Abby Buckingham's English Language Blog

Are rape jokes funny? Survey I asked my friends the following questions about rape jokes and recorded their answers; 5 females, 1 transgender male. 1)       Do you think joking about rape is funny? -No (x4) -Makes you a ‘dickhead’ -Can be politely funny in the spur of the moment but it downplays rape and is inconsiderate 2)       Do you think joking about rape is acceptable? -Preferably not, can depend on who you are around -No (x3) -No because many people have been affected by it whether it was directly or through a friend or family member. Don’t risk hurting someone for a joke. -No because it can hinder someone trying to get over a traumatic experience and more often than not, the joker has not experienced rape 3)       Would you call someone out on a rape joke? -In my head, yes. In reality, would be too scared -If it was a close friend who didn’t mean anything by it, no....

http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/are-jokes-about-rape-ever-okay Are jokes about rape ever okay? Thursday 13th April 2017 The Wireless Max Towle

https://splinternews.com/meet-the-woman-making-rape-jokes-that-are-actually-funn-1793857812 Meet the woman making rape jokes that are actually funny - Tahirah Hairston -  6/24/16 

Did you hear the one about the women who was raped? Yeah, wasn’t it just so funny to hear about how much she suffered? Rape jokes. Cruel, heartless jokes made by cruel, heartless people that are appearing more and more on our timelines. Don’t worry about the horrors people have experienced at the hands of rapists; don’t worry about how you may be triggering someone desperately trying to get over a traumatic experience and DEFINITELY don’t worry about the sheer number of people you could be upsetting because it’s all ‘just a joke’, right? Wrong. Joking about rape is inconsiderate, insensitive and cowardly. You may find it funny, you may label it the ‘dark side of humour’ but there are others like you who wish they can see it that way, who have to watch as everyone laughs at a very upsetting situation they have potentially been in. But can they do anything about it? No, because all the bigots who think they know best, who think they know everything about rape when most...

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

Text A https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/28/migrants-people-refugees-humanity The title of the article includes the personal pronoun ‘we’ to immediately make the article personal to each reader and cause them to question themselves but still not excluding them as ‘we’ implies the writer will be doing the same. The verb ‘deride’ that follows this is equally as powerful as it means to label negatively and implies that this is what the British public have been doing to an entire group of people. This shows that the article means to shed positive light onto refugees and change the usually negative British opinion on them. The tagline then includes the phrase ‘strip them of their humanity’ which is very emotive and mentions the noun ‘humanity’ which conveys that the term ‘migrants’ is dehumanising. The quote that follows this contradicts it by referring to the ‘migrants’ as ‘mothers and fathers’ and is unreferenced, suggesting that what is said is more important than w...

Sorry, but the Left can't browbeat the British people into accepting yet more migrants http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3228537/Sorry-Left-t-browbeat-British-people-accepting-migrants-writes-STEPHEN-GLOVER.html This is a Daily Mail article written by Steven Glover in 2015. It is about the British people's supposed reluctance to accept more migrants into the UK after the emergence of a 'deeply affecting picture' that was said to cause a 'media hysteria' and 'miraculous shift in public opinion'. However, polls have revealed that this is not true with the majority of the British public feeling as if we should not be letting more migrants into our country. The author is clearly opposed to immigration as they feel they would have to be 'browbeat[en]' to accept it and the semantics behind the word 'migrants' hint at more obnoxious, hateful meaning than the word 'refugee' or simply 'person' would. This suggests that th...