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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

#371

Post by jimbokun »

78124781 wrote: post #217
kodah wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think that’s becoming less true. A lot of recent “cancellation” attempts have failed.

Of course, it’s probably much more difficult for those who aren’t already successful and famous.

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

#372

Post by jimbokun »

docandrew wrote: post #350
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's crazy that this label is still being pushed. This is a great example of how intellectually bankrupt some of the social mis-movements towards redefinition truly are. First they come up with a term that is clearly not a term used by the native speakers of that group. Then they utilize that term in order to collectively identify them. Then they push it across media, education, and many other avenues to make it "a…

My guess is an English speaker was forced to take French or Spanish in college and struggled to remember the gender for a word like “bicycle” and decided the whole notion of gendered language was silly and should be abolished.

I am much more sympathetic to that argument than the people pretending it’s to avoid offense.

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

#374

Post by undersuit »

suddenclarity wrote: post #341
undersuit wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Isn't that mostly a result of how much you want to focus on the outliers? XX male syndrome is estimated to exists in 1:20000 - 1:30000 people. It's so rare that we have a name for it. Somewhat like rebutting to what a car is by arguing that a handful of cars through history actually had two wheels. And yes, I'm aware that XX syndrome isn't the only outlier but the point still stands.

>Isn't that mostly a result of how much you want to focus on the outliers?

I don't want to focus on the outliers. I want to focus on the fact that we're enforcing a binary distinction when there are outliers.

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

#375

Post by goatlover »

webdood90 wrote: post #299
JKCalhoun wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore in medical settings. Well, that's entirely up to you and me isn't it? I think what bothers me is not so much the word police (ignore them) but everyone else that allow them to set the agenda. I talk the way I've talked my entire life and I don't care what people think about it.

[flagged]

Dumb shit as defined by whom, though? People one doesn't agree with? Why should one stop doing it, then?

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

#376

Post by DubiousPusher »

Svip wrote: post #356
DubiousPusher wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free speech panic. I'm all for free speech but we are like defcon 100 from anything resembling an actual clampdown on speech and it's extremely tiresome to watch people with editorial boards and national readerships act as if they are being brave for saying what pretty much everyone already believes.

> defcon 100 So everything is fine? DEFCON 5 is the _lowest_ threat level, it's DEFCON 1 people should worry about.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON

Yes everything is fine. Norms around language change. 50 years ago you could lose your job for impugning most major religious, governmental or other "respectable" institutions in writing. You probably weren't going to jail for it but you just didn't talk that way about the Catholic church.

At the turn of the century, the same kind of uber-libs who are so jealous of their speech today were getting anyone who even tangentially endorsed labor organization kicked out of college econ departments and black-balled. One econ professor had some good things to say of The Knights of Labor which was the most ubiquitous and one of the most moderate labor organizations in the country, The Nation called into question his economics chair. Godkin himself tried to have the man fired from Johns Hopkins. Many economists who didn't tow the classically liberal line found themselves dealing with unhappy boards of trustees.

Two wrongs obviously don't make a right. But this is not new. The people claiming it is just have very little familiarity with history. And they take for granted that they have just never been on the wrong side of language norms.

Have the woke language grammar police gone too far? Probably. Does it warrant these interminable sanctimonious soap boxes from the Atlantic and their like? No.

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

#377

Post by AbusiveHNAdmin »

randomdata wrote: post #337
imgabe wrote: post #311

Wait, brown bag is subtle racism? Somebody needs to explain this to me because I know for a fact I’ve taken lunch to school in paper bags that were literally brown and I have no idea what else this could possibly refer to. Edit: Looked it up: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/theres-more-seattle-bro... > "the phrase 'brown bag' does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understa…

> I’ve taken lunch to school in paper bags that were literally brown Are you sure they weren't a certain shade of orange?

[dead]

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

#378

Post by justbored123 »

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…

[dead]

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

#379

Post by noah_buddy »

bilalnpe wrote: post #365
nonethewiser wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reeks of criticizing others for your own faults. Someone who makes 12k is poor. If this is offensive to someone then clearly they have a low opinion of poor people. Yet everyone else is reprimanded for it.

I don't have an issue with using the term poor to describe people lacking money but it has other definitions and uses. The second and third definitions I get from define:poor on Google are: - worse than is usual, expected, or desirable; of a low or inferior standard or quality. - (of a person) considered to be deserving of pity or sympathy. I suspect these might be why the term is discouraged.

In ten years, the shoes become economically disadvantaged too

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

#380

Post by DubiousPusher »

ShredKazoo wrote: post #348
DubiousPusher wrote: post #323

This has got to be one of the most over-anxiated, one side arguing with itself sociological phenomena since the white slaver panic that afflicted upper-class ladies in the late 19th century. There is some magazine wash lib, crucifying themselves on this hill on the HN front page every other day. Yet there is practically no one arguing back. Except of course on Twitter. Which apparently some large set of journalists b…

I'm not entirely sure how to parse your comment. Did you notice this section? >Equity-language guides are proliferating among some of the country’s leading institutions, particularly nonprofits. The American Cancer Society has one. So do the American Heart Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the National Recreation and Park Association, the Columbia University School…

I would ask you to consider where the mass of everyday people get their information. Consider the edifices from which actual powers spring.

Now read that list again and see if it seems important.

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