Probably a similar thing as with the word "shrill" — it's a word that's mostly applied only to women, so some people interpret the word itself as being sexist (apparently notwithstanding the fact that females have biologically higher voices).
Nothing except if people are predisposed to think it’s associated with women then that’s how they’ll read it. This tells you more about the censors’ minds being in the gutter than anything else.
"Screeching" in english (at least North American english) is typically a gendered derogative. You generally wouldn't say a man was "screeching", not unless you also wanted to imply he was effeminate.
By avoiding the word, you avoid insinuating the target's gender is part of the issue, and/or avoid insinuating that the target is effeminate when they "should not" be, i.e. you avoid homophobia.
Screeching (loud piercing sounds) is what eagles some other large birds do. It's also applied to tires which lose their grip on the road during a burnout or the like.
Looks like the character “Screech” will have to adopt a new (nick)-name.
No, the person you replied to was correct (for my region and presumably his). My knowledge of the term mirrors his and I'm kind of disappointed to see so many people asserting there is no common, derogatory, gendered use of the term just because they are unfamiliar with it.
I see a lot of people with no knowledge or experience with this common usage. That's fine, but it's arrogant to assume things you don't know are nonsense.
> I'm kind of disappointed to see so many people asserting there is no common, derogatory, gendered use of the term just because they are unfamiliar with it.
Maybe worth reconsidering if your understanding of the term is truly "common."
> That's fine, but it's arrogant to assume things you don't know are nonsense.
It also seems pretty arrogant to assert you know better than everyone else.
> It also seems pretty arrogant to assert you know better than everyone else.
I did not assert that. I made a correction, which was in fact correct.
The meaning does exist, and commonly, even if in regions you are unfamiliar with. I did not misuse the word common. I think you just emotionally reacted to being called arrogant, when in fact it was a merited criticism.
It may have a gendered connotation some places, I definitely don’t think it does in my English-speaking country (Australia). Screeching primarily used for inanimate objects (wheels, alarms, etc.) and animals and then secondarily mostly in a non-gendered way for children.
Interestingly the examples in both the entry from Oxford that Google brought up when I searched the term, and the second example in the Cambridge dictionaries are both boys doing the screeching. The other examples are inanimate and screeching describing the experience of tinnitus. So it seems the UK is similar.
So potentially for much of the English-speaking world this term wouldn’t bring up thought of any kind of gendered slur. So it goes both ways - just because something is the case in your region doesn’t mean it’s true across the board.
> So it goes both ways - just because something is the case in your region doesn’t mean it’s true across the board.
I never said nor suggested that it did. I was criticizing the people saying it is not a common usage because they hadn't heard it. You and the other user trying to correct me by repeating how you are from a place where the meaning is different both completely missed the point.
The meaning exists, and is used derogatorily, and definitely commonly in some places. None of what you wrote has any bearing on that.
It's nonsense and presumably was made up on the spot. Unfortunately it's impossible to tell anymore if the people that write these things actually believe them or are just trolling.
It's not "nonsense" -- it's "woke praxis." By asserting this new understanding of language, woke activists are able to shape social reality. That's the point of the movement. So comments like this are a form of enacting that world. (And I suppose comments like mine are ways of pushing back against it.) Anyway, the wokies are correct about this very applied or pragmatic aspect of language.
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. I know this topic is fraught but your comment here is a noticeable step in that direction ad we want to go exactly the opposite direction: curious conversation is not about smiting enemies or intensifying brawls.
It ends up being used to dismiss women levying legitimate criticism. It basically gets used to enforce patriarchy. In practice the opposite is not really true of “bellowing” to the same extent. But even then, gendered insults are falling out of favor in general.
Screeching is usually associated with high pitched sounds and that is associated with women, to the point men making loud high pitched noises usually gets called "screamed like little girl".
Sounds like a train of biases to me. Sure certain words currently have certain connotations, and certain words used to have some too. But isn't language allowed to evolve? If a word was used derogatorilly 100 years ago must we ensure that the word is never allowed to change. Rather than removing the connotation, these changes cement them by removing anyone's ability to change them.
To determine the meaning of every word as they've ever been and attempt to remove any that have ever been used in a way that could've upset anyone ever, just makes sure those words will continue to upset people and be painful. There are words with stronger denotations that would take generations to heal but these are words and concepts that the children of today might not even recognize. Should we attempt to solidify pain by hiding truth? Or would it be better to let the youngins change things the way they always do.
If you take their words, they'll just make more. And those new words will not have the ambiguity of our current language.
I mostly associate screeching with owls and monkeys, neither of which are coded feminine.
To be clear (and conciliatory): I see how you connect the dots here. I just think you have to have your antennae extended extra high to pick this signal up, high enough that you'll need to be careful walking under overpasses and stuff.
Yeah, I think trying to "correct" such "uninclusive" speech is utter bullshit; 99.9% of the time it is just used to add some colour and flavour to the language used and not to disparage any group
Sure, but at that point you're just saying that a neutral descriptive term is more commonly-applicable to one gender.
Is the word "sobbing" or the word "weeping" derogatory? Visibly-emotional crying is also associated with women, and isn't a stereotypically "manly" thing to do.
I'm saying it could be interpreted that way by extremely uncharitable individuals that try to make their existence out of being offended and fixing "social injustices", instead of recognizing that in vast majority of cases no actual person was even offended, author didn't mean anything close to offending anyone, and the word was just used to make writing more colorful.
Haha, this is the classic example of answering a question which was merely a rhetorical whip. I love watching this stuff in action. I agree wholesale with you.
Screeching is most definitely more commonly used for women. That doesn't make it a bad word to use.
I mean, you won't catch me dead with these bowdlerized versions. The prose is atrocious and the motives for the changes are dubious.
But screeching is high pitched and when it's used for people is used mostly for women. I'm not going to pretend it's not. That's a comical rewriting of what is true just because you don't like some other rewriting.
I'm talking about stereotypes here. The _stereotype_ is that gay men are effeminate. I'm sure we both understand that gay men are all unique and have an infinite range of behaviour and action, but think about how many sitcoms have a "guy's guy" doing something traditionally coded feminine, and his buddies all start to get creeped out about him, to audience laughter. Go back far enough, and they'll probably outright even say, "Dude. Gay." (Early South Park, for an example, was rife with this.)
Since it ultimately comes down to policing straight men and telling them they're not allowed to be effeminate, I'd say it's more misandrist than homophobic.
Interestingly, while I get what you're saying - and can agree that "screeching" probably is at least slightly gendered when applied to humans - in my experience I've more often encountered "screeching" applied to non-human entities, like birds. Enough so that I would not automatically make any connection to the use of the word "screeching" as specifically being a gendered derogative aimed at women (although context would dictate a lot about the interpretation of any specific case of course).
>"Screeching" in english (at least North American english) is typically a gendered derogative.
When HN can't tolerate such an obviously true statement such as this, yet plenty of dog-whistles supporting homophobia and racism and transphobia in this thread stay upvoted, it tells me I probably shouldn't be spending time here anymore. I don't know if I've changed or the community has changed. Probably a bit of both. Maybe it's time to grow up and move on.
Until I saw your comment, I interpreted the downvoting as people taking issue with the astonishing lack of self awareness and bizarrely neurotic hypothetical purity spiral at the end.
IE: Describing a straight male as shrill might make passersby assume he’s abnormal and abnormal men are viewed as homosexual and it would be really awful if you accidentally did a homophobia so stop using the word shrill.
I'm curious, have you never actually seen this happening? Like, for one, it's not "abnormal = gay", it's "feminine-gendered terms = gay".
For example, sitcoms used to do this all the time. You'd have two big buff contractors or whatever talking about some work they did, and one of them would say something along the lines of "Hey Frank, that's real cute." Then they'd both realize what was said, get real uncomfortable, the canned laughter would hit, and they'd both stand up, brush themselves off and change the topic hastily.
I understand it's pretty subtle, but jokes and insinuations like this have been a regular part of (at least North American english) culture for a long, long time now.
I’d grant that benefit of the doubt if the rest of the thread wasn’t so illuminating on how HN feels about “woke” and how apparently a modicum of sensitivity towards historically disadvantaged minorities is the end of civilization.
I heard a new banger quote from John Stuart Mill the other day:
> He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
There's an easy test to see if you understand someone's position in a disagreement. Just summarize their position back to them. They'll tell you if you got it right.
> a modicum of sensitivity towards historically disadvantaged minorities is the end of civilization.
This absolutely isn't my position. I don't think you understand why people disagree with you here.
I wasn't talking to you, so it's awfully uncharitable of you to assume everyone else disagrees for such "noble" reasons such as yours. When people tell you who they are, believe them.
I do believe people when they tell me who they are. That’s why I find this claim quite uncharitable, and quite unbelievable:
> [HN believes] a modicum of sensitivity towards historically disadvantaged minorities is the end of civilization.
Do you have any evidence? Can you show me the comments where people “tell you who they are”, and say that having “a modicum of sensitivity toward minorities” will be the end of civilisation?
Your comment just reads as a bitter, low effort ad homenim attack.
In addition to what others said, it’s just not a common saying in modern English. If you described someone annoying as screeching, older people likely would understand but most would find it strange language for today.
