I'm no expert in Old Norse either, and I thank you for scrounging up more references. I'm directly involved with a (sub)culture that actively uses the word, and know its meaning there, and bits of the historical roots. (Kind of like most Christians know a "baptism" means "dunked under water & devoted to Jesus," and may or may not know it means any kind of blessing-by-water ritual.)
And I admit--the visceral reaction to the word, isn't quite there. I don't react to "nithing" the way I do to a handful of English obscenities & insults I could name; my gut does not clench when I hear it; my mouth does not drop open in shock.
But my eyes narrow, because I recognize it. And then I go through what I know of the meanings. And then I hit the realization that, in this case, she was deliberately trying to slip it past people who won't notice it. And there's a double-layer of contempt there, first to call people en mass by a vile moniker that was only used for individuals, and second for assuming they were too stupid or ignorant to notice.
(There has never been "war against the nithings" because they don't last long, with all good people's hands turned against them, and because to be a "nithing," a person is lacking in all the traits that would allow him to work cohesively with others toward a common goal--honor, trust, loyalty, bravery, and so on. Nithings don't happen in groups.)
What Teresa Hayden thought she was saying, I don't know.
I don't know, either. But I have my guess. TNH is not new to online communication, nor does she casually use words she doesn't understand. The inventor of "disemvowelment" is not unaware of the difference between words that hit straight and hard, and ones you have to interpret before you understand them so they lose their emotional impact without losing the intellectual meaning.
She's no stranger to subtlety and manipulation... She KNOWS. Or she should know. And for someone with her online history, there's no difference. This is a very clear attempt to deeply insult people and then mock them for not understanding the insult.
I expect her to play the "well, you can't be sure what I meant; online communication is so complex; you're overreacting" card when called on it.
She's been blogging too long to get away with "maybe that's not what I meant."
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Date: 2009-02-01 12:30 am (UTC)And I admit--the visceral reaction to the word, isn't quite there. I don't react to "nithing" the way I do to a handful of English obscenities & insults I could name; my gut does not clench when I hear it; my mouth does not drop open in shock.
But my eyes narrow, because I recognize it. And then I go through what I know of the meanings. And then I hit the realization that, in this case, she was deliberately trying to slip it past people who won't notice it. And there's a double-layer of contempt there, first to call people en mass by a vile moniker that was only used for individuals, and second for assuming they were too stupid or ignorant to notice.
(There has never been "war against the nithings" because they don't last long, with all good people's hands turned against them, and because to be a "nithing," a person is lacking in all the traits that would allow him to work cohesively with others toward a common goal--honor, trust, loyalty, bravery, and so on. Nithings don't happen in groups.)
What Teresa Hayden thought she was saying, I don't know.
I don't know, either. But I have my guess. TNH is not new to online communication, nor does she casually use words she doesn't understand. The inventor of "disemvowelment" is not unaware of the difference between words that hit straight and hard, and ones you have to interpret before you understand them so they lose their emotional impact without losing the intellectual meaning.
She's no stranger to subtlety and manipulation... She KNOWS. Or she should know. And for someone with her online history, there's no difference. This is a very clear attempt to deeply insult people and then mock them for not understanding the insult.
I expect her to play the "well, you can't be sure what I meant; online communication is so complex; you're overreacting" card when called on it.
She's been blogging too long to get away with "maybe that's not what I meant."