301–310 of 1001 posts
It’d be funny if “conspiracy theorist” was on the list as critical of people with poor education, people less able to form rational thoughts about how the world works, people easily deceived, people unable to discern truth. I suspect conspiracy theorists find this term derogatory. Thoughts on what replacement they’d prefer? I also suspect though that they wouldn't want to be identified as a group at all. What do you…
Aside from words, human communication has context, as well as intention. And yes, sometimes body language. While some are understandable, others feel like they were scrapped off The Onion (or similar).
“You guys” is the plural form of “you” for most speakers of colloquial American English, and is completely ungendered, in an empirical sense: if you observe native speakers speaking naturally and colloquially, you will find that everyone who uses it (regardless of gender) uses it consistently to address groups of multiple people (regardless of gender). It’s derived from the noun “guy”, which is indeed often gendered.…
I was thinking about this the other day. You can approach a group of women and say " hey guys", that is fine. To a group of men," hey gals", and that is not fine. "Hey guys" to a mixed group, why... You've now 'elevated' the women to men so everyone is ok with it. It all implies that being a woman is somehow lesser. And so that is why I'm going to stick to everyone or folks. Although I don't begrudge or ask anyone to…
No elevation is happening. There is only inclusion and gathering together all members of the group regardless of gender. "Guys" performs this function effortlessly, without harm.
Gals always = girls. Guys does not always equal boys. That's language at work, an evolution which shouldn't be policed by language activists, instructing us what words are permitted.
If "leader" is part of the origin of "guy", that makes it even more suitable to gender neutral use in modern times. It's healthy when language is allowed to evolve and operate in varying contexts. Gatekeeping and policing words is to create problems and tension.
The corporate memphis art and the content warning is just the cherry on top of this steaming pile of crap. 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…
This is not to say that there aren’t changes to language that have real effects, but most of these banned words are not intrinsically different from their replacements.
“You guys” is the plural form of “you” for most speakers of colloquial American English, and is completely ungendered, in an empirical sense: if you observe native speakers speaking naturally and colloquially, you will find that everyone who uses it (regardless of gender) uses it consistently to address groups of multiple people (regardless of gender). It’s derived from the noun “guy”, which is indeed often gendered.…
The corporate memphis art and the content warning is just the cherry on top of this steaming pile of crap. 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…
Maybe doctors are realizing how language works? I bet "mentally handicapped" is less likely to become a slur because it's not short, catchy and convenient like "idiot" or "retard".
You can't stop the euphemism treadmill.
Are humans no longer capable of recognizing context? How is "he mastered the material in the lecture" invoking centuries of internalized slavery and causing harm in the process?
It’s not. What we are witnessing is the last gasp of an unproductive class of hall monitors and moral busybodies trying to control everyone else and appear productive and enlightened while doing it.
The inclusion of "Hispanic => Latinx" is staggering because: - The vast majority of Hispanic people don't like "Latinx" - "Latinx" was invented to avoid gendered words like "Latino", and "Hispanic" isn't gendered - It's listed under "imprecise language", but "Latinx" isn't any more precise. It's so ironic that "colonialism" has now come to mean anything progressive academics don't like, but telling a minority group w…
The thing is though, in Spanish, the masculine form of a noun already also takes the duty of neuter form. E.g. “Latinos” already refers to a general group of people, regardless of gender. It doesn’t mean a group of only men.