A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

Re:A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists by erikpukinskis on Wednesday November 18, 2015 @05:42PM (#10591302)

I generally agree with your tack... I just want to grow out there that I'm a little concerned about our use of the word shrill. It means high pitched and piercing, and is typically used for women's voices for obvious reasons. There's nothing actually bad about being shrill... That just means you are a woman (high pitched) whose message is getting through (piercing). There's no similar word for men who are being heard and the listener is uncomfortable with it, that I know of.

It's often used as code for "a woman is speaking, plz ignore" the same way bitch is.

I would just politely suggest you use a more descriptive word for what you were alluding to.

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Re:A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists by ATsch on Wednesday November 18, 2015 @06:02PM (#10591388)

I've never heard shrill used to describe a voice, I for one mostly associate it with mechanical noise ("The machine errupted to life with a shrill screch").

In any case, in the above comment it is used to refer to the way the pitch of male and female voices rises when frightened or exited and is far from being a gender-specific slur.

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