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Banning words won’t make the world more just
161–170 of 1001 posts
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good friend of mine is a Spanish translator for a social services agency. She was telling me that the "latinx" thing is a real problem, because for people -- particularly older people -- who are not strong on their reading in the first place, they hit "LatinX" and genuinely have zero idea what that's supposed to mean. So then time, energy, and goodwill gets wasted by having to explain to people what they "should" b…
The most amusing part about this is that literally the entire Spanish language is gendered, so we should probably change all words to 'x' replacements as well. No more "los gatos"! Lxs gatxs has so much more of a latin ring to it. (/s) Spanish is being obliterated by lXs que lo hablan peor.
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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Even if that were true, I'd still not put any faith in the empathy skills of people who use e.g. "incel" as a slur, who claim "it's okay to be white" is hate speech and who call arson, vandalism and looting "mostly peaceful protests" because the in-group did it.
This is three gross mischaracterizations in one!
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most amusing part about this is that literally the entire Spanish language is gendered, so we should probably change all words to 'x' replacements as well. No more "los gatos"! Lxs gatxs has so much more of a latin ring to it. (/s) Spanish is being obliterated by lXs que lo hablan peor.
> No more "los gatos"! Do you often use “cats” to describe a particular group of humans, whise gender identity you are concerned about including?
I think you have finally hit upon the solution to the pronoun problem.
In almost no case till I care about the express sexuality of the person for whom I am using a pronoun and I resent having to be forced to care about their self-centered nature, being self-centered myself.
However, instead of saying "he is wearing a weird hat", I can say "that cat is wearing a weird hat"
And I don't have to worry about it.
Gracias.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#165> The guide also rejects the disabled in favor of people living with disabilities, for the same reason that enslaved person has generally replaced slave : to affirm, by the tenets of what’s called “people-first language,” that “everyone is first and foremost a person, not their disability or other identity.” The reason people first language fails is because there's some subjects of this language that find the origina…
This is great advice for one-on-one groups and small discussions, but provides little help if you're writing for a broad audience and want to minimize blowback. Which is where I think that Stanford guide, and other such guides, come into play, whether I agree with them or not.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#166"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…
> Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn both English and then a made up filter created by well paid academics on top of it. Latine and LatinX both originate in (different geographical parts of) the spanish-first-language non-binary community, originally for use in Spanish, neither (AFAIK) by “well-paid academics”. Latinu and Latin@ I’m less sure about, but wouldn’t be surprised if they are the same. While th…
These idiots should just use the word "Latin", which has been a normal word for centuries, instead of creating newspeak. Cultural Marxism doesn't even attempt to fix anything; it simply complicates and distorts pedestrian matters in the ivory towers it has penetrated, confusing the very people they're trying to "help".
So, this is a linguistic trojan horse. There's no proper use case for the term "LatinX" except to normalize the pronoun/trans agenda in the Spanish-speaking world.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#167The 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, It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield that gets new mines added every so often just to keep everyone on their toes. When I was younger, I used to feel like I could keep up with all the new taboo words, but it seems like it is happening faster and faster these days. You can unintentionally say something that turns out to be taboo, and you're done for. Some…
> It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield that gets new mines added every so often just to keep everyone on their toes.
It gets new mines because when a word becomes a widely used derogatory term for a group of people we need a non-derogatory word to use instead when when we are trying to talk about people in that group and aren't trying to be derogatory.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#168Can we just all start operating from the perspective that we're not trying to offend each other? Do away with all these rules that serve no purpose other than to slot each other into buckets of enlightened and evil. It's a sign that we have things way too good.
But how can we logically separate "trying to offend" and "not trying to offend" stances here, on a social platform, by reading two or three sentences comment written by some anonymous?
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn both English and then a made up filter created by well paid academics on top of it. Latine and LatinX both originate in (different geographical parts of) the spanish-first-language non-binary community, originally for use in Spanish, neither (AFAIK) by “well-paid academics”. Latinu and Latin@ I’m less sure about, but wouldn’t be surprised if they are the same. While th…
These idiots should just use the word "Latin", which has been a normal word for centuries, instead of creating newspeak. Cultural Marxism doesn't even attempt to fix anything; it simply complicates and distorts pedestrian matters in the ivory towers it has penetrated, confusing the very people they're trying to "help". So, this is a linguistic trojan horse. There's no proper use case for the term "LatinX" except to n…
"There's no proper use case for the term "LatinX" except to normalize the pronoun/trans agenda in the Spanish-speaking world."
This is an excellent summary of the entire discussion on the topic of the silly, childish, politically-motivated concept of "LatinX"
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Heh, reddit moment: "I disagree, therefore I downvote".