as racist.
Seconding this. Its not racist at all, but a deep cry for some kind of uniqueness and being special because of the hyperindividualism of USA-culture. Europe is seen (and often treated) by US-americans as a theme park, an attraction.
To build on your example: inside germany, when you ask where one is from, you’ll get the culture/region. Saxony, bavarian, swabian, baden, franconian, hamburger, holsteiner, frisian. Or often even just the city lol No german, unless outside of germany and speaking to someone not german, will say they are from germany or german. And even then, though that is mostly bavarians, they might just say their region/culture.
US america doesnt have this past and sense of identity and belonging that even just your city in europe has. Except maybe NYC.
Portsmouth UK, proud harbor city and its identity is tied to everything seafairing. Has been since its inceptions by the romans. Same with Kiel, Hamburg, Lübeck (there ofc without the romans lol)
What identity does Portsmouth USA have? As faar as i know, none.
Even when i, a german, were to move to france or ireland, i still will be german/swabian at heart. No matter how long i lived somewhere else. Or where my long ago ancestors came from.
To touch on the Portsmouth VA USA (more associated with the larger Norfolk area) thing, I’ve lived near there. It actually also has a strong connection with the navy too. The largest navy base in the world is in nearby Norfolk, there’s a massive shipyard, and a ton of military. The history is obviously not nearly as old though.
The military thing actually removes some of its culture though, because it means a lot of people aren’t from there. They’re just there for a few years while stationed there and then they’re gone. I’ve never really thought about this, but could this be a deliberate attempt by the US military to destroy a sense of culture for military personnel, to ensure their only loyalty is to the government?
My favorite dog whistle (that went over my head, because I was not the audience for it) was the Subaru “Come out and play” commercial.
If I remember it correctly, the ad was mostly footage of Subaru SUVs driving over rocks and through streams while a voice over talks about the cars’ off-road capabilities. The ads would always end with the narrator saying "Subaru invites you to come out and play.”
As a straight man, I always assumed that the commercial was about how much fun it is to drive a Subaru up a mountain. Apparently, I was missing the point. The nature footage was all a distraction to pacify the straights. The real commercial was just the sentence fragment “Subaru invites you to come out”. It was meant to say that Subaru supports queer people. It was a resounding success in promoting the ‘Subaru driving lesbian’ stereotype.
There was a whole campaign in the 90’s. The license plates were mostly lesbian coded, they included the Wizard of Oz cast or a certain lesbian tennis player, I think another tag line was “let’s go camping”. It was fun finding out about that because I had a lot of the National Geographic magazines that they had add pages in.
My favorite example is how francophone leftists or those who dislike america will call americans “USians”. (Américain -> États-Unien)
I call people from the US that as I respect the other nations in the Americas who are also Americans - from Chilean people to Canadian. All American. Neither of them USian.
But, I do also hate US Defaultism because it shows a lack of knowledge/understanding/awareness which only plays into the stereotypes that people from the US are stupid and ignorant. Which I think is disparaging to (some of) them, and they could show they aren’t by being using self-aware language. Hence, “USian” . It’s like how “woke” originated too - i.e. “awake” to institutional bigotry.
No one but those from the US claim the term “American”. Canadians do not want to be called American, and everyone else speaks a whole different language, and they prefer to be referred to by their county as well
It’s not US defaultism, it’s like calling someone from China Asian, or worse Oriental. It’s not woke, no one will thank you for calling them by a label you’ve assigned to them as an outsider
It’s only ever done online, if you’re taking to people irl, it’s obvious via context. But online is global so it makes sense to talk in a global sense.
But in a global sense, if you say American people know who or what you’re talking about
The reason no one does it in person is because they would be swiftly corrected.
In fact, no one actually uses it on the Internet because no one would know what you mean… It’s just a meme argument that probably originated from 4chan
It’s literally the same as calling all Asian people Chinese. You can’t just pick the biggest country in a region (let alone an entire hemisphere) and fold everyone there under their label…No matter what Internet logic you use to justify it, it’s still offensive to everyone involved
Thanks for the comedy. I love how wrong you are. About everything you said.
A) it isn’t said online because of context. Everyone you’re talking to face to face will understand what you’re saying from previous parts of the conversation. It’s only online that you talk to people from all over the world in any given conversation so it’s better to be specific about areas. That’s also why people will say “The US” and not America. To many people, America is the continent, both North and South America. This just shows you lack in education and understanding how others see the world probably because you’re selfish and don’t think about other people from other parts of the world.
B) just because you’ve heard of 4chan and probably don’t understand it, you think everything you don’t like/understand comes from there. Such a Boomer take. Everybody would know what you mean if you called someone a USian. Unless they lack in education and understanding how others see the world probably because they’re selfish and don’t think about other people.
C) People do say “Asian people” quite commonly. They probably shouldn’t but they do. Asian means something different in different places too. If you said “Asian” in the UK, they would think you’re meaning India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. In the US, it’d be the “Oriental” countries. From Australia, it could also be used for South East Asia. You’d know this if…insert end line.
D) China and The US aren’t the biggest country in either of their respective continents. China isn’t by physical size OR population. Well done on being ignorant in multiple ways. Calling someone from the Americas “American” isn’t calling them USian, it’s calling them from The Americas. Insert end line.
E) Hemispheres. Western and eastern are colonial concepts and based off the Greenwich Meridian. Northern and Southern are based on a physical attribute of the oblate spheroid we call Earth and useful due to our axial shift. This shows lack of knowledge about the…you know where I’m going with this.
F) if you’re offended, meh, I don’t care. Don’t be a snowflake. Others aren’t. Get over it. I’m not punching down at a maligned group, even if USians do have both a superiority complex and a victim complex simultaneously - honestly the cognitive dissonance inherent in the psyche of the country should be studied.
Anyhoo, good chat.
… Wow. I think every bit of that was objectively wrong, except maybe the thing where it becomes obvious in person? I couldn’t make heads or tails of that part.
But the fact that you said “Asian people” instead of “Asians” proves my point
You apparently know it’s offensive… But you still seem to think it’s offensive to Americans. It’s not, it’s offensive to everyone else on that half of the planet (which is what a hemisphere is, no matter how you draw the lines)
On that note, you really should spend a few minutes with a globe…
I have tried to start using US Americans but have used USians in the past for brevity. For the same reasons, though.
I’ve started using “USA” and “USA citizens”. They’re not the only united states or the only Americans.
I do agree that American defaultism only hurts them, but at least in english it’s rare enough that saying “American” doesn’t count as US defaultism imo, I’m in Québec and I’d say at least 20% of people here say that.
yeah someone was talking to me like. well its not the name. the name is the united states of america. and im like. well its the republic of ireland but people just call it ireland. lots of countries have a sorta descritive official name with elements of what it is.
The corollary would be calling Ireland “The Republic”.
or I gues republiasian or something. maybe trasian. but yeah the republic would be like the united states. thinking about it its kinda wierder we use the united states often instead of america.
Ehhhh I’m an anglophone USian, and use “USian”. Am leftist though so maybe you’re onto something lol
I’ve never heard someone say that irl, although I have seen it on lemmy, but I’ve heard tons of people say the french equivalent irl, which is why I said it was francophones. It is based to say it in english though.
I don’t know French very well, but it seems like it works better, grammatically speaking, in French than in English.
Yes 100%, it’s incredibly clunky in english but in french it’s just as nice to say as the “American”
I’m Canadian, but so often “American” is considered from the USA. I’m not a huge fan of that. So I’ll usually use North America personally.
i honestly took it as word play. I do word play all the time so I don’t think to deep about anything. maybe im dog whistling as I use trump for shit, ass, fuck and I have been considering adding cunt.
Not so much a position as preferences and experiences, but the words people use to describe elements of music can often give away what they either enjoy or play. If you call a rhythm a beat, you’re probably into electronic or hip hop. If you refer to a song’s chord progression as “the changes,” you must like jazz. If you use Italian words (outside of Italy I guess!) to talk about tempo and dynamics, you were either in an orchestra or fondly remember that one time at band camp. If a phrase is a “strain,” you should get your lungs checked out. If the bridge is the “middle eight,” get a colonoscopy while you’re at it.
What happens if you ask for a double bass pedal at a practice room?
That sounds like the beginning of a joke. If it is, what happens?
I was banking on _NetNomad to pick up on my “yes and” and he delivered.
Neil Peart and Keith Moon come to you in a dream. Your astral body will be tested far beyond the drumming limits of your corporeal body. Upon success, you will ascend to the next level of existence. It is better that you do not know what happens when you fail.
> Go to practice studio to get some exercise and maybe improve my bad drumming skills
> Ask for double bass pedal because I want to try to play some fast metal stuff
> Get sent on spiritual journey
> Fail
> Now I have to spend eternity being tortured by the CenobitesWell shit.
Dual to the death with Mikkey Dee from Motorhead
Also less specific, but when people describe music as “tight” or similar, they’re usually a musician, or at least into music culture.
Are those dog whistles? I think of dog whistles as conveying a specific message to those in the know.
The examples you gave seem more like shibboleths - something that can be used to identify or rule out being part of an identity group.
Calling taiwan “taiwan” instead of china marks the speaker as not from the PRC, but it doesn’t send a specific message the way that republicans would say “welfare cheats” when they meant “black people”, trusting their base understands.
Yeah you’re right I did mean shibboleths, just didn’t know the term, sorry, should I edit the post?
Yeah, as @Tikiporch@lemmy.world said, the meaning is clear.
It’s such a fun word and i think it’s such a neat concept, but it’s annoying to use in a title cause it’s quite a rare word. But i find that once there’s a name for it, it’s way easier to notice it, so i like to mention it.
Where i live we pronounce couch st and schuyler st as cooch and skyler, and the police dept is the police bureau. Not knowing these things is used as a shibboleth that marks visiters.
Perfect examples.
No, everyone else knew what you meant.
Not quite related but in a lovecraft book “mountains of madness” I think…
He mentions a “war of resubjegation” which I loved. One phrase tells a story. There was a slave revolt. If the slaves won it would be called “war of freedom” or “the rebellion”
War of re-subjugation lets you know how that war ended.

(Apologies for the weird photo source. Only one I could find that includes the tribute text.)
The narwhal bacons at midnight.
I miss that. I genuinely do. Back when it felt like a community and things were fun. I know it’s never gonna happen again, it was great to see it, but I miss spontaneous community fun online.
As someone who used reddit during that time, lemmy something feels exactly like reddit back then. Small communities and mainly consisting of a bunch of nerds
I feel that Lemmy is much less fun. Maybe it’s the time period but it just feels more like people being depressed and arguing with each other than anything goofy
I agree, and I think it is all down to what is happening all around us and the state everyone is in
I actually was around a guy who said this IRL at a party one time in 2011. I recognized it, but also internally cringed so hard that I pretended I didn’t recognize it. I’m sorry, Sean.
Something about Obama and shoelaces? I can’t remember.
“If you know what I mean 😉” is probably the most common one.
No, Frank, exactly what is it that you feel uncomfortable saying but forces you to make everyone else think it?
Flip side of this one “it was the beer talking”
There’s no point in non-nazis using dog whistles when the right has made a cottage industry of convincing themselves that every innocuous phrase like “happy holidays” is a left-wing dog whistle anyway.
Jingle bells, homie. ✌️
Jingle Bells is a Thanksgiving song!
Where am I?
I started using “Happy Holidays” with more intent after all the fuss. I find it helps fragile shitheads give me some distance, while no one else blinks an eye.
I also like to wish people a “happy birthday harmless baby Jesus who is too young to threaten the rich”.
People’s reactions to that one can be enlightening.
“Eat the rich.”
Only two kinds of people say it.
-
Those disenfranchised by capitalism
-
Literal cannibals that don’t understand the slogan and would also eat the poor
Bulshit. Some of us cannibals understand rich people taste far better than poor people.
Joke aside which of the two groups do you place Motörhead in?
If you are what you eat, does eating a billionaire in turn make you evil?
Only if it also makes me a billionaire
In what way does this qualify as “indirect”
Had an English teacher that would consistently use that phrase while explaining grammer etc.
- Those who enjoy movies starring Lemmy Kilmister
What about actual cannibal Shia LaBoef?
Normal Tuesday night for Shia LaBeouf.
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