I am confused with Gus/Bint as well. I like Gus. Isn't Bint a derogatory word?
In the original Arabic,
bint means simply
daughter or
girl. Since then it has taken on a derogatory connotation. The word
girl can also be used in a derogatory way:
Workmate One: [random complaint about something]
Workmate Two: Aw, shut up, will ya? Quit being such a
girl.Me:
(muttering under my breath) As if there's something so terrible about being a girl.
Workmate Three: You're right. Calling
him a girl is an insult to
girls.To me, it's just one of those things where someone puts an insulting label on you, and in a gesture of defiance, you adopt the label and wear it with pride. Blacks who call each other
niggers, for example; Australian men who fondly dub their cherished friends
bugger and
bastard; gay people announcing themselves as
queer. Someone on WP once called me "Mushrika!!!. I was so amused and delighted by this that I adopted it as my custom rank for awhile. I used "Cantankerous Old Bat" for awhile as well. Gus has variously called herself Rorschach, Blasted Bint, zaftig (which is Yiddish for "chubby") and Cunt, among other things. Here on I^2 she's held on to "Bint" for probably the longest of any of them, and it's an easy name to type, so I go with that.
