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Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 4, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It seems to me that the word “spew” is very left-coded in online discourse. “You’re just looking for an excuse to spew your hatred”, “he was spewing his racism and homophobia everywhere”, etc.

This is interesting because, in contrast to an overtly political term like “privilege”, or even a set phrase like “there’s a lot to unpack here”, the word “spew” is a longstanding and perfectly innocuous non-political term from ordinary language. And yet to my ears it has still taken on a political valence. I rarely hear a rightist say something like “and then he started spewing his politically correct nonsense”, if ever.

Can you think of any initially non-political words or patterns of speech that have become right-coded? (Or just more leftist examples - I know there are more besides just “spew” but I’m drawing a blank at the moment).

I would expect a right-winger to use "spout" instead of "spew" in that context. Words I think of as left-coded include "problematic," "gaslight," and "decency."

It does seems as though there is a pipeline of new vocabulary from 4chan to online rightists to extremely online people in general and then to the population at large (see "based") and perhaps another one from tumblr to online leftists to online rightists making fun of them to the population at large (see "woke"). Funny enough, both of those words come ultimately from black English, which seems to be the true source of linguistic innovation in America.