251–260 of 1001 posts
Some of these are very strange to me - is really preferable (or even appropriate) to say that someone is devoted to heroin instead of addicted?
Or the 1st suggestion (which you omitted): Hooked.
Some of these are very strange to me - is really preferable (or even appropriate) to say that someone is devoted to heroin instead of addicted?
Some of these are very strange to me - is really preferable (or even appropriate) to say that someone is devoted to heroin instead of addicted?
E.g. Don't say that you're addicted to CheezePuffs(tm) say you're ... devoted. Uh well not the best but you get my point. The motivation for that one is to avoid conflating something someone likes a lot with heroin like addiction.
I just find this wild. How and when did language itself become so dangerous to this degree? Along with most adults in my social circle, I care and think about my health, my family, my friends, my work, my dog, my environment, my community, etc. I could not give a flying fuck about language policing. Language isn't going to protect me on my bike from speeding cars on my street. Language isn't going to fill the dams in a drier and drier California. Language isn't going to do jackshit about 400+ ppm CO2 levels. And on and on.
These language policing idiots, and I am choosing my language here, are fucking clueless about the real challenges we face as individuals and as a society. Even worse, they are redirecting valuable resources to stupider and stupider bullshit.
How do we close this Pandora's box? How do we go back to debating meaningful problems and solutions and tell these language policing idiots to do something useful?
https://itcommunity.stanford.edu/news/poc-it-2022-progress-a...
"EHLI Scans In addition to the educational website, EHLI involves scanning Stanford University domains and sites to determine where and how identified harmful language is being used. The end goal is to help individuals and units eliminate harmful language that could be perpetuating stereotypes, inequality, violence, and racism.
Seven web domains authorized by the CIOC were scanned in a pilot phase to test the process of receiving, analyzing, and addressing scan results. This pilot phase led to a change in how terms are categorized from the scans, using these three priority levels:
Most egregious terms that need to be addressed immediately Terms we do not expect to find on our sites but will scan for due diligence Terms that can be used in a non-harmful way, generating many false positive results For the seven domains in the pilot, baseline scans have been recorded, and scan results are now recorded monthly. The process for working with content owners for remediation is still in a planning phase. Additional domains to be included in the scanning process are being evaluated, in close partnership with the CIOC."
Projects like this are doomed, because they fundamentally ignore how language works, how language evolves, and how humans work.
My favourite example is "idiot". Once upon a time it was a clinical diagnosis used by physicians to describe people. This word of course turned into a slur, so the diagnosis word had to be changed, and people at that time chose "retard". ...Which promptly became a slur, forcing people to yet again pick a new word. Is "mentally handicapped" ok these days? This list suggest "people who have a cognitive disability", that sure rolls easily off the tongue.
But it's interesting to note that even though this list calls out "retard", it doesn't call out "idiot". Because the time that word was replaced by its politically correct replacement is so long ago that the people who made this list aren't aware of it and therefore think it has always been a slur, and that it's therefore, somehow, magically not disparaging towards the cognitively disabled.
Another great example of idiocy (!) from this list is "basket case". They're claiming you shouldn't use it because it's offensive to quadriplegics, because that's what it originally meant.
WHEN?!? IN THE 1800's?!? That expression hasn't meant or referenced quadriplegics in a long, long time. But apparently someone with a stick up their ass dug up the etymology of it and decided to include it in the list. But forgot about "idiot".
This is white-knighting feel-good slacktivism at its finest. You haven't accomplished anything by putting together this list.
Alternatively, let culture exist and evolve. Call shitheads out as shitheads, including shitheads [0] who grandstand by tone policing. Assume good faith [1]. Endeavor to punch up. Accept mistakes, both by others and your own.
Also, I have to hope there is growing dissent to this nonsense by normal society, that doesn't devolve into beating the "woke" strawman and other societally-destructive spite. That's the ultimate rub with this hyperpolarized off-in-the-weeds online-driven nonsense culture - as a person who generally wants to be left alone, I don't want to sign up for either the blue or red flavored cults of idiotic memes.
[0] Sorry, I've realized that was offensive to those with feces in their head, that don't have a head, feces, and feces enthusiasts. I promise that I've paid for an indulgence.
[1] Someone will inevitably call this out as contradictory with the previous sentence. The world is full of contradictions. Embrace them.