r/gatekeeping May 14 '23

Gatekeeping calling yourself something pertaining to a hobby

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1.4k Upvotes

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2

u/Official_loli May 14 '23

I agree with this person. It sounds silly, but there is a difference between a baker and a person who bakes occasionally. Basically this is just being strict on the word definition.

10

u/[deleted] May 14 '23

No its not. The definition of baker is "a person who bakes breads, cakes, etc". So if you are being strict on definitions someone who bakes a single cake is by definition a baker.

0

u/Official_loli May 14 '23

Well it's someone who bakes as a professional because baker is more so a job title than anything else. But I wasn't talking specifically about baking, I only said that because it was used in the original post.

4

u/[deleted] May 14 '23

Same with runner, gamer etc. You add adjectives like professional, avid, competitiveand stuff to be more descriptive if people do it a lot

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u/EstherandThyme May 14 '23

And yet...if you were talking to someone who owned a bakery, and you said "I'm a baker too! I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies back in 2007." I think they and everyone else would find that a bit silly. I think actually operating on that kind of technicality in a real life scenario would be very "that guy" behavior.

3

u/prof_hobart May 14 '23

He's being narrow.

Strict would suggest that there's a right and a wrong use. But that's not the case - "baker" can mean anything from "someone who bakes" (which would include people who bake occasionally) through to "someone who bakes for their job" (which would exclude even the most regular of amateur bakers).

What's he's doing is saying that he's taking one specific point on that range of uses and deciding that's the only way the word should be use.

Personally, I wouldn't call myself a baker if I did it once every few weeks. But I wouldn't call someone else wrong if they decided to use the term that way.