An Early AM Question

[deelaundry]

Do you think the male nurse House spoke to in episode 6-8 (the Thanksgiving ep) was gay? Why or why not?

I know some people on my f-list thought the male nurse House spoke to in episode 6-8 (the Thanksgiving ep) was gay. If you thought this, what specifically made you think it?

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Comments

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

Well, you mentioned this situation as particularly exempt from questions of semantics, and I wondered why that was true. If you think that semantics are pointless in all situations, why single this one out?

I think you're ascribing malice where there is none, but that's my opinion. There's a difference between dialogue and argument, after all, and asking about clarification of intention and wording isn't necessarily combative.

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

and asking about clarification of intention and wording isn't necessarily combative.

I agree! I agree completely, I really, really do.

This was what queenzulu said originally:

Do you think the male nurse House spoke to was straight? Why or why not?

Or, in other words, why does queerness have to be interrogated when straightness doesn't?


To me, that sounds a lot like implying that Dee was interrogating (obviously a negative thing), and not very much like asking for clarification. The words "what do you mean by that?" or "what makes you ask?" might have been more appropriate, if that was what she honestly wanted to know. The implication wasn't malicious, but it was a little negative. It definitely wasn't a simple question for clarification.

I don't think semantics are pointless, I think arguing about them is, especially since it is, in almost all situations, more civil and less time consuming to simply ask for a rewording.

I apologize if my thoughts sound scattered right now, I'm sitting on a bus and typing this on my phone.

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

I suppose the difference is that I saw interrogated being used with an academic, scholarly connotation and you saw it as hostile. It's not very objective to assign incivility to the question, particularly when it wasn't addressed to you.

If we don't discuss (or argue about) semantics, then won't they become pointless?

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

Are we arguing semantics about semantics? We're pretty close.

Semantics will always be important, we all know that. Go debate them as you please, but I really have to get to class and I'm going to back out of this whole discussion, because I can't keep it up with multiple people all night long. (Ba-dum tisshhh.) That said, I appreciate you keeping a friendly tone. Thanks. :)