A fair amount of the time, I was taking offense when offense wasn't meant.

Wow. Most people live their entire lives without this kind of self-reflection. Would that the whole world were so far along the path of enlightenment. I appreciate your comments more than you know. Every single one of us can remember that we each have our unique lens and set of defenses, that others are not as clearly blameful as we see them. At the end of the day, we are all on the same journey and no one gets out alive. Your humility and comradeship are transcendent.

I'm dragging out the old definitions again, but I think I see where there might be a little teeny window that allows us both to be right.

Almost everywhere you look, both words mostly relate to actual sound (as you have mentioned before and as has everything to do with the inappropriateness of this negative word being applied to the gender with the naturally higher pitch). But, hiding among all the "sound" definitions of both words, each has a single definition that relates more to "insistence" or "wanting to be heard."

shrill: betraying some strong emotion or attitude in an exaggerated amount, as antagonism or defensiveness.

strident: being sharply insistent on being heard; "strident demands"; "shrill criticism"

I'm wondering if this isn't the meaning I think of when I apply it to Clinton--that she has a sense of urgency to her message that feels different from the cool and diffident Obama. Her frustration is often (though not always) palpable. I have rarely seen him frustrated.

I was going to say that none of this seems relevant in choosing a candidate, but of course that's not true. After much thought I have made my own choice based on just a couple of things, given that their positions are truly so similar, and one of them is that very cool demeanor. I see it as a tangible asset. I do not think this evaluation boils down to sexism, mostly because I know so very many men who are like her and so very many women who are like him. So my preference for the measured tone, which I think he demonstrates more than she, has nothing to do with gender.

AS for all that stuff about sexist language, tags, gender-based interruptions and inflections: Totally learned it in 1984 in an English class at the University of Dayton. A shout-out to Dr. R. Allen Kimbrough who brought that all home to me.

Wow, thanks ncawley and katymurta for the links to these videos. I think they're both great and worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op2ze-b7qsE

http://www.youtube.com/v/EhpKmQCCwB8

Please don't just watch the one that supports your candidate. Although they are very different in nature and not meant to be compared head-to-head, they are definitive evidence that we have two excellent candidates on our hands.

I'm certain the Hillary vid is going to be criticized for its general nature (and perhaps for its sentimentality) as opposed to the specific-to-Obama content of his vid. But I post these in great good faith. I think that the Hillary video demonstrates beyond a doubt that she is among the hardest working politicians out there, and genuinely caring. Although one could post music to almost any set of pictures of a single politician, I'm not sure you can honestly walk away from this video without feeling proud of her service to our country. As for the Obama video, it speaks for itself and raises the single issue around which most salonistas agree--we should never have gone to war in Iraq. Like him or not, this is an issue that we can all rally round should he win the nomination.

There is so much about both of them to make us proud.

but of course I meant the "reserved" meaning, not the "underconfident." He is. He thinks first. I do my thinking while I speak. I think Hillary's more like I am.

Re Eleanor Clift: You are right in spades. I've noticed it to the point of not being able to stand it. Interestingly, I don't think of her as shrill. I just think of her peers as boors.

If Eleanor Clift is not insistent on being heard, how do you suggest that she get heard?

I'm not sure she shouldn't be shrill here. As I've mentioned before, shrill is not always a bad thing in my book, esp. when it means "insistence." No matter how you slice it, though, one might objectively observe that perhaps TV is not her medium. I don't think that's true for all women.