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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

#281

Post by TomK32 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #269
tastysandwich wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For my partner's entire pregnancy, our providers only referred to "birthing people" Calling my wife a "birthing person" just made her feel like some gross vessel for having a baby. We purposefully chose providers that didn't use that language. "Chestfeeding" is another one that's cropping up and makes zero sense. Men have breasts, so breastfeeding is already gender-neutral. But it's seen as female-centric so out th…

Our entire group of animals is named after tits: Mammals. How can referring to the fact people have what our entire branch of the tree of life is named after be offensive?

Good thing tits are global but have have different names in other languages, Meisen in the case of my primary-guardian language.

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

#282

Post by whatshisface »

jrmg wrote: post #272
rayiner wrote: post #233

The Sierra Club guide is hilarious: https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/sce-authors/u... . > People of color” has in the past served as a collective term for people who are not white. A preferred term today is “BIPOC” referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color, which provides a unifying term for ease of use while still acknowledging the reality that Black and Indigenous people in the United States…

Are you aghast at the number of points? It’s referring to two points from “The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation”, which is understandably (I hope), a large (and respected!) guide.

Taken out of their respective roles in the context of the conversation, comparing the Chicago Guide to the Catechism is, admittedly, a really funny comment.

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

#283

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #249
t344344 wrote: post #3

Is not "equity language" just another form of neocolonialism? How can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group (latinx) without their consent? Also there is nothing offensive about being "poor"... Equity language is just another tool to oppress people.

I love reading this stuff to figure out what new words elite white people have for me. Apparently I’m not a “minority” or a “naturalized citizen” anymore, and my kids aren’t “second generation Americans.”

I'm involved in local politics in Oak Park, IL, also known as the People's Republic of Oak Park, 85.5% Clinton in '16, 72% college educated, median income about $15k higher than Evanston, and I have never heard any of these words in the elite white conversations I am continually dragged into.

These guides get published to give The Groups something to do. Very few people in the real world --- yes, even the elite whites --- take them seriously. The only durable change I've noticed in the last few years is capitalizing Black, which is something our mutual fave John McWhorter has been advocating for some time.

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

#284

Post by orangecat »

the_snooze wrote: post #17

>When Latinx began to be used in advanced milieus, a poll found that a large majority of Latinos and Hispanics continued to go by the familiar terms and hadn’t heard of the newly coined, nearly unpronounceable one. There's also a practical case: these terms make you sound like a damn space alien. Unless your audience already agrees completely with you, you lose credibility by using this language. Posturing for your o…

There's also a practical case: these terms make you sound like a damn space alien.

That's part of the point: it's a costly signal that demonstrates that you're a true ally. See also: gang tattoos.

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

#286

Post by JenrHywy »

tastysandwich wrote: post #242
jurassic wrote: post #54

The 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…

> For my partner's entire pregnancy, our providers only referred to "birthing people" Calling my wife a "birthing person" just made her feel like some gross vessel for having a baby. We purposefully chose providers that didn't use that language. "Chestfeeding" is another one that's cropping up and makes zero sense. Men have breasts, so breastfeeding is already gender-neutral. But it's seen as female-centric so out th…

> There seems to be this weird erasure of women taking place at the moment.

This is the crazy thing. After a century of legitimate struggle for equality, women are having the language of feminism turned on them to deny the existence of femininity. Honestly, I thought the lines would have been drawn with sport, but that fact that it's leaking into medicine is pure insanity.

I've been somewhat worried about there not being much of place in the world for my sons when they grow up. Now I'm imagining needing to explain to my daughter that there's no point having any sporting aspirations unless they are in a sport where biological women have an advantage.

Edit: on reflection, perhaps it was completely foreseeable. Modern feminism spent a lot of time dismantling masculinity; it makes some sense that femininity would be next against the wall.

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

#287

Post by echelon »

dimva wrote: post #277

The ever-changing euphemistic language seems to me like mostly just a new way to be a hipster. The new vocabulary is a shibboleth to distinguish people who got the right sort of education from the right sort of places. Your knowledge of all the proper euphemisms to use sets you apart from the uneducated rubes. The problem is, it sets you apart from the people you're allegedly trying to help, given that the marginaliz…

> shibboleth to distinguish people who got the right sort of education from the right sort of places

I don't think you're right. We're being told our words are wrong on a daily basis.

I think that this started with Tumblr in the early 2010's and has grown into a movement sometime during the Trump presidency.

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

#288

Post by Spivak »

zmgsabst wrote: post #274
Spivak wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, I swear half the time I can’t figure out if people are genuinely confused by inclusive language or if they confuse it on purpose just to get riled up. It’s the same with people who menstruate — not only for trans men but for post menopausal women, women who’ve had hysterectomies, or are otherwise have amenorrhea.

No — people are just aware that humans are sexually dimorphic and don’t appreciate people demanding they not use language that accurately describes the peaks of a bimodal distribution because there’s a small percentage of outliers. Mammals in general are sexually dimorphic. Particularly when that language control is transparently used for power seeking. We don’t need to shape every utterance around outliers — that’s…

Girl you gotta get off the internet. No one is demanding you use this language. It’s actually the opposite where people have a visceral reaction to someone voluntarily choosing to use inclusive language. Style guides like these are for awareness, everyone has had the moment where they discover a word they picked up is actually offensive. One that happened for me was “gypped.” A lot of the guides do contain silly substitutions but that’s because they’re wrong about the history of the words and their usage not because the idea or intent is bad.

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

#289

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

jurassic wrote: post #54

The 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…

> People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me

Why is that? I’m genuinely curious. Who should be offended by the word slave? Is it I, the Slav? The etymology of the word concerns my heritage, and yet I’m not offended. It’s not as though people toying with language today is going to bring back my relatives who died as slaves, nor will it undo the suffering they endured.

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