hey guys friendly reminder from your fave Canadian that esk*mo is a slur so please don’t use it!
I see it usually in the context of “esk*mo kisses” which may pop up when people talk about their ships and their headcanon, but it means “snow eaters” in cree and is a slur against Inuit people so please just don’t use it!
and I would appreciate if u reblogged this because people outside Canada don’t seem to know this for the most part
Also if you want to refer to ‘‘eskimo kisses’‘ and not use that term the Inuit term for it is ‘‘kunik’‘. It’s a traditional greeting usually between relatives or a child and an adult, although it’s a little different from nose kisses so most Canadians call it ‘‘Inuit kiss’‘ and I’ve heard other people call it ‘‘bunny kisses’’. Either way there’s no excuse to use ‘‘eskimo’‘ in this context or another.
Thanks for telling us Americans definitely have no idea, so it’s good information.
A good post about the “eskimo kiss” thing which is certainly an offensive stereotype, and it’s good to know who you’re talking with and how you use your language. But the Siberian-Alaskan Yupik people outside Canada actually do use the term Eskimo to refer to themselves and to the broader Yupik + Inuit cultural relationship. You shouldn’t call Yupik Eskimo people Inuit because they’re not! But they’re still a related people to the Inuit.
“Inuit” means “people” in Inuit languages, and so it means the inuit people of Western Alaska, Canada and Greenland. But it’s not a word that doesn’t exist in the Yupik languages and so doesn’t mean their people. As a word it doesn’t cover Yupik culture, even though they’re related to Inuits, because it only means the Canadian-Greenlandish Inuit people.
The Yupik people are Eskimo, but not Inuit, and the Inuit people could be called Eskimo if it didn’t have negative connotations in their cultural areas, but not Yupik. (Source 1 from UAF Alaska Native Language Centre, Source 2 from an Alaskan linguistics blog.)
Mainly because makeup itself, the generic concept, is an integral part of human identity. People have always done it (even Neanderthals used makeup) and we’re always going to keep doing it. The concept of decorating our faces/bodies with colored pigments is practically hardwired and on a deep level just plain FUN (look at how much kids love to get their faces painted at fairs and carnivals and so on). The concept is also totally gender neutral. In some societies, men traditionally do it more than women, for example. Using your own body as a canvas for art taps into a mystical, childlike sense of wonder. First you look one way, then… another! Like magic.
But mainstream commercial makeup culture as it exists today is incredibly exploitative, misogynist, colonialist, colorist, and hurts women, especially poorer women and women who don’t fit the racial ideal as expressed by the mainstream corporate beauty industry. And a big part of that is pushing “natural” looks. All women are supposed to look “naturally” poreless, for example (which isn’t realistic or healthy) and are punished socially and often financially if we aren’t. Another example: contouring is supposed to accentuate the “natural” lines of your face but for me and a lot of other Asian women with moonfaces, it’s the furthest thing from natural! The further you are from the rich thin young lightskinned bigeyed straightsmallnosed highcheekboned look, the more weirdly artificial the word “natural” becomes. We’re supposed to sink all this time and money and resources into achieving this bullshit “natural” look until it all feels a bit like Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill.
Putting a bright blue streak on your eyelids and walking out the door might take five seconds and probably makes you feel expressive and happy and good about yourself, even if it seems “tacky” through the lens of mainstream makeup culture. But taking an hour and trying soooo hard, using all the latest expensive products to make it seem like you’re not really trying at all, makes a lot of women feel worse about themselves, not better. In fact it leads to a lot of women feeling insecure about their real face and their real skin. There are many ways to look garish, but only ONE way to look “natural”. Instead of turning your own face into a canvas where you’re the creative artist, you’re following a ruthless set of instructions and doing a sort of strict paint-by-numbers that you’re never going to do right anyway. So it represents giving up more power over your own face/body than you’re actually getting back. Subjugation to the social norm, not creativity.
Additional note about nose shape – notice how MUAs with broad noses contour them to look much smaller? (there’s a Lot of racism in the history behind the contouring movement)
Currently trying to decide if I want some quick macaroni and cheese enough to fire the stove up and fill the kitchen up with pasta water steam.
And it’s (just) past midnight. Still over 80F, though.
This 100% was me at the zoo. Don’t touch Melon, he’s mean. Okay, but I have to touch Bob to make him get his stupid emu head out of my shirt, so what if I also touch Melon until he likes it?
Sephiroth is angery because he has one wing and sometimes attacks people? I want to pet him also. Also he won’t get off the rock I have to clean anyway, surely a little pets on the good side will be fine.
Martha and Stewart are assholes that tag-team while the pond is filling? I bet I could CUDDLE THEM.
The female deer will excitedly nuzzle you in the stomach for feeding them. This is fine, because they don’t have antlers. The male deer is locked up while we’re putting out food because he will gouge you to death with his little nubby asymmetrical horns, because he thinks the females are doing it.
The entire monkey enclosure will eat your fingers for a single fruit loop. They also have the smallest arms and can reach through holes they’ve made in the tarp on the gate to their enclosure. Do not hold hands with the monkeys. (2nd gen old man monkey will also pee on the keepers that don’t give him fruit loops. He is a jerk.)
The rehabilitated bear that still sits like she’s on a couch because she did that when she was living in a crack house? Yes, she looks chill. Yes, she looks The Softest. No, do not pet her back through the fence. No, do not go into the corridor and try to offer treats for pets.
Big Mac does not know he will break your ribs, but YOU know he will break your ribs. Do not enter Big Mac’s enclosure no matter how much he chuffs and displays his belly and rubs on the cage and looks sad. Yes, he genuinely wants pets. Yes, Pinkie is deliberately getting pets where he can see it as a sign of dominance even though she’s a housecat and he could eat her in approximately one bite.
The turtle is mean. Period. He is an old man and he does not like you. He does not like the parrot getting fries and he does not like that he is in a kiddie pool to warm up because his enclosure lost power, and he does not like you behind him preparing food for the owls and raptors. Petting him will not help this. He will rock back and forth and mean mug you forever because he is a grumpy old man.
All of the rabbits need more handling on principle. They don’t know you and they are very distressed that you’re taking their poop away. They can learn, a little, kind of. The guinea pig is insane and will not learn. Do not pet the guinea pig.
this post is gathering some highly blessed zoo stories i love it! thank you
as biologist, can confirm
brain: that frog is very small me: well spotted, brain brain: put smol frog in mouth me: no!
brain: that lynx…looks so fluffy… me: it does brain: we should pet it. me: it’s awake and angry so no.
brain: baaaaby bunny. me: yup. brain: baby bunny goes in pocket me: nooo it doesn’t.
Robin Ince explained at his latest show that intrusive thoughts are often just your brain running a public information film about ways it is possible to fuck up the situation you’re in, like, “Do not throw the baby out of the window.”
lol, you know that sj line about how you can’t be friends with anyone who has bigoted beliefs? imagine if that was supposed to apply to beliefs about disabled people! just imagine everyone trying to not be friends with anyone who believed in guardianship, or forced treatment, or institutions, and still ever talk to anyone ever! i am sure we would solve a lot of problems through NO ONE HAVING ANY FRIENDS
so my friend is studying abroad in germany this semester
My mom is German and told me what the fuck these were actually trying to mean.
“You can me once” is supposed to mean “you can kiss my ass ONCE ” As in like,, you can be a suck up once.
“What must, THAT MUST” is supposed to be “it is what it is”
“Now butter by the fishes is a German saying that is more like ” can I have some butter with the fish?“ Which basically means ” get to he point of the story. “
These are somehow just as confusing as the coasters
I don’t wanna shit on someone’s mother, but the actual correct explanations should make more sense.
“You Can Me Once”: “Du kannst mich mal (am Arsch lecken).” This is the equivalent to “kiss my ass”. “Mal” which was googled into ‘once’ here is just a filler word used to complete the half-sentence, it does not actually mean anything. Just like “kiss my ass” is ironically not about asskissing but about telling someone to fuck off, fuck you, so is “Du kannst mich mal.”
“What must that must”: “Was muss das muss”. Not completely wrong up there, but more precisely, it’s “you gotta do what you gotta do”. Often muttered as a politely vague reply to someone you randomly meet asking “how’s life” when life’s shit or you’re running an unpleasant errant/on a doctor’s visit etc.
“Now butter by the fishes”: “Butter bei die Fische” (which btw is not standard German grammar but that’s exactly how we say it, I’m honestly not sure why… may have its root in a dialect or other Germanic language). Correct translation here, it means to get to the point, get real for a second. Explanation? By the time you plop a piece of butter on a grilled or baked fish, it’s ready to eat, aka you ‘got to the point of the meal’.
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