Quote:
Originally Posted by Avistew
I thought only females could be hysterical. And that it was a sexist thing to say. Kind of like the "she's having her periods" thing that dismisses a female's anger as being something hormonal rather than having a legitimate reason. Does it have different connotations in English?
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Hysterics was definitely something that used to apply only to women in English, but that's kind of an "old english" sort of thing, something for the history books and etymology nerds. I doubt too many native english speakers today equate the word with women exclusively, unless they also happen to be quite sexist! By now, the word has been widely used enough to have it's meaning changed to encompass any kind of unreasonable negative emotional reaction(or, in some cases, uncontrollable laughter; as noted above).
Anyway, I can see why some people are upset, and I can sort of understand it. We can't really say that the ship date of the disk hasn't slipped at least a month in terms of the dates we've been given. But I don't really see it as a problem, and I don't think too many reasonable people think of it as much of a problem either. It's coming, it's going to be excellent, and I really,
really don't want this kind of feedback to lead to rushed products
like Wallace and Gromit got. Sure there's a point to be upset that you paid money and you haven't gotten anything yet, but I don't think we've passed it.