Instead of saying the French, we should say “people of croissants”
As a French man and thus officially representing France, I love your suggestion and shall use it a lot on the internet.
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AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
21–30 of 33 posts
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#22I know the French bit (and college educated bit!) is the part that caused the humor/uproar, but I don't understand the recommendation by AP. I'm assuming using "the" with some group is perceived at making that group an other/lesser group. and switching to "people with" is meant to correct that. if that's the reasoning, i don't see how that buys you anything. i get that some speech can be reprehensible, but in this ca…
This is called the "Euphemism treadmill": http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2020/08/ableist-language-and-th...
Never heard of that phrase, but it's great. Thank you.
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#23Don't get me wrong, I'm much more anti-woke than the average HNer, but there appears to be something to this, at least in my head. In imagining what I would call various Europeans, I would probably say Germans or English people or Italians, or people from Spain, but I would definitely say the French and there seems to be some hint of negativity to it. My perception of the French (there it is!) is that they are haught…
> In imagining what I would call various Europeans, I would probably say Germans or English people or Italians, or people from Spain, but I would definitely say the French and there seems to be some hint of negativity to it.
Really?
To me "The English love tea" and "English people love tea" are pretty reasonable.
Similarly, "French people love eating croissants" or "The French love croissants" both sound reasonable.
etc.
I think part of why so many people are dunking on it is, while you can say "take care to avoid dehumanizing", considering "the French" as dehumanizing seems like care beyond any real practicality.
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#24Don't get me wrong, I'm much more anti-woke than the average HNer, but there appears to be something to this, at least in my head. In imagining what I would call various Europeans, I would probably say Germans or English people or Italians, or people from Spain, but I would definitely say the French and there seems to be some hint of negativity to it. My perception of the French (there it is!) is that they are haught…
You're slightly more woke than you think you are if you didn't immediately reach for "frog".
(joking, but people use to just refer to people from other countries by slurs all the time, and this has greatly reduced in my sight in recent years)
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#25Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#26As a French person, I would say that the French are not yet stupid enough to be offended by this compared to the person pushing for this change.
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#27I know the French bit (and college educated bit!) is the part that caused the humor/uproar, but I don't understand the recommendation by AP. I'm assuming using "the" with some group is perceived at making that group an other/lesser group. and switching to "people with" is meant to correct that. if that's the reasoning, i don't see how that buys you anything. i get that some speech can be reprehensible, but in this ca…
It seems like a consistency improvement. Once upon a time terms like “Chinamen” were considered acceptable, but then we started to frown on those forms for marginalized groups. Ditto for phrases like “the Blacks.”
The problem is that this left a bunch of related forms around, like Frenchmen and “Whites.” I can only speak for myself, but I internally recoil when surveys refer to “Whites.”
This stance seems like it just improves consistency. Now we’ve got Chinese People, French people, Black people, and White people. This doesn’t seem like it should irritate anyone.
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#28I know the French bit (and college educated bit!) is the part that caused the humor/uproar, but I don't understand the recommendation by AP. I'm assuming using "the" with some group is perceived at making that group an other/lesser group. and switching to "people with" is meant to correct that. if that's the reasoning, i don't see how that buys you anything. i get that some speech can be reprehensible, but in this ca…
It's attempting to generalize where generalization is a bad idea.
"The French" is not on the same level as "the Jews". They didn't even note that there is a difference. How can they be a claim to be an authority in this area?
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#29I know the French bit (and college educated bit!) is the part that caused the humor/uproar, but I don't understand the recommendation by AP. I'm assuming using "the" with some group is perceived at making that group an other/lesser group. and switching to "people with" is meant to correct that. if that's the reasoning, i don't see how that buys you anything. i get that some speech can be reprehensible, but in this ca…
It seems like a consistency improvement. Once upon a time terms like “Chinamen” were considered acceptable, but then we started to frown on those forms for marginalized groups. Ditto for phrases like “the Blacks.” The problem is that this left a bunch of related forms around, like Frenchmen and “Whites.” I can only speak for myself, but I internally recoil when surveys refer to “Whites.” This stance seems like it jus…
In cricket, we used to have a type of bowler called the left arm chinaman. There haven't been too many chinamen bowlers over the years, so I couldn't recall when I'd last seen the term. Not surprisingly, I find now that it has been renamed to left arm unorthodox spin.
Re: AP again clarifies tweet advising that writing 'the French' is 'dehumanizing'
#30I know the French bit (and college educated bit!) is the part that caused the humor/uproar, but I don't understand the recommendation by AP. I'm assuming using "the" with some group is perceived at making that group an other/lesser group. and switching to "people with" is meant to correct that. if that's the reasoning, i don't see how that buys you anything. i get that some speech can be reprehensible, but in this ca…
This is called the "Euphemism treadmill": http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2020/08/ableist-language-and-th...
Does that really apply here?
In euphemism treadmill it looks like a word gets replaced because a secondary derogatory or offensive meaning of it comes to dominate with the general public and so the word in its original, often technical, use gets replaced.
E.g., "retarded" was originally a medical term, became a general purpose derogatory word, and then medicine switched to something else because of that.
In all the examples given on that page this replacement happens.
That's not what is happening in the AP guide changes. E.g., when they say don't use "the poor" they aren't saying to no longer use the word "poor". They are saying to say "poor people" or "people who are poor" instead of "the poor".