Disney CMs calling guests " Friends"?

[MickeyLuv'r]

Yes, that is what I'm saying. The phrase Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls covers every possibility other then such a small number that it really isn't worth the effort. If, for example a man (transitions) and identifies as a woman then whatever one he/she identifies with is covered, non-judgmentally. So yes, they did go unnecessarily overboard if they have changed that. But, saying "Friends" in that group announcement isn't offensive or incorrect either. But keeping with the title of this thread, it does not fit individually. And it not necessary to even try to get the attention or address any individual with friend unless the really are friends.

Some folks now prefer the pronouns they and them.

Come to think of it though, FOLKS would be a much better word for WDW to use!

 

[Chi84]

They could just call "Oh Toodles!" and then make their request.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Tell me why saying ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls do not align with whatever anyone defines themselves as other then Eunuch?

If one-on-one you have to assume gender. It’s fine for a large group of people but addressing all people as “friends” is quicker for cm’s who are making announcements so it’s probably easier.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

And yet Shakespeare, Walt Disney, and Mitt Romney did so.

So cringe!!!!!1!

Politicians are the #1 users of double-speak!

I'm glad you brought up Shakespeare again, because I was hoping to point out that Shakespeare himself very specifically employed the word friend as intentional double-speak in the play Julius Caesar, when Antony addresses a crowd of strangers:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

The entire speech is doublespeak. Antony was only allowed to speak if he promised not to say anything bad about Brutus. He was also restricted in what he could say about his friend Caesar.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Politicians are the #1 users of double-speak!

I'm glad you brought up Shakespeare again, because I was hoping to point out that Shakespeare himself very specifically employed the word friend as intentional double-speak in the play Julius Caesar, when Antony addresses a crowd of strangers:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

The entire speech is doublespeak. Antony was only allowed to speak if he promised not to say anything bad about Brutus.

Yes, and I have a quote above showing Shakespeare using it several times for characters as individuals as a mere form of addressing a stranger.

So, your cherry-picked example doesn't apply.

Nor your failure to read the thread you're participating in.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

Yes, and I have a quote above showing Shakespeare using it several times for characters as individuals as a mere form of addressing a stranger.

So, your cherry-picked example doesn't apply.

Nor your failure to read the thread you're participating in.

Shakespeare also used the word friend to mean illicit lover!


But are you really trying to argue that the English language has not evolved at all since 1616?

 

[LittleBuford]

Huh? I did not start the sidebar on the word princess.

person you do not know =stranger
In some places friend ONLY =someone you know have known your entire life.
stranger and friend are antonyms.
Calling a stranger a friend is double-speak, an inversion of language. Double-speak is a form of lying. It is done to manipulate emotions, and it is dangerous, because it makes lies sound truthful.

Surely, we all agree that doublespeak is dangerous, and that we should call it out when we see it.

Historical and current English usage doesn’t bear out your claims. Using “friend” to address strangers is no more doublespeak than referring to paying customers as “guests” and a resort as “home”.

In no variety of English is the word “friend” reserved for someone you have known your entire life. By that standard, even one’s spouse or college friends wouldn’t qualify.

 

[LittleBuford]

Politicians are the #1 users of double-speak!

I'm glad you brought up Shakespeare again, because I was hoping to point out that Shakespeare himself very specifically employed the word friend as intentional double-speak in the play Julius Caesar, when Antony addresses a crowd of strangers:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

The entire speech is doublespeak. Antony was only allowed to speak if he promised not to say anything bad about Brutus. He was also restricted in what he could say about his friend Caesar.

And what about Walt Disney in the clip I shred several pages ago?

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

I’m not suggesting that men can’t have traits normatively associated with women (and vice versa). Indeed, I myself am such a man. But that doesn’t mean that I would take kindly to being called “princess” except in very specific circumstances by very specific people. As a general rule, one shouldn’t misgender people, particularly if that act of misgendering, no matter how well intentioned, is likely to come across as a homophobic slur.

Context and intent always matter. One can use almost any word as an insult. The monologue I just quoted is an excellent example, as when Anothy calls Brutus honorable.

 

[CntrlFlPete]

And yet Shakespeare, Walt Disney, and Mitt Romney did so.

So cringe!!!!!1!

yet the part of the princess was played by a male in the days of Shakespeare.

I'm sorry, but who claimed that?
All I can find is someone saying they did not mind their daughter being addressed as princess while visiting WDW. -post #395

I continued after that with some words -- I was really trying to establish that maybe a friend could call a male a princess where a non-friend could not -- then I thought I could show why one could be offended by the way cast members use the term 'friends' -- things do not go in that direction at all -- but I fully blame me for putting the idea out there that there could be males that would not be offended by princess (but I feel I was more trying to say that 'princess' (at least in the USA) is not a gender specific term.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

Historical and current English usage doesn’t bear out your claims. Using “friend” to address strangers is no more doublespeak than referring to paying customers as “guests” and a resort as “home”.

A person who stays at a hotel is properly called a guest. Definition #3 of the word guest:

https://www.google.com/search?q=+guest+definition&sxsrf=ALiCzsau_bgARr1Ha6bRqS-w2QnGWOEg7w:1666115489737&ei=oedOY9zPLNGG0PEPtJ276AE&ved=0ahUKEwicpK7vq-r6AhVRAzQIHbTODh0Q4dUDCA8&uact=5&oq=+guest+definition&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyCQgAEEMQRhD5ATIGCAAQBxAeMgYIABAHEB4yBggAEAcQHjIGCAAQBxAeMgYIABAHEB4yBggAEAcQHjIGCAAQBxAeMgYIABAHEB4yBggAEAcQHjoKCAAQRxDWBBCwA0oECE0YAUoECEEYAEoECEYYAFDGBljGBmDuDWgBcAF4AIABZIgBZJIBAzAuMZgBAKABAcgBCMABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz

A resort is not a home. The way WDW uses it is also a problem, IMO. If you don't like the term double-speak, it certainly falls under the list of classic propaganda techniques: see #1 and #2. It is basically the opposite of name calling. Elsewhere heard the technique called loaded language. (https://www.uvm.edu/~jleonard/AGRI183/propoaganda.html#:~:text=7.,, "Act Now!".)

Home is just about the most emotionally charged word WDW could possibly use.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Shakespeare also used the word friend to mean illicit lover!


But are you really trying to argue that the English language has not evolved at all since 1616?

And this thread has examples of Walt and Romney using 'friend.' Modern examples.

Are you really continuing to try to participate in this thread without reading it and continue to foolishly put forth arguments for which counterexamples have already been given?

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

In no variety of English is the word “friend” reserved for someone you have known your entire life. By that standard, even one’s spouse or college friends wouldn’t qualify.

I would like to refer you to this Boston Globe article. Mind, Boston is the biggest city in NE. Urban life is very different from rural life, and Boston is a very cordial city, but even Bostoners have a tight definition of friend. (The main point of the article is about how Facebook has distorted Bostoners' understanding of the word friend, but language evolves.) This was also something I found with just a quick search, but it clearly supports the idea that New Englanders are reserved in how they use the word friend.

http://archive.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2011/05/05/what_does_friend_mean_now/?page=2

From the article, "Like Le Brun, Boston attorney Joseph Feaster formed his ideas of friendship long before Mark Zuckerberg came along. Feaster, 61, has found it useful to divide relationships into four categories: partners, meaning people he would give or do anything for; friends, or people for whom he’d do just about anything (emphasis on almost); associates, meaning those he’s merely acquainted with, perhaps through his office or gym; and people he knows, but that’s about it."

To a New Englander, calling someone a friend is an honorific.

Oh, I have met plenty New Englanders that do not describe their spouse as a friend!

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

And what about Walt Disney in the clip I shred several pages ago?

What about him?

 

[LittleBuford]

I would like to refer you to this Boston Globe article. Mind, Boston is the biggest city in NE. Urban life is very different from rural life, and Boston is a very cordial city, but even Bostoners have a tight definition of friend. (The main point of the article is about how Facebook has distorted Bostoners' understanding of the word friend, but language evolves.) This was also something I found with just a quick search, but it clearly supports the idea that New Englanders are reserved in how they use the word friend.

http://archive.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2011/05/05/what_does_friend_mean_now/?page=2

From the article, "Like Le Brun, Boston attorney Joseph Feaster formed his ideas of friendship long before Mark Zuckerberg came along. Feaster, 61, has found it useful to divide relationships into four categories: partners, meaning people he would give or do anything for; friends, or people for whom he’d do just about anything (emphasis on almost); associates, meaning those he’s merely acquainted with, perhaps through his office or gym; and people he knows, but that’s about it."

To a New Englander, calling someone a friend is an honorific.

Oh, I have met plenty New Englanders that do not describe their spouse as a friend!

I’m not going to go down the bizarre road of debating whether “friend” is ever reserved for someone you’ve known your entire life. No New Englander—or speaker of English anywhere—would refrain from using the word for school friends, college friends, and work friends. This is a really absurd discussion to be having.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I'm sorry, but who claimed that?
All I can find is someone saying they did not mind their daughter being addressed as princess while visiting WDW. -post #395

I will admit that it has become hard for me to follow the twists and turns of all the conversations on here about alternatives to "friends" or why "friends" is potentially offensive, but my impression was that this discussion began over whether "princess" was necessarily a gendered term and whether a man (in this case, a gay man) may take it as an insult.

I may well be wrong, though, as I don't have the time or inclination to relive that whole conversation.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

yet the part of the princess was played by a male in the days of Shakespeare.



I continued after that with some words -- I was really trying to establish that maybe a friend could call a male a princess where a non-friend could not -- then I thought I could show why one could be offended by the way cast members use the term 'friends' -- things do not go in that direction at all -- but I fully blame me for putting the idea out there that there could be males that would not be offended by princess (but I feel I was more trying to say that 'princess' (at least in the USA) is not a gender specific term.

Right. I do not think you were saying...what others have alleged in this thread.

Years ago, I was forced to read a Noam Chomsky book that I detested at the time, but the class spent hours discussing a chapter of his book. In a nutshell, the gist was this: When one person says the word Dog, we are maybe inclined to think the word has one meaning. In reality, we don't all picture the same animal or the same emotional connection. One person remembers a vicious perhaps mastiff that attacked them, Another recalls thier beloved Corgi, and a third might immediately imagine a cartoon dog like Pluto or even Scooby Doo.

Even when we say apples to apples, you might picture a different variety of apple than I do, like Granny Smith vs. Delicious vs. Honeycrisp. Alas, I'm not sure if Europe has those 3 varieties at all.

 

[Tom P.]

I would rather someone assume my gender than assume we are friends.

 

[Tom P.]

Huh? I just said hotel guest is an accurate use of the word.

The rest is off-topic, and a bit absurd.

I mean, if we want to play semantic games, I don't think a "guest" is someone you charge hundreds of dollars per night to stay with you. That's a "customer."

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

And this thread has examples of Walt and Romney using 'friend.' Modern examples.

Are you really continuing to try to participate in this thread without reading it and continue to foolishly put forth arguments for which counterexamples have already been given?

You are the one that mentioned Shakespeare though, so it is relevant to point out that he used it in a variety of ways.

There's no need to hurl insults. I would hope we can do better than that. I have not insulted anyone.