Banning words won’t make the world more just
211–220 of 1001 posts
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> Some years ago, I causally used the "r-word" and didn't even think anything of it, and blam! big mistake. Doug Stanhope has a great skit in which he explains that the word "retarded" was originally the sensitive way to refer to this group, because at the time they were called directly derogatory terms. But, like with every such attempt it was quickly adopted as an insult. My not particularly original take is that p…
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#213The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…
A pregnant person is a woman.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#214The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…
This is an academic issue, ”a solution in search of a problem” as almost all the rest of academia is. As such, it never stops at a reasonable, meaningful equilibrium; it has to be kept pacing, moving forward towards more and more ridiculous extremes. An academic, in order to stay relevant, needs to keep pushing the invisible and mostly inexistent boundaries that they perceive in whatever field they are involved in. I…
It's not just academia, it's the modern "meritocracy" more broadly. When getting into a campus club at a top college requires four rounds of interviews, you look for easy ways to signal your eliteness and being hip to the new verbal trends is a great way for the well-heeled to extend their advantage over the less-enlightened.
This also applies to jobs whose occupants need to justify their own existence, which they can do so be seeking to remake language in an organization and launch a few fun purges to boot. These new terms are basically a new form of arcane knowledge that allows those who chant these magical new incantations social and professional prestige in the modern meritocracy rat race.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> I causally used the "r-word" and didn't even think anything of it You casually called someone a "retard" (I assume that's the word) and someone took that wrongly? Of course they did! Even when "retard" was an acceptable put-down, it was still a put-down. Maybe the way to avoid the "minefield" you speak of is to not put others down? Even deservedly! Just try to be nicer to everyone, even if they are not, themselves,…
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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#216A word doesn't change the fact it describes.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> but provides little help if you're writing for a broad audience and want to minimize blowback Does writing a guide or policing language that causes blowback provide help? If you're speaking to a room full of people and half favor this language and half don't then you've only shifted the grievances from one side of the room to the other. There's no easy answers here, but I don't think writing language guides or poli…
All it takes is one or two very angry people to start a mob online and destroy someone's entire career. I'm not surprised that authors, especially in a field as precarious as writing, are more than willing to follow what is deemed to be "safe" language, though it's definitely a loss for society as a whole and indirectly works to undermine writing as an art.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
That what tone is for! And when is written, you use the context. And when there is no context, you asume the kindest interpretation
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#219The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…
A pregnant person is a woman.
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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#220A word doesn't change the fact it describes.
English words rarely describe absolute facts: adjectives and adverbs especially. They are often ambiguous if not regionally- and personally-tinted with a history of meanings that vary between people by background and culture.