scruffy said
you know why that kid would be picked on?  

cuz some fool kept tellin the bully that a kid has to have both a mother and a father.  

think about how you want your kids to treat their peers.  you want em to shit on people who got it harder than them...?  

 

the bully kids are, in my opinion, far more fucked up than the kids with same-sex parents, single parents, or no parents.  to say its the victims parents fault is some total bullshit;  if anything, its the bullys parent[s] fault.  

 

incidentally, where did you go to school, anyway?  my recollection of school is that every kid got bullied by somebody.  including the bullies.  it aint nearly as bad as that, now.  

It's not. I honestly can't remember being ACTUALLY bullied. But I'm sure there are places that it happens, and I probably never noticed it because it didn't happen to me.

Psyral Infection said

RobTidwell said 
...
I hate that the word "normal" was used to describe heterosexual relationships and that gay relationships are considered "abnormal". They're atypical, not abnormal. ...

I think the issue is not the word "normal" but that people have lost touch with the true definition of the word. It's usage has drifted from the statistical definition to the point where "abnormal" is taken as a derogatory term. Abnormal refers to any subset of the query group that deviates from statistical norm. The term deviant also falls into this category. In statistics, deviant and abnormal are not judgments, but are terms designating their position on a distribution curve.

Just wondering, what word(s) should be used to designate something that falls outside of the standard distribution curve? "Atypical" does not quite work since the definition of that is something that does not conform to the type. Atypical in terms of homosexual in this context would be an incorrect use of the word. The reference is to sexuality and homosexual/heterosexual fall into the same "type" of query and therefore not an atypical set.

I just don't see the issue with the words "abnormal" and "deviant". They have very mathematically defined meanings and accurately describe the subset of the data on the issue, whereas the word "atypical" does not describe the subset. Abnormal and deviant are not just arbitrary judgments but are precisely defined by the data itself so there is no confusion of what falls into the abnormal part of the distribution:

The words "abnormal" and "deviant" become problematic when we redefine what they really are. In that sense, what stops me from redefining the word "equal" to mean something else. When definitions are not adhered to, then any word can be taken as a derogatory word. Somewhere a line needs to be drawn and my line is the strict mathematical definition since it does not lend itself to interpretation. It is an absolute specification that accurately tells us what the information represents. No judgment. No grey area. The data either falls within the statistical norm, or it doesn't.

Impact is always more important than intent. Remember, definitions of words are ALWAYS changing, that's how language works. If language did not change, we would still be speaking like actors in a Shakespeare play. There is not a single word that has a strict definition because language is fluid, and usage trumps rules. Now, obviously I need to remember this sometimes, but at the same time, there is a fine line by trying to educate and being prescriptivist.