I am perfectly aware that I am not a juvenile feline. I don't think anyone in our group actually thinks they are juvenile felines (and so what if they do? See elsewhere for rant).
However, I still will use "kitten" to describe people who are in a certain subsection of my social group.
Why? Because our language is one of the ways that people define groups. We use terms like "herding" and "kitten army", and each of us knows at some level (even though they may roll their eyes at it) that when these terms are being used, we're doing a kind of status check of our group cohesiveness.
Now before you argue that a group that is only held together by the use of the word "kitten" is a very sad group indeed, I'm not saying that it's the only thing that holds the group together. I'm just saying that it's one of the things that gives us a feeling of us-ness.
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Date: Saturday, 15 November 2003 04:50 am (UTC)However, I still will use "kitten" to describe people who are in a certain subsection of my social group.
Why? Because our language is one of the ways that people define groups. We use terms like "herding" and "kitten army", and each of us knows at some level (even though they may roll their eyes at it) that when these terms are being used, we're doing a kind of status check of our group cohesiveness.
Now before you argue that a group that is only held together by the use of the word "kitten" is a very sad group indeed, I'm not saying that it's the only thing that holds the group together. I'm just saying that it's one of the things that gives us a feeling of us-ness.