At least she didn’t mention onion rings
By Saith Ann Althouse [no link, but you know where to find her]:
Really, how bad is it to say “pimped out”? Is it “nappy-headed hos” bad? Did anyone think Shuster was literally calling Chelsea a whore or even making any reference to her womanly virtue? “Pimped out” is a common colloquialism these days. According to the Urban Dictionary, which gives a good read on how young people use words, the connotations having to do with exaggerated fashion and style predominate.
Even if the clear associations with prostitution remain, we often make figurative references to prostitution in speech, and the cause of feminism is not served by requiring special limitations when we’re talking about women. We ought to be able to call a female publicity hound a “media whore.”
Oh, absolutely. Like Ann Althouse, I too look forward to the day when “common colloquialisms” used by “young people” at last supplant the awkward, artificial, and unfairly restricting discourse of the professional news media. If, for instance, Brit Hume were to go ahead and describe Mike Huckabee as a “douchebag,” that would also be perfectly unproblematic, since Urban Dictionary tells us that a douchebag is merely “an individual who has an over-inflated sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intellegence, behaving ridiculously in front of colleagues with no sense of how moronic he appears.” (Alternately, we learn that the term also refers to “a student or instructor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.”)
As well, I’m sure that one day soon, Ann Althouse will be there to defend Joe Klein when he describes Obama’s supporters as having given him a “rusty trombone.” After all, we often make figurative references to simultaneous hand/rim jobs in speech, and the cause of polymorphous sexuality is not served by requiring special limitations when we’re talking about presidential candidates.