[As for linguistic analysis, what's it saying about me, eh? I suspect one could get quite a lot right about me from reading such tea leaves, but the errors might be interesting...]

I think snarking at the author of a blog post and then professing surprise when he or she bites back is also a bit disingenuous (and if you know AV’s past blogging, don’t you think one could see why he might not react with sheepish “that’s me told then”?).

Other random thoughts: privilege is not a linear order; and the norms of discourse surely depend on the settings and context in which it takes place. I see from your link that you’re happy with, or are comfortable with, a mode of discourse where

being called out for displaying a racially/sexually denigrating behaviour is not (or at least not necessarily) an accusation that one is thereby “a racist” or “a sexist” – it is a special form of reality check, the privilege check. Checking one’s own unexamined privileges as a result is an opportunity for self-awareness, an opportunity to become a better ally, an opportunity for self-growth.

However, blithely assuming that the recipient on whom such an opportunity is bestowed will not take affront seems … discourteous. (Like Graun readers/journos writing to Clark County, to use a tangential analogy from recent history.) If the aim is to change people’s behaviour, rather than to assert superiority, then *why* go in with studs up?

If you mean “Anton” when you say “we”, don’t say “we” – it’s kinda confusing to your readers. “We” is inclusive – I can’t believe I even have to spell this out. And if you say “we” but in such a way as to exclude those of your readers that don’t have nuts, then yeah, it’s exclusionary (like, duh).

And your completely OTT rage when challenged is… pretty interesting, really. Why defend to the death what to you was probably just a throwaway phrase rather than saying, yeah, I see your point? It seems rather irrational and somewhat disproportionate, to say the very least.

So I say again, have you heard of unexamined privilege? Because that was a shining example of it, right there.

And it’s not a pernicious effect.

I beg to differ. Despite what you think, despite what you might tell yourself, it really, really is.

Also, what AV said: when I was a man, I spake as a man, and all that.

because the lazy, cliched stereotype of English people, and England football fans – one which regrettably gets dragged out by my so-called comrades on the political left – is that we’re a bunch of knuckledragging xenophobic idiots who would rather cut our own nuts off than see the Germans win

In other words, this is the stereotype of English football fans. And it’s fair to say that the stereotype is that most such fans are drunken, boorish and male. It is even, depending where you go to watch your football, not widlly off the mark.

Forget privilege; nothing about its presence or absence precludes willingness to parse a sentence, surely? (My brief brush with the copy-editing side of publishing suggests the gender balance there is actually quite healthy.)

I’m all for stamping out blatant sexism where I see it, but you’re doing your cause no good by wasting your strength and effort here. In fact, you’re doing yourself a disservice and draw ire instead of support.

Nicely done.