Just spent 15 minutes in pitched taxonomical debate w/friend over whether [DUDE WE KNOW] is a dick, a cock or a prick. Because words matter.
Our conclusions: Obnoxious + Insulting = Dick. Obnoxious + Dumb = Cock. Obnoxious + Arrogant = Prick. (Clip and save for your records.)
Friday, April 8, 2011
FRIDAY ALOTT5MA GRAMMAR RODEO BONUS ADULT EDITION: If only because Glen Weldon, book critic/comics blogger for NPR and one-fifth of Pop Culture Happy Hour, tweeted these remarks on Wednesday, and I thought I would share:
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I don't ever really call a person a cock, but I agree with their values for dick vs prick.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat related: For reasons I don't understand, I'm always a bit thrilled when someone calls a woman an asshole. Like, it's just that little bit of gender equality that now women can be assholes too!
A dick is a jerk. A prick is a malicious jerk. And I never call anyone a "cock" unless it's immediately followed by "sucker." In which case, the person is a ... well, exactly what it sounds like he is.
ReplyDeleteThis is clearly an area where Yiddish is a robust language; Schmuck, shmeckle, shmeggege, schlong, schvantz, schmo...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure my father knew even more.
We used the word Fuckstick for an arrogant, useless, and obnoxious boy when I was a freshman in college and then like 8 years later one of my good friends went and married him (fortunately he had grown out of that stage called being a 17 year old freshman in college and is quite nice now).
ReplyDeleteCompound words always make the best insults: fuckstick, dickbrain, asshat...
ReplyDeleteI once wrote a column for a newspaper down South, and used the word "schmuck" in the way that most people used it -- namely, as a synonym for "stupid, annoying person." My luck, the one Jew in town read the column and complained to my goyishe editor that we were using profanity, which led my editor to question any unfamiliar word I ever put into my copy after that, especially words with a hard "k" sound in them.
Dick is run-of-the-mill jackass. Maybe a little stupider but actually fairly benign. Just your average idiot.
ReplyDeleteCock and prick are dicks + arrogance and I would likely differentiate usage based on audience.
A resident of Deadwood?
ReplyDeleteI think I'm with Meghan here, but the way I differentiate between prick and cock is a level of self-reflection. Pricks are arrogant and obnoxious and *know* it, cocks are arrogant and obnoxious and are -- to use the Catholic term -- invincibly ignorant of the fact. Pricks can differentiate between their audience, cocks are just inevitably awful. I don't know which is worse.
ReplyDeleteAh, asshat, thanks Bright from Everwood!
ReplyDelete