501–510 of 1001 posts
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it." —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…
I can think of a few more! "register" - might indicate that someone has to register as a second-class citizen, enemy alien, etc. "bit" - might imply that someone is only a 'bit player', leading to feelings of inferiority. "tool" - an obviously offensive word meaning that someone is only fit to be used by others. "terminal" - we need to be sensitive about words that bring up the concept of death, to avoid triggering e…
> on the warpath - mad, on the offensive So "sanity", "crazy" and "handicapped" are offensive language, but "mad" is a preferred alternative for something else? > victim - person who has experienced..., person who has been impacted by... Person who has been impacted by murder? Many of those suggestions are so verbose and impersonal. Those alternatives would just become the new slurs, just like people are called Karen…
It's astounding how little effort was taken to put a word or an idiom that millions use on this huge list to be eliminated. This elimination project was as lazy and sloppy as much as its intended impact is vast and invasive.
The future of tyranny is a shadow committee of ignorant, sloppy woke moralists controlling our free expression with a few lazy keystrokes.
I wholeheartedly support the elimination of harmful languages. There's just no good reason these days for anyone to use C++.
You forgot the trigger warning! There are people in the C++ culture that would be highly offended by such language. And who wants to see a grey beard cry silent tears while investigating yet another core dump? Note: I am a member of the C++ community and therefore have the credentials necessary to make fun of my culture. If you make fun of the C++ culture without being part of it then you are clearly in violation of…
Probably what you should take away from this is not “wokism gone crazy” (err, sorry “wild”). The more important lesson here is that the bloat in academic institutions has gotten so outrageous that people start bullshit time-consuming initiatives to justify their positions and the positions of their reports. Absolutely no one will take this seriously including the person who wrote it but they will be able to put it on…
That is, the attitudes of the staff are downstream of the students.
This is also reinforced by the fact that (entry-level) staff at universities are often recent humanities graduates from that university.
It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…
I really don't understand how anybody proposing these types of rules is ever met with anything but open contempt. No one has ever been able to explain it to me.
Its like requiring all new buildings be handicap accessible. No one is mandating that everyone use a wheelchair, but instead we're building new things in a way to (try to) minimize the impact on the handicap. By telling architects that stairs are hard to use, and ramps are easier, you're telling people how to build for everyone.
Similarly, by telling people what words may have negative meanings, you're empowering them to minimize their impact on others. This is a suggested language update, not a forced way of speaking, so its even weaker than the handicap accessible requirement. If you meet this list with open contempt but you don't show the same contempt for a handicap ramp... then maybe approach the list with a different perspective.
It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…
Some further examples that stood out to me as being too far-fetched, fashion, and/or excessive to be part of any reasonable "Elimination of harmful language initiative" (explanations verbatim qouted from TFA): > abusive relationship (The relationship doesn't commit abuse. A person does, so it is important to make that fact clear.) > rule of thumb (Although no written record exists today, this phrase is attributed to…
It's been interesting to watch The Guardian tie itself in knots over the acronym BAME (and later to some extent BIPOC), which was meant to be the new, inclusive, non-offensive to the minorities it sought to describe, term for non-white (particularly in the UK), which the newspaper was much in favour of but then seemed to decide was probably bad and might even be racist. And then keep using it all over the place.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/22/black-...
In the mean time, outside of that particular bubble, I think most people either looked on with bemusement or had no idea of the existence of the term anyway.