Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 December 11

= December 11 =

Lad mag / men's magazine
Is there any major difference between a lad mag and men's magazine? I didn't notice. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 08:43, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Huh? The differences are many, and are described very clearly in the articles to which you linked. --Viennese Waltz 09:36, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think the differences are that clear-cut. Men's lifestyle magazines form a subset of all men's magazines, namely those with a relatively strong emphasis on a rather narrow subset of lifestyle issues, but items on these issues can typically be found as well in other men's magazines, while the attention devoted by lad mags to such issues was not exclusive. So it is IMO more an issue of degree. If anything, the main difference may have been that those labelled "lad mag" were more low-brow and even more superficial. --Lambiam 20:08, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it's a regionalism also. Nobody in the US really calls anything a lad's mag, it's a Britishism. Andre🚐 20:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * At least in my dialect (or possibly just idiolect) of American English, "men's magazine" would be a near synonym of "pornographic magazine". Things like Men's Health would be simply "magazines marketed to men". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:59, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Similar in the U.S. to the euphemism "Gentleman's Club". While in the past (and perhaps in other places in the world) the term "Gentleman's Club" brings up images of obscenely rich men in smoking jackets with cigars and snifters of brandy cutting business deals, in the modern U.S. it mostly brings up images of men putting paper money into the underwear of scantily clad dancers.  -- Jayron 32 13:01, 12 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Jayron32 -- We have an article Gentlemen's club, but I'm not sure that your description fully applies to the London clubs in the 19th century, where you could certainly use a club to add to your list of business contacts, but it usually would have been considered poor etiquette to conduct business negotiations openly in a public area of the club... AnonMoos (talk) 16:20, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Whether or not you could do business deals in a "gentlemen's club" in London, the point is that an American hearing you talk about it will picture naked women and beer. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:35, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile, my experience based on British fiction is that the usual term for those London clubs is not "gentlemen's club" but simply "club". --174.89.144.126 (talk) 16:57, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Which, in American English, would be understood as one of these. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:57, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Also in British English, depending on context. If you go to "the club" or "my club" it is the former; If you go to "a club" it is probably the latter. ColinFine (talk) 23:10, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * While in American English, saying you were goin to "the club" or "a club" would both be interpreted as indicating a nightclub. And "my club" would probably only be used by someone who owned or worked at a nightclub. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:42, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The British usage is somewhat reliant on context; most of us lowly mortals are highly unlikely ever to enter the portals of a such an exalted establishment, being (in short) unclubbable. Therefore in everyday speech, nobody is going to confuse a teenager's jolly at a nightclub with luncheon at the In & Out. Alansplodge (talk) 22:01, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * In my own personal experience, I was generally found unclubbable even for common nightclubs... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:06, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I find many people extremely clubbable. Fortunately for them, I rarely carry a club.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
 * None of these should be confused with the gentleman's gentleman's club -- Verbarson talkedits 19:34, 13 December 2022 (UTC)