Whilst I absolutely agree with understanding before you critique, I am Scottish, and 'cute hoor' here has no second meaning, unlike in Ireland, and thus I assumed I understood.
Apologies that this was not the case, however I feel fairly strongly that 'whorish politician' etc do still ring of sexism, but feel it is not particularly worth expanding on.
From: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 9:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On my return hereAlison,This strand started with an objection to Sean’s use of the term “cute hoor”, and Sean’s defence of it. His explanation was that it has a specific meaning in the context of colloquial Irish speech, which does seem to be the case. Whether or not it is fair to say that the term “cute hoor” is inherently sexist is, it seems to me, at the least open to argument. Is referring to a “whorish politician” sexist? Possibly, though I’d feel that it would depend on the context, and a whole set of other things.But the discussion began from the use of a specific phrase. Surely at the least on a poetry list, it’s worth exploring what the phrase means as it’s used.There’s not really much point in condemning before you understand**, and I certainly hadn’t come on the phrase before Sean used it. The *concept* of politicians as “cute hoors” is certainly one that I’ve encountered.[Actually, as an aside, the closest analog I can think of to “cute hoor” would be “fly boy”.]google incidentally gives 1,380 results for the phrase, "whorish politicians". The few I looked at seemed to me offensive, but mostly because the phrase seemed to be used glibly and unthinkingly. What emerged as predominant was the unconsidered pejorative element rather than any specific sexual reference.I think what I’m getting at here is that calling a politician a cute hoor could be condemned as glib OR sexist OR both. Or neither. What it isn’t is an *English* cliché. I mean, if I said that David Cameron was a cute whore, it would mean something quite different to Sean referring to a local Irish politician as a cute hoor. Part of the difference, of course, turns on the first element of the phrase, attractive versus acute.Hm ...Robin** By referring to “condemning before you understand”, I was thinking of myself as, unlike Rachel, I’d never encountered the phrase before, so my initial response was simply to work out what it meant. Not what Sean meant by it, but simply on the most basic level what it would be taken to mean. The meaning is anything but transparent to a non-Irish speaker.R.
From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank"> Alison CroggonSent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 8:41 AMTo: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank"> [log in to unmask]Subject: Re: On my return hereNo, the quarrel is merely with the unthinking use of sexist language on a poetry list almost exclusively participated in by men ie there may be a connection between these two things. This example was merely illustrative. But aargh what am I doing....Thanks Rachel. And also thanks Jaime, I shall read your essay when I get some spare thoughtful time. I have scanned it and it looks fascinating.In haste and impatience...
Sent from my iPhoneRachel, I think you’re shooting the messenger. The phrase, before Sean used it, didn’t mean anything to me – I’m not from Southern Ireland, and hadn’t encountered it. I initially checked it out in the wake of David’s citation from urbandictionary, since I was a bit sceptical of that as a source of information.It seems to be the case, and please correct me if I’m wrong here, that the term “cute hoor” has a wide currency in Ireland. Actually, from the range of citations kicked up in various places in google, particularly from the biographies of Irish politicians, it could perhaps be narrowed down to Southern Ireland. Is it current in Northern Ireland? It certainly isn’t, as far as I know, current in England or Scotland.Your quarrel seems to be with what you perceive as an underlying misogynist bias in the phrase itself, but that’s a quarrel you should take up with urban Southern Irish colloquial speech rather than with me.Thinking that the nearest English equivalent might be “whorish politicians”, I put that into a google search, and was queried by google, "Did you mean: irish politicians".Ouch!Robin
From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank"> rachel warrinerSent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:54 AMTo: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank"> [log in to unmask]Subject: Re: On my return hereIt seems like a pretty straightforward example of insulting men by calling them words traditionally flung at women ... and strange as it may sound to English and American ears, here in Cork it's still ringing through as boring aul misogyny. Again I repeat, just because a word means one thing to you doesn't mean it doesn't have other implications. Again I repeat, this is a list for poets and I can't believe that needs saying twice. The question was only just asked why no one engages with the list, someone kindly told ye. Perhaps ye should listen!
On 8 Oct 2014 06:23, "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Since we're into googling, from wikipedia;
Etymology
From cute (“sly/clever, shrewd or perceptive”) and whore
>>
Actually, Alison, your citation is from Wiktionary, not Wikipedia itself, and you’ve truncated the entry.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cute_hoor
The term doesn’t crop up in most of the current slang dictionaries, and I can’t lay my hands on my copy of the dictionary of Hiberno-English, but a little effort on google shows that it’s pretty widespread as an Irish usage, predominantly in the context of politics, invariably transcribed as “hoor” rather than “whore”, and almost invariably applied to males.
//
The Irish have hoors. This is a really odd one - to English and Americanears, anyway. Though obviously a local pronunciation of the English\vhore\ the Irish hoor is not only ambisexual in meaning but generally hasnothing to do with prostitution or even sexuality. A 'cute hoor' is someonewho does whatever they think they can get away with. This cute harks backto its origins. It's a shortening of 'acute' and meant sharp-witted - still therein an American parent telling their child not to get cute with them. Theepitome of the cute hoor was Charlie Haughey. the three-times Taioscachwho embezzled his Fianna Fail party to the tune of a private island, amansion, a stable of racehorses and a yacht. He also stole money collectedfor his friend's liver transplant. Yet he was still given a state funeral andadmired for his cheek. This is known as the cute hoor syndrome. At the1998 National Crime Forum, a sociologist claimed that this syndromemight explain why no-one had been imprisoned for tax fraud in Irelandsince 1945.\\
There’s this:
Cork property developer shocked at 'cute hoor' speech, defamation case hears
A (male) Irish property developer objected to being characterised as a cute hoor by a (female) Fine Gael politician.
Go figure.
Not to denigrate the Irish, but apparently we don’t have whorish politicians this side of the Irish Sea. googling <cute hoor irish politician> produces 360,000 results.
Curiously enough, which may interest Alison, there’s an Australian connection too. _Green’s Dictionary of Slang_, while not noting the phrase “cute hoor”, or the Irish connection, has an marginally-relevant entry:
“HOOER n. (also HOOR, HUER) [SE WHORE] 1 (AUS.) a term of general disapproval, applied to either sex.”
Robin
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 12:43 PM, David Latane <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Sean just because a phrase is "irish" or "old" or mostly directed at men doesn't preclude it from being sexist. there is no assumptions being made here and it is far from a case of it being over the PG mark. it is just a case of you using language that is no longer acceptable in circles where people actually care about the language used.
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___________________________________________
Alison Croggon
ABC Arts Online Performance Critic
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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