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Banning words won’t make the world more just

theatlantic.com

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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#71

Post by dragonwriter »

freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #47
QuercusMax wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Far from it, the term disregards the history and linguistic heritage of my mother tongue for the sensibilities of white people, who for whatever reason have problems accepting feminine and masculine word pronunciations. Just because white people like rewriting their history and language doesn't mean they have a right to rewrite mine. If you find that inflammatory or offensive, now you know how I feel.

> Far from it, the term disregards the history and linguistic heritage of my mother tongue for the sensibilities of white people

It was created by native apeakers of your mother tongue, as a conscious rejection of the way they saw it—their mother tongue—as erasing, or at least obstructing communication of, their gender identity.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#72

Post by roughly »

scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

Alternatively, there’s a theory of change at play here that follows a relatively long path of inquiry through politics, sociology, and neuroscience to identify in-group/out-group dynamics and mental shortcuts as central blockers to attempts to increase cross-group empathy and drive social change.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#73

Post by scarmig »

ccooffee wrote: post #26
scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

Can you provide sources for "the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is more or less rejected by linguists"? I took a university course in "Philosophy of Language" around 2008 and I was taught in no uncertain terms that language structures thought. The wikipedia article for Linguistic Relativity[0] states: > Research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting linguistic relativity, and this hypothesis is provisionally ac…

That quote is a relatively recent addition (17 Jan 2023) and isn't well-cited. A longer standing and more objective statement from the article:

> Many different, often contradictory variations of the hypothesis have existed throughout its history.[4] The strong hypothesis of linguistic relativity, now referred to as linguistic determinism, says that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories. This hypothesis was held by some of the early linguists before World War II.[3] This version is generally agreed to be false by modern linguists.[2]

You can read a reasonable discussion of it here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/6aqsex/how_muc...

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#74

Post by ilyt »

convolvatron wrote: post #52
freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Hispanic American, I very regularly tell people I am Latino and that Latinx is incredibly offensive to my heritage. I'm in my 30s and the younger people I know also find it offensive.

maybe instead of arguing about what non-gendered term we should call this group of people we should instead admit that 'latino' is a projection onto a wide variety of people that have different cultural backgrounds but roughly share a language and sometimes a skin tone.

Or maybe we should tell people who started latinx garbage and started the arguing to fuck off and

> we should instead admit that 'latino' is a projection onto a wide variety of people that have different cultural backgrounds but roughly share a language and sometimes a skin tone.

instead of inventing more names to divide people by, just... not ?

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#76

Post by QuercusMax »

freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #47
QuercusMax wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Far from it, the term disregards the history and linguistic heritage of my mother tongue for the sensibilities of white people, who for whatever reason have problems accepting feminine and masculine word pronunciations. Just because white people like rewriting their history and language doesn't mean they have a right to rewrite mine. If you find that inflammatory or offensive, now you know how I feel.

But as others have said in this thread, it was created by non-binary Spanish speakers, not "white people".

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#77

Post by 13years »

wonderwonder wrote: post #27
mbfg wrote: post #13

if people don't want certain words associated with them, i'll do my best not to do that. I may not know, or i may fail, but i will attempt to do that which is asked of me. Because it's not a problem for me to try.

That's the thing, most of the people described by these changes are not requesting them. Small self appointed experts are coming up with the rules and attempting to force them on society.

None of society wanted most of this. They were convinced it was necessary for promotion of moral good. Essentially an elite language of virtue signaling making it easier to identify with others in the club.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#78

Post by soiler »

germandiago wrote: post #61
wonderwonder wrote: post #6

"The American Cancer Society advises that Latinx, along with the equally gender-neutral Latine, Latin@, and Latinu, “may or may not be fully embraced by older generations and may need additional explanation.” Cool cool, I look forward as a white guy to explaining to a group of Spanish people why they are wrong and are really LatinX and I'm doing it for their protection. Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn…

I am spanish. I fully agree this is all deeply stupid political-industry stuff that just generates artificial conflicts. Like many other things in politics.

[flagged]

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#79

Post by legitster »

"Avoid metaphors, which can introduce unneeded baggage." This is my favorite one from UC Irvine's language guide. Nothing better encapsulates the irony and lack of self-awareness most of these guides display.

This is clearly not actually about morality - no one in their right mind would argue that someone is racist just because they didn't know the etymology of "cakewalk". And a complete racist could follow these rules easily enough.

This seems to me that these are a set of moral grounds to punish people for having a low EQ.

None of these rules or guides are even internally consistent. What it will and has always come down to is understanding how to read a room and follow imposed social etiquette (aka, EQ - something that we know is not equally distributed!)

Whether people promoting this stuff understand it or not (I think some of them are very aware), they are going to be roping of sections of society just on the grounds of being "too impolite".

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#80

Post by ilyt »

paulv wrote: post #24
scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. You missed a couple at the beginning of your list. A really significant one in particular.

Well it's american site and people get itchy when you mention it, because apparently having voldemort words that are simultaneously used by people supposedely offended by it in their culture is "good" thing to do
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