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Original poster

To HATE the phrase "lived experience"?

557 replies

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 06:36

Pet peeve incoming:

By definition, experience is lived! You can hardly have an experience without living it, fgs! And what's the opposite of lived experience? An experience that you've had, yet haven't lived? It's complete nonsense. It's used to sound falsely clever when an argument is weak, like "In my personal experience." Well, of course your experience is personal! You would hardly say, "In my neighbour's experience, I find Florida too cold in December."

And it's officially wrong, because it's a tautology. Like "top-floor penthouse."

I don't know whether it's the innate stupidity of the phrase or the fact that it's a linguistic fad that annoys me the most.

"stamps off"

OP posts:
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marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:45

The offensive bit is completely discounting someone else’s perspective even when they’ve expressed it to you, and continuing to insist that you’re right even though you know less than the person you’re speaking to. Which has some overlap with racism, no?

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:44

tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 22:35

@ThisFluentBiscuit
I have no idea if cunt has been consistently in use since its inception.

How on earth would you claim to know the frequent its usage throughout the centuries?

Studied the entire canon of English lit 800AD to 1950 in a bachelors and master's in English. That's nearly 1,200 years of literature. Obviously I didn't read every single thing published in 1,200 years, but I had a good bash at it. Never came across it once. I also didn't hear it that much it in common usage until the last 30 years. It was rarely heard in the first 20 years of my life. I think I can safely say that it crept into common usage in the last 30 years, and it seems to have really expanded in the last 20 or so.

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Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:39

marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:30

Have a look on the NMC website and come back to me, OP. Yes, midwives certainly also care for women when they are unwell, even though pregnancy and birth aren’t illnesses, and yes I would care for a woman with an episiotomy. But it’s not called nursing because I’m not a nurse. And with absolutely no criticism of nurses intended, it’s quite offensive to refuse to see the distinction between the two. I’m also not a physiotherapist when I give advice about pelvic floor exercises, or a doctor when I prescribe medicines as a midwife.

I just Googled NMC and a bunch of American stuff came up even though I'm on a British laptop - am in the US right now. Interestingly, the American equivalent of the NMC is the American College of Nurse-Midwives, hyphen theirs. Seems like there's a lot of overlap in the US.

midwife.org/

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tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 22:35

@ThisFluentBiscuit
I have no idea if cunt has been consistently in use since its inception.

How on earth would you claim to know the frequent its usage throughout the centuries?

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:33

marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:30

Have a look on the NMC website and come back to me, OP. Yes, midwives certainly also care for women when they are unwell, even though pregnancy and birth aren’t illnesses, and yes I would care for a woman with an episiotomy. But it’s not called nursing because I’m not a nurse. And with absolutely no criticism of nurses intended, it’s quite offensive to refuse to see the distinction between the two. I’m also not a physiotherapist when I give advice about pelvic floor exercises, or a doctor when I prescribe medicines as a midwife.

Oh the old "It's offensive." I bet most laypeople think that midwives are a type of specialist nurse. Really, save your offence for actual offences, like racism.

I mean, if you cared for my episiotomy, I would consider myself to have been nursed by you. There's overlap, surely?

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Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:30

On the topic of social care as a whole, Britain has so many social problems that we should be making it easier for people to train as social workers. A fast-track two-year vocational course, post-A Level, that's earn-while-you-learn. And better pay.

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marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:30

Have a look on the NMC website and come back to me, OP. Yes, midwives certainly also care for women when they are unwell, even though pregnancy and birth aren’t illnesses, and yes I would care for a woman with an episiotomy. But it’s not called nursing because I’m not a nurse. And with absolutely no criticism of nurses intended, it’s quite offensive to refuse to see the distinction between the two. I’m also not a physiotherapist when I give advice about pelvic floor exercises, or a doctor when I prescribe medicines as a midwife.

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:27

TheFirstTimeEverISawYourFace · 03/03/2025 22:25

You could have experience of working to support alcoholics op... or you could have lived experience of having been an alcoholic and you are now working to support others.

That's the difference.

But if you take out "lived" from those sentences, the meaning loses nothing. By definition, you can't have experience of those things without living that experience. That's why it's so annoying.

I'll try to shut up now.

To HATE the phrase "lived experience"?
OP posts:
TheFirstTimeEverISawYourFace · 03/03/2025 22:25

You could have experience of working to support alcoholics op... or you could have lived experience of having been an alcoholic and you are now working to support others.

That's the difference.

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:24

mikado1 · 03/03/2025 22:23

Yes I thought it was probably normal lay usage that has 'triggered' you OP. Are your friends or colleagues using it for very normal everyday things?

No, I keep coming across it when reading things that have nothing remotely to do with social work. I read it on here somewhere yesterday.

OP posts:
mikado1 · 03/03/2025 22:23

Yes I thought it was probably normal lay usage that has 'triggered' you OP. Are your friends or colleagues using it for very normal everyday things?

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:22

marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:19

Nope, definitely don’t nurse birthing mothers. Midwifery is not a branch of nursing, it is a separate profession in its own right with separate scope of practice and legislative framework. The reason we don’t nurse women is because midwifery is focused on normal birth - nurses care for people who are unwell. If you are interested look on the NMC website.

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But...women need nursing care during and after birth, no? They might not be ill but they are often injured and they are in a medically altered state, and in pain. Sounds like they need nursing to me! Maybe the nurse/midwife split is a distinction without a difference.

People who break limbs don't have an illness, but doctors don't palm them off onto non-doctors. Who cares for birthing mothers' episiotomies, for example?

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marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:19

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:12

So I guess you're going to say that you don't nurse birthing mothers, either. How is midwifery defined, then, if not a specialist type of nursing?

Show quote history

Nope, definitely don’t nurse birthing mothers. Midwifery is not a branch of nursing, it is a separate profession in its own right with separate scope of practice and legislative framework. The reason we don’t nurse women is because midwifery is focused on normal birth - nurses care for people who are unwell. If you are interested look on the NMC website.

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:19

tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 22:15

@ThisFluentBiscuit
And it's not new. It's been around since the 1800s

The word "cunt" has existed since around since the year 1230, which doesn't mean that it was in common usage.

Lived experience is a new fad in terms of common usage.

OP posts:
LillyPJ · 03/03/2025 22:18

Elle771 · 03/03/2025 21:39

I have experience working in prisons and with prisoners... I have no lived experience of being a prisoner

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But wouldn't 'I have no experience of being a prisoner' mean exactly the same? The 'lived' seems redundant.

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:16

tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 22:12

@ThisFluentBiscuit

Which OED dictionary does it appear in?
Oxford Learners Dictionary

Oh, that's the dictionary for non-native speakers. Yeah, no wonder they need that phrase explained to them. I'm a native speaker and it doesn't make sense to me either. The fact that it's not included in the Oxford English Dictionary should tell you what you need to know about its accuracy. It's in the Learners dictionary because some pretentious prat is bound to say it to them, and not in a social-work context.

OP posts:
tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 22:15

@ThisFluentBiscuit
And it's not new. It's been around since the 1800s

tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 22:14

@ThisFluentBiscuit
Also Oxford Reference

tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 22:12

@ThisFluentBiscuit

Which OED dictionary does it appear in?
Oxford Learners Dictionary

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:12

marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:08

You’ve twice referred to midwives nursing babies (when naming points about their professional v personal experience). We don’t nurse babies because we’re not nurses.

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So I guess you're going to say that you don't nurse birthing mothers, either. How is midwifery defined, then, if not a specialist type of nursing?

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Moonlightstars · 03/03/2025 22:08

AshKeys · 03/03/2025 09:31

Your comments about ‘getting frothy on Twitter’ betrays your dismissal of ‘lived experiences’ that don’t accord with your view - reflecting your activist led sector.

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Maybe saying getting frothy on Twitter is unfair. I actually do share your reviews around virtual signalling on rainbow lanyards. But that is very little to do with my work and I have almost no interest in minor issues such as that.
What I do have is a real drive for services to be created using the voices I've not just one type of person be that a council worker or HCP or a service user but that services are created with the voices of people who will be delivering and using that service. How is that at all anything to do with being "activist led" (I don't even know what that means).
I am more than willing to listen to other voices in our service in fact that is why we encourage people to come and talk to us about their experiences and what they would like to see done. I can tell you that doesn't mean people come and tell me what I want to hear but I have to listen very hard to some home truths about how shit the work we have done is. Rather than just try and keep changing it to what we think as workers will make things better.

marthasmum · 03/03/2025 22:08

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 21:27

?? I have not mentioned midwifery.

No, I'm on a mission to stamp out bad grammar and incorrect usage - at least in lay contexts.

Don't get me started on the modern lack of hyphens and readability access.

Edited
Show quote history

You’ve twice referred to midwives nursing babies (when naming points about their professional v personal experience). We don’t nurse babies because we’re not nurses.

Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:07

AgnesX · 03/03/2025 07:27

I'm with OP on this. My experience is because I've lived it so therefore it's lived by definition.

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Quoted in error.

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Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:04

I sat on my sofa and I travelled around the world. I did it via Google maps and now my lived experience is that I travelled the world.

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Original poster
ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 22:02

tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 21:01

@ThisFluentBiscuit
You've been told over and over dozens of times but you still rigidly stick to your false belief.

It's not a new fangled term. It's been around since the 19th century and has relevance in social as well as research settings.

In qualitativee phenomenologicall research, lived experience refers to the first-hand involvement or direct experiencess* and choices of a given person, and the knowledgee* that they gain from it, as opposed to the knowledge a given person gains from second-hand or mediated source.[1][2] It is a category of qualitative research together with those that focus on society and culture and those that focus on language and communication.[3]

Hth

Goes both ways. You have been told over and over why it's wrong, what category of bad grammar it belongs to, and had examples provided of other errors in the same category, yet you rigidly stick to your false belief.

And since no one has yet been able to explain how I can get experience without living it, I win!

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