A Misunderstanding of Words

[Mermaid02]

But that's the thing with Facebook - everything is out there for everyone to see.

He is probably on there so he can keep up with what is going on with his family - maybe they don't live in the same part of the country. He might enjoy seeing pictures & communicating via FB.


I'm going to assume you're just kidding about this.

Why shouldn't older people be on Facebook. My mom is 66, my MIL will be 69 soon - they are both on FB & love it. (of course, I don't consider them old) They learn a lot about their grandchildren through FB. If my grandmother were still alive I know she would love FB too.

My SIL & BIL are in their mid-forties & both think that FB is "stupid". They talk ignorantly about it.

It has nothing to do with how old you are - it has everything to do with being educated on how to use it, knowing your audience & realizing that things in the world change. It sounds like grampa in the OP doesn't have a handle in the way "sweet" is being used in that context. Hopefully, someone explained it to him & he understands.

Probably, but he shouldn't have gotten so upset about a word. It wasn't even a cuss word..... I think that is just weird.

 

[Scurvy]

Wow you learn something new every day, I never knew that "sweet" was a term for non-masculine men

In the eighties I met some of my extended family for the first time and they were telling me about some of the people they grew up with. They kept talking about one guy, Jerry, and they kept referring to the fact that he was "sweet" and that of course it was difficult when he was growing up in the 1950s. I was so confused - I thought they meant he was nice and caring and I couldn't understand how that would make his life difficult. Finally someone told me that "Sweet" was a euphemism for someone being gay. They didn't mean it in a derogatory way, it was just a statement of fact. Apparently it was pretty widely used when they were growing up, at least in their area.

I assume that the OP's dad was offended because to him it seemed as though the comment was saying "You have a lathe? That is gay." Since using "Gay" as a derogatory term is offensive to just about everyone I can see why he might have been bothered by that even if he wasn't at all homophobic. And honestly there's no reason that we should expect someone to just automatically know that a word that used to have one connotation now has a different one. He probably had never been exposed to "sweet" meaning "cool" before. It's silly to think that someone shouldn't use social networking simply because they might not be familiar with all the current expressions being used online. Now if he's going to continue to take comments on his cousin's page so personally then Facebook might not be the best choice for him, but I don't think this one episode is any indication that he shouldn't be on Facebook.

 

[snapppyd]

I think this whole thread is kind of ironic

 

[tower_of_terror_luvr]

yes i have misread thingd before and i believe to everyone else that the OP father thought he meant that is sweet like pathetic

 

[Tiggernut_jadie]

I tried to explain that sweet in this context means good, it was a nice thing. But my dad wouldn't have any of it.

This is the bit of the OP that made me go Whilst I understand the issue of misunderstanding, I think te OP's father is just being awkward if he won't listen to anyone when they try to explain the current usage of the word 'sweet'. Words and their usage come and go and whilst I don't alwyas know the up to date meaning of particular words, if it is expalined to me hen I accpet I'm worng and move on....this gentleman seems to be unable - or unwilling - to accpet that!

 

[bumbershoot]

Sweet doesn't even have an alter negative connotation. How else could that be taken? If he said "That is bad" meaning good, I could see the confusion.

Apart from what I learned and quoted later in this post, I took it to mean that the Dad thought of it as a man saying to another man "awww, that is so sweet", which would probably be taken as sarcastic and rude.

I might call DH sweet for doing something nice, but his friends wouldn't use that word if he did something nice for them.

My grandmother was one hip woman, but she still said some things occasionally that blew my mind. Imagine being out & seeing a deaf person & having her say, "Oh, that person is deaf & dumb". "No, gramma, they're not dumb, they're hearing impaired." No one was going to change her, but we could educate her on how things had changed over time.

In that context "dumb" would have meant "cannot speak". Not "stupid".

Finally someone told me that "Sweet" was a euphemism for someone being gay. They didn't mean it in a derogatory way, it was just a statement of fact. Apparently it was pretty widely used when they were growing up, at least in their area.

Interesting! Never heard that one before!

 

[wvjules]

Am I the only one that had to google "lathe"?

 

[MELSMICE]

In that context "dumb" would have meant "cannot speak". Not "stupid".

Yes, I know that. My point was that in her "day" it meant can not speak, however, in this "day" if someone were to overhear another person refer to an individual as "dumb" it is derogatory.

 

[abdmom]

Yes, I know that. My point was that in her "day" it meant can not speak, however, in this "day" if someone were to overhear another person refer to an individual as "dumb" it is derogatory.

Not if it is used in the context your grandmother used it as. Dictionaries still have "lacking the power of speech" as a meaning for dumb. Many words have several meanings - this was the OP's point.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

I remember saying "suh-weet" in the late 80's early 90's but it's just "sweet" now, sounds exactly like saying "I like my coffee light and sweet"

Around here his friends would be the ones thinking he was weird for saying "suh-weet"

 

[merryweather20]

I guess I don't buy that he thought sweet meant precious or cute.

It doesn't really work to say, "boy your power tools are really girly and effeminate"

It would just come off as a non suquitor, not as anything to get angry about.

In that line we were once discussing Mormons at work, and I said "for example, the Osmonds". My boss said "Merry, thats not funny", everyone was standing around confused, until finally someone finally told him the Osmonds were Mormon, and he quickly apologized. But, to this day I have no idea how he managed to find something offensive.

 

[Suellen]

Sounds to me like someone might be too old to be on facebook if he found that offensive!

As far as misunderstanding words.... I am from Maine and wicked means "a lot" or "very" this is often misunderstood.

Like my comment to that picture would have been "that is wicked su-weet" LOL!

 

[disneymarie]

Being an old fart grandma, when I read it, I could not think why a mechine that could take off fingers would be sweet. So maybe the lathe thing is not so cool to us uh hum of the age over 55.

 

[KristaTX]

Am I the only one that had to google "lathe"?

I knew a lathe was a woodworking tool. But at first I thought "lathe" was going to be the word that the grandfather was upset with because maybe there was a naughty definition of "lathe" that I wasn't aware of. It didn't hit me at all that the word in question was going to be "sweet" .