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All of us have things about the body mod world that irritate us. One I think everyone can agree on is "gauging" someone's ear. stressed Nails on a chalk board. But what else annoys you?

I really hate when people say "I'm gonna get a tat soon!" Or "gonna get tatted tomorrow!" It just sounds trashy to me. Just say the full word, really, or are you too lazy for that? It makes you sound more intelligent when you use the full word, to me, anyway.

It also irritates me when people wear gigantic acrylic beads in their facial piercings. It's like they're screaming "I'M PIERCED!!! SEE?!?!?! SEE HOW UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT I AM?!" It just bugs me. Have more respect for yourself and the mod and wear proper fitting, flattering jewelry.

Anyone else have irritants in the body mod world? Or am I just that much of a Nazi about the whole thing?

wow. o_O; actually, yeh Jagger, i do think that you seems particularly irritated by very minor things, i mean.. i understand alot of the things you just mentioned.

Gauging and Piercing has cultural History too after all, with it's roots in enlargement and decoration. plugs and ceramics are pretty in their own way, and i for one have a soft spot for Tribal things. smile

as for words liek Tat and Tatty... i usully will say the full word "Tattoo", but idon't see a problem wth shortening it every now and then. o.O; it's just casual-speach. it ain't like saying "ell oh ell" instead of laughing, hahah! xd

the problems i have stem more from general disrespect or ignorance. when people get a meaningless Mod for the hell of it. confused i'm sick of "gangstas", post-punks of any kind (especially emos), and ayone else who is a rebel-without-a-cause. if you don't have purpose, or your just superficial, you lose alot of my respect. the point of Body Mods is Personal Decoration, for whatever personal reasons you have. when you do it without having some forethough it takes the importance out of it.

sheesh, girl, chill! o_O; i know i have communication impediments, but it wasn't that big a difference... or leastways you could gimme a break before jumping on me like that, gods!

i'm gonna assume your not always this harsh about everything, but realy... i didn't mean to offend anyone and i certainly don't like being bitched at. you asked for opinion and i gave you mine. if i confused Gauging for having roots in Stretching and was mistaken, than i was mistaken. simple as that. no need to jump down my throat about it.

Gauging has roots in stretching? That's like saying drifting has roots in driving, it's the same thing. Though the term gauging is wrong. It's become a "slang" term to some, and I really don't like slang in general, most of the time.

I don't mean to be snotty, but it just really bugs me when people seem to refuse to want to be "better", you know? Like why purposely use wrong terms when you know the better ones? Like if someone were to go to a doctor to be bled by leeches because they were sick. Sure that may have worked a hundred years ago, but we KNOW BETTER NOW, so why use it?

Like I said, I don't mean to be mean, I really don't, but when people seriously just refuse to be more educated it bothers me. Why WOULDN'T you want more knowledge or education, about ANYTHING? You know?

Yes and yes. I love gems or small silver beads in facial jewelry. Usually 3mm or smaller.

What's worse is when they have bad piercings and always shove it in your face like "Isn't it cool?!" when it's all red and rejecting and oozing. Uh, no, it's NOT cool. talk2hand

Gross. I would never kiss anyone with gross mouth piercings. talk2hand

In this context, using the word "gauging" IS wrong. It is a word, yes, but to use it in this situation isn't the right way to use it. It means "to measure" so to say you're gauging your ears means "I am measuring my ears", which isn't what you're doing. You're STRETCHING them to accommodate larger sizes. Gauge is also a unit of measurement, so again, to say you're gauging your ears could also mean "I'm inching my ears", which is just grammatically incorrect. Used in a phrase like "I gauged the distance of the ravine before I jumped over it" IS correct, because you measured the distance before. Or "You're mana gauge is getting low, you should drink a mana potion" is also a correct way of using it, since it refers to a unit of measurement, or a way to measure something. You have gauges in the dashboard of your car, not in your ears.

Words do change their meaning over time, but this isn't one of them. It's the wrong word for the context. Tall, in most contexts, has always meant "tall", as in someone or something of greater than average height. So if tall once meant "handsome" then the phrase "tall, dark and handsome" is a bit repetitive, don't you think?

I understand you are here to learn, and you should be doing that. One thing to learn right now is that the term "gauging" is the wrong word to use when talking about stretching ears. Admittedly, most of us used it before we knew better. But now that we DO know better, and now that YOU know better, why continue to use the wrong terminology?

Its not just the word that is the problem, I think some people think it's okay because they think that since you are putting a 16 Gauge taper in their ears that it's okay to call the hole in there ear a gauge because they are "gauging up". They need to realize that they are just going to the next SIZE!!! the Gauge of your ear hole is the Size of your ear hole. so I think some less educated people are just getting it confused for the term that Stretching is supposed to imply. The problem isn't the term it's the fact that there are people out there who have the knowledge but just don't really care! It is better to do what Jagger is doing and explain that it's not the right term. Chieftain Twilight, By saying that you don't care is to say you don't really give a s**t if people are educated about something you like. Knowledge is power and we should be passing it on not sitting there with our thumbs up our a** cause we "don't really care".