I don't say 'male' or 'female'. Not even for newborn infants.
What I mostly say is 'dude' when I am slowing down to describe something basic to a man who has temporarily lost his mind. For them 'Dude' is a preface to a basic fact. As in "Dude, the earth is round."
In passing I will describe chicks and dudes as people with no particular sophistication. Like, some chick ran her Prius into a telephone pole. Some dude slipped on a banana peel. This could be a dumb mistake because if I thought it was something the idiot could have been predicted to screw up, I will call them an idiot. I will almost never call an idiot female a knucklehead. A knucklehead is a generally transgressive dude who is goes beyond being a problem as to one who causes trouble.
I have described, on many an occasion, and perhaps out loud that a bastard is a man who has been abused and unloved in such a way as they have been convinced that this is the way of the world. Or at least it is the way they will treat others, with no respect except for those who adhere to rules while waiting like a buzzard for them to break one. A bastard usually has an absent or asshole father although occasionally bastards are orphans. The female equivalent of a bastard is a bitch. I don't often think that men behave as bastards, rather that they inherently are. A bitch on the other hand may just be acting like a bitch. A powerful bastard often has the temerity to be violent and may act decisively without remorse. A bitch will not be violent although a crazy bitch will. Bastards and bitches are vindictive and 90% of the time not soulless, but often have no tact and aren't interested in criticism of their methods. They have a right to be hostile, according to themselves. A 'bastard' who is merely acting out is dick and dick moves abound. Someone who is acting like a dick, as with a good plurality of bitches, may often be rescued from their evil ways given that there are sufficiently courageous individuals who will point out their social transgressions.
Ladies and gentlemen are self-aware women and men who strive to behave appropriately. However it is not altogether reasonable to expect such from the average Joe. Speaking of which, I make no claims for the average Jane. More often than not I will use the term 'average bear' to refer to someone of average intelligence with no bearing on their comportment. Nevertheless I am favorably disposed to the American peasantry. It is for this reason that while I may be dismissive of the comportment of yokels and bohunks, terms I prefer to 'bumpkins', I don't dismiss them entirely. I am not generally offended by yokels but I hold them in lower regards than rednecks. Rednecks are trying to uphold some kind of code. Similarly I am not as offended by people I regard as 'ghetto' and hold them in lower regards than homies who also are trying to be righteous in their own peculiar way. But while I'm in this particular domain, let me remind you of the three degrees of stupidity.
Men and women who are not particularly interested in striving for the respectability of ladies and gentlemen, I refer to as guys and gals. However like the French and Spanish, any mixed group will be referred to as guys in passing. If I have no reason to make particular distinctions for their physical capabilities or emotional dimensions, they will be guys. As in "Are you sure you guys want to eat at this restaurant?" But I will, uniquely refer to gals collectively as women who compete in vigorous ways. I think this is unique. So definitely gals are superior to chicks. Also, I will occasionally think to myself about broads and dames. I don't happen to meet such women on a regular basis and don't often have an occasion to speak or write about them, but a certain hands on hips attitude of a female bartender who is smoking is reminiscent of a broad or dame. They won't necessarily be unattractive, merely rough hewn. The male equivalent of a broad or a dame I would generally refer to as a character. One worth mentioning would be a 'character straight out of Characterville' as used by Schatze Page from the film "How to Marry a Millionaire", a dame portrayed by Lauren Bacall. A female soldier is a gal. A female drill sergeant is a broad or a dame, but rarely will I leave 'broad' or 'dame' unadorned by the proper number of adjectives.
As I think on it, I would be rather embarrassed to refer to a gentleman as a dude, or a lady as a chick. Nevertheless there are various shades of knuckleheads who will be called out of name with some measure of opprobrium. My mind goes to the worst epithets I can think of, those I think of as lower than idiots. After all, idiots are problems, knuckleheads are trouble. Right now I am told that a 'cunt' is the lowest of the low, but the term has never had any great emotional resonance with me. Nevertheless I interpret some cunt as a particularly nasty, creepy or sheisty bastard. I might be able to wrangle some respect for a clever bastard or a cheeky bastard as they may be nothing much worse than an asshole on a bad day. By the way if you are not familiar with my use of the term 'sheisty' I mean purposefully deceitful. But I do appreciate that someone called a cunt is irretrievable as in "Eat shit and die, you miserable cunt." Excellent parting words, and not something you could ever be expected to be forgiven for or apologize for. So in this regard I am much more apt to be conventional with my ultimate insulting terms. 'Motherfucker' is a word that is fat and juicy in my mouth and I feel quite delicious in pronouncing it in the direction of the right human shitstain. But there is, incidentally a certain kind of cretinous coward I find particularly odious and these times seem to be presenting me with more opportunities to mock them derisively. I think it must be repeated, however, that 'cunt' just doesn't register much more than a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Without further ado I present you with 'twunt', a combination twit, twat and cunt. That would be a stupid, cowardly bastard who makes too much noise and is incapable of anything beyond noxious bleating. A twunt will bear false witness against his or her neighbor in a heartbeat. Fucking twunt. Pussies I can understand. But a conniving twunt is like that little sickly twisted beak creature yammering in front of Jabba the Hutt. A cutthroat who can't even heft the knife. Hmm. Mayhaps the very existence of my invention of 'twunt' is capable of lifting 'cunt' out of its relative lightweight status. In thinking once more about cunts, I also don't see how calling any woman a cunt is so horrible although I wouldn't because I don't use the word, but it occurs to me that there is a connotation of uselessness in the common use of the term. So add to nasty, creepy, and sheisty, worthless. Worthless, no-count trifling motherfuckers. That would be someone who is not even capable of being likely to harm himself or others but remains a constant nagging pain in the ass.
It is much more likely that I will call out assholes. Now I happen to think of myself as an asshole. An asshole is someone who doesn't mind offending people he disagrees with. In fact, an asshole is someone who exhibits more than an average amount of disagreeableness. Not one who is not merely persistent or persnickety but who carries a bit of a grudge in their disputations. An asshole spends more than their share of oxygen in putting the competition down. And yet I respect that assholes are generally attempting to defend some principle or adhere to some code, much like rednecks and homeboys. So they might actually be a clever or cheeky bastard. Nevertheless, all bastards need to occasionally come to Jesus and confess whether or not they are respectful of ladies and gentlemen. If not, they are consigned to the bastard column. Here is my message to assholes.
Now somebody once said that they had the perfect moniker for 'racist, privileged, white male' in the generic politically correct argot. They thought better of the generic demonization and said that if people would use this term, they would instantly know it to be true and righteously appropriate. That term is 'douche' aka 'douchebag' with its attendant verbal form douchebaggery. I agree wholeheartedly. Everybody knows a douche. Everybody hates a douche.
All of these people are socially acceptable. I would never seek to have any law to remove the most trifling twunt or the most insouciant douche from society. An anti-fragile society needs such people to push the envelope. Unfortunately, we are becoming a more fragile society. Lots of people say so but I will say that it's happening for a reason. That reason is that we are in an epistemological crisis. We are simply inundated with too much information that makes it appear as though certain aspects of our lives and our world cannot be understood. People don't know how to determine the truth in a universally accepted manner, and many doubt such a method exists. So people either retreat into STEM or throw their hands in the air and decide that they just can't care. That's why you hear a lot of people saying, or implying 'fuck that'. They're brittle. They can't go there. This too is all well and good so long as the law remains enforced. All this to say that criminals are still criminals. It's one thing to be difficult and quite something else to be vicious.
My aim therefore in this short list of terms of endearment is to clarify elaborately on what you need to know about my generally precise use of terminology to describe my fellow humans, and understand that I am not necessarily being dismissive. I am judging. We all must. I will judge openly yet with some amount of reserve.
I imagine that there are some silly bastards who can't seem to get enough of the crumbs of identity they snatch from the floor of society. I have seen on more than a few profiles a kind of announcement of preferred pronouns, which to me sounds a bit too much like a personal ad. I like that people have the imagination required to overcome the vast suckitude of modern life made boring by the brilliant arts and crafts of convenience, but if it begins with pronouns assuming the role of titles, well it's hard not to laugh.
It occurs to me that some fragment of our society requires close inspection. That is the inspection of tattooed flesh. I don't know what to think about that, as I have never had the experience of having been invited to examine a warm naked body festooned with artificial colors. Quite frankly I care more about clothes and acrobatics, but I'm starting to grasp the narcissistic appeal of second party navel gazing. So while I haven't solidified my disdain for the parochial tribalism of the tattooed, it has been gelling for some time now. I think I'll let it thaw. After all, my truck has bumper stickers.
If this then is a short compendium of characters identified by their attitudes, I hope it helps bring into use the idea of a vocabulary of casual regard and mockery that we must use and tolerate of necessity. As much as we will dislike and disregard each other, we should not mistake small or great flaws of character to be confused with criminal intent. There's a lot more of us we need to work with without the coercion of law and the escalation towards a police state.
So stop being such a silly bastard and go find an asshole you can like. Find a twunt to pity. Dude, you can do this. It will improve our society.
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