#prescriptivism

* We - The speaker and the listener

* Wu - The speaker, the listener, and someone else

* Wo - The speaker and someone else, but not the listener

"Has butch been used by men? Are men allowed to use the term "butch"?" Motherfucker, I don't care. Butch originally just meant "masculine" and was used for straight dudes. Any queer usage by men or people of any other genders came later. I don't really care when exactly it started being used in a queer sense and I don't care where you draw your arbitrary lines in the sand as to who is allowed to be butch.

Prescriptivism is a blight upon this world rivaled only by all the other fucking brainrot that exclusionists and radfems come up with on a daily basis. Men use "butch" as a label. They identity with it. Trans men, gay men, queer men, bi men, demi-men, intersex men, nonbinary men. Women use "butch" as a label. They identify with it. Trans women, lesbian women, queer women, bi women, demi-women, intersex women, nonbinary women. Nonbinary people use "butch" as a label. They identify with it. Butch is a noun. It can be a whole identity, butch is love and butch is life and butch is our community. And butch is solidarity as well.

One of them is the word "literally" being used to mean 'figuratively'.

Another is one that I heard recently about how the definition of "tariff" is changing from a kind of import tax placed on the importer by the importer's own government, because of the way Trump is using the word wrongly.

So I just saw a TikTok of an interview with Andy Burnham, who stutters from time to time, as well as pauses between words a lot when speaking. I wouldn't even say his stutter is particularly bad in comparison to how a lot of people stutter, and it definitely does not make him incoherent.

A commenter, when asked why they dislike him so much, said it's because "He doesn't have a clue what he's saying, he can't string together a sentence without stopping or stuttering".

STUTTERS ≠ NOT BEING INTELLIGENT

...and nor should people with a stutter be seen as 'poor public speakers'.

As someone who has quite a stutter in most conversations (I don't experience it to the extent where it's every sentence, or at least as far as I'm aware, but it's still a very present part of my speech), the way I speak is not a reflection of my intelligence. In fact, I study English Literature and English Language. I got 9s in both at GCSE, and am on track for/currently achieving A*s at A Level in both. It is a similar situation for every other subject I have studied, yet I have a stutter that impacts every conversation I have, sometimes to the point where it prevents me from being able to say a word at all (despite being good at pronouncing complicated words across multiple languages).

Better yet, I am also a confident public speaker who has participated in various competitions, as well as stood in front of a crowd of ~60 judgemental teenagers to do a lecture at my old highschool. Did I stutter during these moments? Yes, to an extent. But did that make my topics any less researched, well-structured, or beneficial?

Absolutely not. It was the same content as it would be if I didn't have a stutter, just including an extra few repeated letters or words here and there.

I'm not saying you have to see Burnham as some kind of political saviour for Labour and the government, nor am I saying that you have to agree with his policies.

What I'm saying is that you should NEVER hate or disapprove of someone based on the way they speak, as it is something that for some of us cannot be easily changed, nor should it be, when it is something that does not massively impact on life.