Strange... I'm trying to think why someone would be offended in a personal way by the use of the word. I could see someone being repulsed by the word if their mental picture for the word was a used condom. When I think of a word as offensive, it's usually because it's a slur against a particular group like "fag", "kike" or "cunt". If someone thinks that scumbag is offensive, what group do they think it offends? Low-level criminals? Guys who use condoms?
Informal NYer poll-offensive word
- Thread starter Gwyn
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Perhaps they shouldn't, and yet that word does feel a bit sexist, and I would be less likely to use douchebag in some settings that I'd feel free to use scumbag. Perhaps it's because douche clearly has a connection to private parts while scum can mean lots of different things. If people use scum commonly to refer to anything that has to do with sexuality, it's news to me. It wasn't until this thread that I ever thought scumbag meant a used condom. I would have guessed it had to do usages like, "He's the scum of the earth."
I was told the used condom definition was a NY thing. And that is why it's -I used the word "offensive" but maybe should have said - stronger and more vulgar, to them than to me, for instance.
Douche/douchebag, I don't find offensive. Maybe I should. Maybe that's part of a sexism that's so ingrained even I totally accept and expect it.
I do, however, find them interchangeable. So it's funny to me when someone finds douche okay, but douchebag offensive.
Here's another one for you, not specific to NY though---
Dork.
Apparently that used to be a pretty common word for penis. The story I heard was of parents in the 60's and 70's blanching when their kids went around calling other kids "dorks".
I mean, to us it was like "nerd". Or maybe, a dumb nerd, because generally "nerd" had that bookish/smart connotation, and "dork" did not.
Douche/douchebag, I don't find offensive. Maybe I should. Maybe that's part of a sexism that's so ingrained even I totally accept and expect it.
I do, however, find them interchangeable. So it's funny to me when someone finds douche okay, but douchebag offensive.
Here's another one for you, not specific to NY though---
Dork.
Apparently that used to be a pretty common word for penis. The story I heard was of parents in the 60's and 70's blanching when their kids went around calling other kids "dorks".
I mean, to us it was like "nerd". Or maybe, a dumb nerd, because generally "nerd" had that bookish/smart connotation, and "dork" did not.
This is from the Online Etymology Dictionary:
scum
1326 (implied in scummer "shallow ladle for removing scum"), from M.Du. schume "foam, froth," from P.Gmc. *skuma- (cf. O.N. skum, O.H.G. scum, Ger. Schaum "foam, froth"), perhaps from PIE base *(s)keu- "to cover, conceal" (see hide (n.1)). Sense deteriorated from "thin layer atop liquid" to "film of dirt," then just "dirt." Meaning "lowest class of humanity" is 1586; scum of the Earth is from 1712. Adopted in Romanic, cf. O.Fr. escume, Mod.Fr. écume, Sp. escuma, It. schiuma. Adj. scummy first attested 1577; transf. sense of "filthy, disreputable" is recorded from 1932. Slang scumbag "condom" is from 1967; meaning "despicable person" is from 1971.
scum
