Interesting Socio-Linguistic Moment

[ellenkushner]

I just Tweeted:  I slept in my earrings.

Many people rushed in immediately to make cracks along the lines of "Those must be some big earrings."

All of them were men.

Women say things like, "Ouch!"

I did actually think, as I hit Send, that someone might take it the wrong way - but then I thought, "Oh, everyone knows what it means!"

Just to be clear:  I think it's adorable & funny - I'm not offended!  But it's definitely one of those few remaining moments where language is used entirely differently by the two gender groups. 

Comments

[galdrin.livejournal.com]

My first thought ... "I do that all the time."

[nohwhere-man.livejournal.com]

Same here, some of mine I -can't- take out by myself. At least, not until I grow an extra couple of elbows.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Studs don't count!

And I mean that in the metallic way, of course.

[nohwhere-man.livejournal.com]

C'mon, only two are studs, well, barbells, actually. The rest are rings.

[redbird]

My thought is something like "I hope it wasn't uncomfortable." I have slept in dangly earrings by accident, or not done so only because I felt a lump under my ear as I was drifting off to sleep, and got up and removed them. I also have a captive bead earring that comes out only rarely, for medical reasons (MRIs, surgery).

cattitude has slept with an earring in, on occasion ("an earring" because he has only one ear pierced). He also knows I've done it, because I will occasionally comment on it in the morning. So, yet another gendered thing which is more "the people who do this are of one gender" than "the people of one gender do this."

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

And my first thought was 'you mean other people don't?'!

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I must admit, my first thought, was 'Oh, Ellen's poor ears'. :-)

[envoy.livejournal.com]

I would think ouch, but I wouldn't say it because it implies a kind of assumptive familiarity of commonality of experience that I'm not comfortable with.

Put another way, if you took my reason for not replying "Tell it sistah!" and watered it down by about 20 parts, you'd have something that tastes a lot like why I wouldn't say "ouch"

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

One is, of course, always free to abstain!

[pameladean]

Um, well, I might have made that response, not because I didn't know what you meant but because the misinterpreting pun was irresistible.

I wouldn't pierce my ears for a million dollars, so I don't have the experience to go "Ouch."

P.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You punsters do come in all shapes & sizes! I try to forgive you.

[tara-li.livejournal.com]

I don't find it a pun, so much as an ambiguity of usage - which I find very problematic. While it's wonderful for playing around with words, these kinds of ambiguity, at least in my experience, make it difficult to understand what people want from me.

After all, can anyone here actually say that "no" always means "no", even if believing that is what we're advised is the best course of action to take regarding it? It sure would cut way down on the formula romances written if so...

[joecrow.livejournal.com]

Aside from a few years when the kid was an infant and kinda grabby, I don't think I've taken my earrings out (except for cleaning) since I first got pierced 26 years ago. I've got callouses behind my earlobes now...

It's less of a problem with the barbells and gauges I've got in there now, probably.