I would much rather someone said "I took 3 years to gauge my lobes to 1/2" " than have them say "dood, I stretched from 18g to 00g in 2 weeks" 

its called guaging, thats what i type in on wikipedia and it gives me inflormation

doesnt really bother me what people call it. some havent been exposed to correct termonology like others...i use both alot of the time.  

and we know how accurate wikipedia is. 

wow who gives a fuck if its called gauging or stretching, if your going to sit here and have a dispute about what the right thing to call it is, then go get a life.

 

It's called a discussion.  an on topic discussion.  please keep it that way. 

quinnn:

and we know how accurate wikipedia is. 

 

exactly ;) 

I personally don't get worked up over this anymore. I can just simply explain that gauge is a reference to size, and stretching is an action. Most people don't respond to negativity anyway, and when you are nice and can elaborate intelligently, people are much more receptive. To each their own. KEEP THE PEACE! =]

I never get offended, cringe, or otherwise think the person is unintelligent if they refer to stretching their lobe piercings as gauging, I just say, well, measuring the jewelry could be called gauging but the process of expanding the holes is actually called stretching :) So it's not like I'm out there making flyers about it. It's just something that makes the rest of us sort of look silly when there is a group out there that has been misinformed. Sort of like if youre a nurse, and you hear someone say, "oh hai a nurse just shot me!" (which I've never heard btw but just for example) but they really mean they just recieved an injection. I mean....its a simple matter of incorrect terminology.

 I agree that technically gauging in the wrong term to use. But, I've come to the conclusion that it's the "popular" term and accepted term so it's probably going to stay that way forever. It's sorta like a nickname for stretching. Do I think it's lame as hell and sounds retarded.. yep. But oh well :) I never got on anyones ass on it.. I just sorta smile and move on.

been away a couple days, and to my surprise, 

a thread is started with my response to a previous thread

however, i don't see how offtopic it was compared to the others before it

i've never used the term before, but honestly, so many people use it

why do you really care, anyway?  you guys really look like idiots

defending such a generic term as "stretching" 

if people were calling tattoos "ink stains" i could understand

pretty soon gauging will probably be the accepted term

just like kleenex for tissue or qtip for cotton swabs

and you know what, i don't even care,

since i rarely even say stretching or gauging

i've been doing this for so long, i don't even really talk about it anymore

 

I do cringe when I hear someone use the term "gauging" to reference stretching, but I will only correct them if they are my friend or if they are asking for advice - I will not correct random strangers, because I know better than to think that anyone will believe that a random stranger knows more than they do. People are very egotistical that way. :) 

I have yet to hear someone on the street say "stretching/stretched" rather than "gauging/gauged," though I have had one person refer to my jewelry as "plugs" rather than "gauges," which is what most people say. Like Amanda, I have come to the sad realization that this is what today's crowd is calling stretching, and no amount of "Actually, it's called stretching" on our part will change that. However, I have faith that the gauging trend will blow over within the next decade, and eventually, with enough effort, "stretching/stretched" will resurface as the default term to describe the remaining big-eared folk.

So far, I have yet to meet a person who uses the term "gauging" and still stretches correctly. Every single person that I've met who "gauges" their ears does it entirely too fast (and tends to underestimate or brush off the severity of blowouts, catass, and tearing/bleeding). This has caused me to develop a biased opinion about "gaugers."

When I first started stretching my ears, I knew the term "stretching" from watching documentaries (etc) discussing tribal/native earlobe stretching. When my ears were at 14g, my friend asked me if I was "gauging" them. I had no idea what that meant. If I had chosen to listen to my friend(s) and continue calling it "gauging," taking their advice about how often one increases one's plug size (my other friend told me that she "gauged" her ears simply by taking "an eight gauge and just pushing it in there until it finally went through," which "hurt like a motherfucker but worked"), I would have ended up as one of the disgusting-eared "gauging" crowd.

However, I didn't do that. I didn't just take someone else's word for what I should do with my body - I researched online and found various online sources, including BAF/the BAF forums. Here is where I learned how to stretch properly (and that "gauging" is not the correct term, which I already suspected).

My point here is that those who do the right research know that it is called stretching, and will use that term. Those who do the wrong research (I'm not saying they don't do any research, simply that they don't find the correct information but still use it regardless - it's like using Wikipedia for an important research project and not using anything else) will call it "gauging" and often do it incorrectly. These people I have little respect for, as I am a personal testament to the ease of finding correct information and taking care of your own body.

and oddly enough you are spewing forth loads.   

for future reference please take note of the site rules 

With any subject, there is formal and informal terminology. Informal language is typically called "slang."

One could "reformat" a hard drive (formal) or "wipe" a hard drive (informal). One could "stretch" their earlobes (formal) or "gauge" their earlobes (informal). They're talking about the same thing. Reformat=wipe, and stretch=gauge.

Typically those who are privvy to the formal language and are quite knowledgeable about a subject frown on muddying the discussion of a topic by using informal and possibly unfamiliar slang.

On topic, my personal preference is that I prefer to the formal language (stretching) to the informal one (gauging).

im gonna start calling it pooping.

Like Emma said, even when I first started, in '99 I called it stretching. I had some horrid information, which at the time was "if it doesnt bleed you're ok". Everyone I knew then, still called it stretching, "gauging" was never a part of their vocabulary until it became more and more popular... and by that time I had discovered BME, I found out about it in late 2000, maybe early 2001...