Brad Wardell/Stardock sue employee for one million dollars

Alla youse jamokes what calls dames somethin' other'n dames is a buncha classeless gavones, capice?

On "gals", I agree with Good Morning Vietnam:

Embrace your inner Aussie and stick with "Shiela" and "Bloke". They're also interchangeable depending on circumstance or perceived sexual orientation.

I don't mind "gals", but that's just me. Can't say I've heard many people using the term, though. I always thought of "guys" as a unisex term, anyways. Like, if you're in a group of both men and women someone will typically say, "all right, see you guys later". Substituting "guys and gals" would work too, but it sounds a bit awkward.

"Guys" works for a mixed group of men and women, but there are some who would argue that calling a group of women "guys" is kinda weird. Hence some people trying to bring back "gals."

I see. I have used "guys" to refer to groups of women in the past. I just never felt the need to specifically use "gals".

That reminds me, I was listening to the Giant Bombcast a few weeks ago and Patrick were talking about a woman working at a game company, and kept saying "girl" about her, which really rubbed me the wrong way, despite the fact that I in social contexts will probably use "girl" far more often than "woman", but when you're speaking in a slightly more formal setting about a professional industry, I can totally see it sounding a bit derogatory.

I just call everyone "berk".

Pamela Finklestein: "Broads don't belong in broadcasting"? Is that the kind of professional courtesy you teach your news department?
R.J. Fletcher: Why, that's a terrible thing. I don't know how many time I've told those boys, never call chicks broads.

Which is also pretty sexist. Did you mean "jerk"?

There's nothing quite as formal as an episode of the Giant Bombcast featuring Markgraf Geoffrey Gerstmann, the Earl Ryan Dafys of Dwyfor, Cavaliere Vincenzo Caravella and Brad "The Shoe Maker" Vanderbilt. I always wonder why I keep listening given all the discussion of monocles, wig powder and dueling etiquette.

I use 'fat bags of cooze sauce' for my collective pronoun, but I think yours is better.

"Jerk" is more explicitly sexist than "berk." I think pretty much anything that you have to wade through a protective layer of rhyming slang to figure out the etymology of is exonerated of its original sexism if you aren't actually Cockney.

Also, shouldn't "dame" actually be a good word to use to refer to a woman, if we're caring about etymology?

I'd always heard 'jerk' came from carny slang for people who lived in the shitty little towns that existed only to fill steam boilers on trains, 'jerkwater towns'.

Though I guess it coming from 'jerk off' does make sense.

Any term used in the movie Swingers should be perfectly fine. Dame. Pretty baby. Dollface.

It refers to people who like Jamaican food.

Fuckin' tossers.

Actually fwiw I did find a website just now that says that "jerk" is derived from "jerkwater." My source for it being derived from "jerk off" is some Kurt Vonnegut book, so weigh those two sources against each other however you will.

New Study Shows Progress Made By Broads

No, I meant "berk", the all-purpose omni-gender insult used throughout Planescape: Torment

I am fond of "pillock".

"Taffer" is gender neutral.

I call all women "twists". That's because everything I learned about sex I learned from watching 1940s screwball comedies.

I love the tangent that this thread has gone in because "58 posts in less than a day! See, Broken Forum hates me and can't stop talking about me!"

Someone on PlanetCrap always referred to his wife as 'the smoothleg', which is pretty douchey.

The reason he said it's sexist (which I learned from looking it up after he said it was sexist) is that it's rhyming slang for "cunt." As I said though, I don't think the sexism makes it through the layer of abstraction so feel free to keep using it as far as I'm concerned.

(Also, "cunt" itself is pretty much gender-neutral nowadays so I don't see it as out of bounds on those grounds. Maybe it does depend on the context though; I'm accustomed to seeing and hearing it used in gender non-specific (i.e. English) ways but I'm sure there are still plenty of people who do use it in the old school misogynist sense so maybe never mind.)

Now see, where I come from, which is not England, that is the one word that should never ever ever be used for any purpose. Ever ever.

This is getting SO FAR OFF-TOPIC, but: that's the point? I'd argue that it's worth keeping that word viable without overusing it because a) profanity serves an important linguistic function and b) in the US among adults, that is the only truly profane word that is not a racial slur. So yeah, it should never ever be used, which is why it still has the power to be effective when it is used.

It's beloved of a certain class of person in England (and the rest of the British Isles) but it's still widely regarded as the most profane of swear words and personally I hate to hear it used.

As it should be.

What a silly bunt.

Americans are bad at swearing. The US is like the Olive Garden of swears, identikit, pre-packaged, processed and inoffensive profanity.
"Oh, I'm a motherfucker? That's adorable!"

Have some pride in your profanity; if you mean it then make it sound like you do. Custom build your insults and leave the recipient in no doubt that they are indeed a snot-gargling shitferret.

Nah, that just proves to the recipient that they got under your skin, and that they are somehow worth all the extra effort.

Her indoors doesn't mind what I call her.

That just sounds nerdy, like something out of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Yes.

No. I've heard this suggestion before and it doesn't work. I mean sure, we've all had fun coming up with jokey insults like that with our friends, but they don't work as actual insults because when you insult someone, bemusement is not generally the reaction you're trying to provoke from them.

It works for the English because 99% of their communication is still in the form of letters written with quill pens and the like, giving them plenty of time to savour their insultry.