I don't think that's "the other side", you just don't like these words' primary meanings at all. I'm not going to take a position on that pro or con. However I feel about those words, they're completely entrenched and I see no evidence that their meanings are changing or that there's a cultural change that's pushing them out, so I just accept them as reality.
If someone could make a really strong case for why we *should* change them, and it seemed plausible that that case would appeal broadly enough that there were a chance such a change might happen, then I'd evaluate the case and decide how much I agree with it. But "let's reclaim 'girlfriend' for this secondary meaning" - a meaning I think is inherently troublesome even if it weren't bumping up against a more established word in a confusing way - is not that case :)
But I see that as a tangent to what I'm talking about here, not an opposition to it. Even if there were such a strong case, it'd still be certain that the primary meaning of "girlfriend" would last for a long time, and it'd still be a good thing to help its secondary meaning go away. Particularly if the reason people don't like girlfriend and boyfriend is that they want to move away from gendered words for romantic partners; why do we need gendered words for friends?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2011-05-22 02:49 (UTC)If someone could make a really strong case for why we *should* change them, and it seemed plausible that that case would appeal broadly enough that there were a chance such a change might happen, then I'd evaluate the case and decide how much I agree with it. But "let's reclaim 'girlfriend' for this secondary meaning" - a meaning I think is inherently troublesome even if it weren't bumping up against a more established word in a confusing way - is not that case :)
But I see that as a tangent to what I'm talking about here, not an opposition to it. Even if there were such a strong case, it'd still be certain that the primary meaning of "girlfriend" would last for a long time, and it'd still be a good thing to help its secondary meaning go away. Particularly if the reason people don't like girlfriend and boyfriend is that they want to move away from gendered words for romantic partners; why do we need gendered words for friends?