Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
"Call a spade a spade" is a figurative expression.It refers to calling something "as it is" [1] —that is, by its right or proper name, without "beating about the bush", but rather speaking truthfully, frankly, and directly about a topic, even to the point of bluntness or rudeness, and even if the subject is considered coarse, impolite, or unpleasant.
To call a spade a spade is to describe something clearly and directly. Rather than using oblique and obfuscating language , just "tell it like it is". While editors who consistently engage in disruptive editing are disruptive editors, and editors who consistently vandalize are vandals, it is still required that editors be civil to one another.
Italian writers have often used profanity for the "spice" it adds to their publications. This is an example from a seventeenth century collection of tales, the Pentamerone, [99] by the Neapolitan Giambattista Basile:
As the Black Lives Matter movement remains in the spotlight after the police killing of George Floyd — most visibly in the Portland, Oregon, protests — activists have been raising awareness on ...
The McLeod is not a spade.. Note that it is a bad idea to publicly label the opponent a troll, or a vandal, or a POV warrior, or a history revisionist, or a censor, or a member of a cabal, or a "jerk", or a drama queen, or a fool.
Some words, by their structure, can suggest extended forms that may turn out to be contentious (e.g. lesbian and transgender imply the longer words lesbianism and transgenderism, which are sometimes taken as offensive for seeming to imply a belief system or agenda). For additional guidance on -ist/-ism terms, see § Contentious labels, above.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
In historical linguistics, the process of an inoffensive word becoming pejorative is a form of semantic drift known as pejoration.An example of pejoration is the shift in meaning of the word silly from meaning that a person was happy and fortunate to meaning that they are foolish and unsophisticated. [3]