I may watch too much television

[slemslempike]

[Poll #1084483]

I think the main thing that would make teaching immeasurably better is if the students didn't. to a woman, have much better skin than me. I demand a return to spotty eighteen year olds!

When I was younger and watching Fist of Fun on TV, I thought Stewart Lee was the most beautiful man who ever lived. Then a few years later, watching This Morning With Richard Not Judy, I still liked him (obviously) but decided that it must have been a childish infatuation and he was perfectly normal looking. In the last few weeks I watched the FoF live video, and I wasn't wrong, I wasn't. He was heavenly.

Comments

[lsugaralmond.livejournal.com]

I can verify that I have never, until slemslempike put it in her poll, heard of 'confronting' being used in this manner.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Good lord! My mind is officially blown.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

The first time I heard it I thought it might be a mistake on the part of the speaker, but then it kept cropping up so I realised not. I quite like it, I think, though I don't think I'd use it myself.

I suppose you might not be able to answer this, as you didn't know it wasn't widespread until your MIND was BLOWN, but does it have any particular connotations? Are there situations that you'd use it for but not others?

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

Right, let's see how we go:

I wouldn't have said that not knowing that "confronting" in this sense was an Australianism was confronting -- I find it interesting, but "confronting" has implications that it's taken you out of your comfort zone somehow, or makes you face truths or ideas or facts you might usually avoid or not consider.

John Howard (horrifically) described seeing women in burqas as 'confronting to Australians'.

From a film review in The Age: "This is a potent and graphic portrait of the lives of seven teenagers struggling with their transition into adulthood. It is a confronting time of life and this is a confronting film, a film that should be seen by the people who inform its powerful narrative of emotional turmoil and sexual awakening - 16 and 17-year-old teenagers."

It's certainly not about confrontation -- though there are definite undertones -- but I'd say that you would almost never find a person confronting. It would be a situation, and idea, something you'd come across or come up against, usually unsuspecting beforehand.

yiskah, HELP!!!

This is why I do not write the dictionary.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oh - the "facing facts or truths" bit makes it clearer! That's definitely how I've been seeing it used. I guess it's for mental/emotional confrontations, while confrontational has more connotations of physical, or at least angry, confrontation?

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's it exactly. In some senses it's almost "that took me out of my comfort zone and made me think". Only, sometimes without the "and made me think".

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Warning: I do write for a dictionary.

How about "confounding" as a synomym, in the combined sense of discomfiting, disordering, and confusing?

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

I think the "confusing" connontation of "confounding" is what's not right -- it just doesn't quite fit. It's more: "I was confronted with this idea. I found in confronting" -- where "found it confronting" is "it took me out of my comfortable bubble" or "it made me think twice about my worldview" or similar.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with this. A closer synonym I think would be 'challenging'.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Fascinating.

I'm especially interested in the way "confronting" appears to put the emphasis on the idea/person being reacted to and takes responsibility away from the person doing the reacting.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yes - this has provoked a reaction, rather than I am reacting to this?

I've seen it used both approvingly and disapprovingly - like the The Age review that wonderlanded quotes, where it is appreciated that it's confronting, and that people should be shaken out of themselves. And for disapproving, where I would actually think it's being used more in the sense of confrontational.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Challenging/challenged has rather different connotations for me than confronting/confronted would. The latter would seem, to me, easier to use for/imply responsibility-shifting. Interesting.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

See my comment above, about the differences between 'confronting' and 'confrontational' - which I posted before reading this!

[whatho.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense to me. I was asking about the distinction between confronting and confrontational because the latter was the only confrontation-related adjective that came to mind. I can't really think of a close synonym for confronting in British-English, but I think I get the whole 'being obliged to confront the uncomfortable' notion.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

(joins yiskah in the Blown Mind Brigade)

As a user (of Australian English), I too am astonished to hear that we really do have some words of our very own which are in everyday, non-slang usage. How, er, confronting. Heh.

I agree with commenters here that "challenging", "unsettling" and "outside one's comfort zone" are roughly what "confronting" means, but I don't the connotations have to be negative. Sure, "confronting" *can* be used as a euphemism for "shocking" or "immoral" or "unpleasant", but it needn't be. Often it's a way of implying that the status quo is limited and insular and the "confronting" thing or artwork or whatever is is providing a necessary catalyst for broading people's minds and shocking them out of complacency.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

> I can verify that I have never, until slemslempike put it in her poll, heard of 'confronting' being used in this manner.

Me neither.