I hate it too.
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What on Earth are you talking about? It may have been āitā (whatever āitā is) in your time or locality. As for me, i have never heard any of those names you named used other than as actual proper names. I have never heard āMr Charlie,ā and the other names are perfectly good names. Where I come from there are way too many derogatory terms available if you want to put someone down. You donāt have to steal proper names.
I assume people who steal proper names just donāt speak English well enough to know the traditional words or how to use a thesaurus.
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I have absolutely no idea what your post is supposed to mean lol.
Whatās that word used to describe āgrownā women who evidently have not grown out of their childhood-adolescent mindset of thinking themselves superior to the other little girls and young teenagers?
Let me see ā¦ it isnāt āprincessā ā¦ and itās not ābiddyā ā¦ but it does start with ābā ā¦
Any ideas?
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Itās slang to colloquially use certain names to convey certain types of people.
A āMary Sueā character in fiction is a ātoo good to be trueā character.
Miss Ann used to be slang to refer to what is called a Karen today, a self-important person.
Mr. Charlie
Good lord, I personally HAVE one of these first names. Iām not criticizing people with these names. Why are you so offended? Iām not saying that all Karens are Karens, but itās common knowledge that for better or worse, it is slang thatās commonly used in todayās colloquial English.
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I always think itās funny when people on COTH refer to entitled kids as ālittle Susieā when there probably havenāt been any kids named Susan/Susie since the early 1970s. It was #3 in the 60s, down to #27 in the 70s, totally out of the top 100 in the 80s, and #779 and falling in 2010, when the kids youāre talking about would probably have been born. For 2020, the number of births with name Susan is 260, which represents 0.015 percent of total female births in 2020. (from Social Security Administration baby name pages).
But back to OP, are you willing or able to travel to find lesson horses? Iām way too far for you but with a quick search of craigslist, I quickly found 4 or 5 horses Iād check out for a lesson program, and all were under $4000. Some were older, but one was a 7 year old mare who seemingly can do everything but they muzzle her for tacking up because thatās when she bites, which is something she didnāt use to do (ulcers?).
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And letās not forget poor Dobbin, the much-abused horse on COTH who has been through so much!
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Iāve never heard of any of these, so it must have been before my generation.
If you donāt know what a āKarenā is - it was a viral social media video of a very entitled white woman complaining very loudly to a manager. I canāt even remember what it was or whether her name was actually Karen. But like many things on social media - it was shared again and again and people ridiculed her and her privilege.
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It didnāt get started with a specific video or image. Unlike āBeckyā (the cousin of Karen) which began in the 90s with the āBaby Got Backā video of the white girl saying, āoh my God, look at her butt, itās so big.ā
Like urban legends, these names usually donāt have clear origins. Although thereās also āBye, Felicia,ā which did get started with a film.
But circling back to the OPās original thread (trying to make this all relevant), the OP is anything but a Karen, and sometimes I (as a non-trainer, non-horse-owner) find myself exhausted talking to a few friends who Karen-ish-ly complain they canāt find $50 weekly lessons (on sound, safe, school horses) anymore, like they did āback in the good old days.ā Or, if they can, they complain they donāt get the same attention and canāt do the same things as people who own or full lease horses.
I think lesson prices are going to have to go upā¦but as the OP also noted, that can mean there are fewer people willing to pay them, which will limit the growth of lesson programs altogether and the ability to ride semi-casually without owning.
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Interesting that these names all come out of the afro American community, originally. By using a very common āwhiteā name they can say critical or humorous or irritated things without using either the real name of their employees or an actual insult. And the parcel of behavior that would make someone a Miss Ann or a Karen is fluid but well known in the community.
The Karen meme went viral during COVID lockdown and is used to refer to any white woman having a big rant in public either about customer service or about other peopleās behavior. Especially but not always people of color. Including threatening to call the police as a ludicrous last resort. Sometimes the woman is clearly privileged, other times she seems a bit BSC. I donāt think an actual obviously homeless woman is generally called a Karen. Now the thing about memes is that they catch on and then everybody uses them, so the application can be extended or morph into other things.
I think it caught on during lockdown because there were so many people having stress induced meltdowns in public over stores closed, masks, other people existing, and of course everyone has video capability now.
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It must have been before mine too, as Iād never heard of any of these before this thread. Including ālittle Susieā on COTH ā Iāve never seen that here until the one post on this thread.
As to āMiss Annā and āMr Charlieā ā Iāve never heard any black people use these terms either. But then maybe they donāt use them around white people.
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Iāve only heard Miss Ann in writing about African American dialect and code switching. Not IRL. I would assume itās from a servant relationship so might phase out over years as fewer black people work as house servants. And yes, I expect itās not something they would say around white people, the point being itās a code that white people wouldnāt notice even if they overheard someone talking.
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If you type ālittle Susieā into the search bar, it comes back with over 200 threads with that exact phrase in them. The third one down was actually written by you less than two months ago.
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Iād read āMister Charlieā and Miss Ann in some African American literature (like James Baldwin) but never IRL, and certainly not much! Also maybe referenced in an interview on NPR.
But the āKarenā thing has become so common, itās not really used exclusively to women using their privilege anymore and is often just a reference to any middle-aged woman with a minor complaint but who gets excessively upset.
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I think it is more of a reflection on the posterās age, not the actual kids they are talking about.
Someone in my office would always use the fake name āRuby Deeā to refer to potential kids in urban schools (For example, when testing a template for student information). I always wondered where that name came from (I might have said Jane Doe, or Sally Smith, or something benign like that). So I googled it one day and Ruby Dee was actually a black actress.
It was interesting point of unconscious bias - it probably was because she wasnāt white. So maybe the equivalent of a āLittle Susieā or something?
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I assume because you say āCraigslistā these are in the US, but no, not really willing to travel as the time invested adds to cost as well. Chances of a horse actually being as advertised are so slim.
A lot of this is hypothetical anyway though: if my cognitive therapy doesnāt show results by fall, I will have to consider retiringā¦itās just frustrating as it is hard to see how the industry is changing.
And wow it is crazy how threads take unexpected turns!
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So, along with the naming thing, why is āsoccer momsā so popular to say? Cause I would take that any day over a ātypicalā cheer/gymnastic/dance mom - but it never comes up in conversation that way. Maybe the times are changing because only one of my girl students plays soccer and I have at least 6-7 that cheer/dance in addition to riding?
Also, when did gymnastics and tumbling lessons get more expensive than riding?
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Once upon a time soccer was a new novelty sport previously only played everywhere else besides North America. Kids went to Little League softball. Soccer was trendy and I donāt even think it was implied it was girls soccer. Soccer did not exist when I was a kid.
Well, there are many rec soccer leagues in public parks in my areaābut gyms require more specialized equipment, trained coaching for dangerous moves (versus someoneās mom or dad who sort of knows the rules), liability insurance (trampolines are dangerous!), and for cheer and dance, I know the costumes get expensive.
My parents were older when they had me, and I remember taking gym class and the teacher just assuming we knew all the rules for soccer, which, of course, I did not, never having played it like the other kids. I did do a few seasons of softball when I was in elementary school.
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No one seemed to play soccer in all my school years (Iām a boomer), yet my husband, who is five years older than me, did play intramural soccer. He lived in the Detroit suburbs, while I spent until I was ten in New Jersey, and then through college in Southern California.
Just an interesting side note.
Rebecca
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