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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

#361

Post by jamilton »

kergonath wrote: post #312
jurassic wrote: post #50

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" because of some tiny number of trans men that exist and also want to give birth. I completely understand the “gender is social and not biological” concept, and I believe it is true to a large degree. But this is not the case: if you are able to bear a child, then by definition you are female and a woman in the biological sense.

Why does it become purely biological and not social in this case? Applying this definition strictly means woman who aren't able to bear children are not women.

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

#363

Post by wonderwonder »

recuter wrote: post #301
lynx23 wrote: post #289

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

I was going to recommend a masterpiece of cinema to you called Blind Fury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Fury The realization that it would be pointless, alas, came to me too late. Let me just give you a taste: While serving in Vietnam, American soldier Nick Parker was blinded by a mortar explosion. Rescued by local villagers, he recovered his health and, though he remains blind, was trained to master his other…

Following up on this I wonder if Tropic Thunder (2008), a relatively new movie could be made today.

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

#364

Post by funcDropShadow »

roenxi wrote: post #318
lynx23 wrote: post #289

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

> The language terror they were subjected to has made them so unsecure that they actually dont want to hear that blind people have no issue with being called blind. It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved to be relevant.The language policing appears to be a power play within the majority. What you are observing is consistent with that - they aren't worried about offending the blind, they're worried…

> It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved to be relevant.The language policing appears to be a power play within the majority.

That is so true. Often the stated goal is to deconstruct society, not to help any minority.

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

#365

Post by nicbou »

Counter-point: we used to call lousy things gay, and made up a whole sexuality for men who took care of their appearance (metrosexual). Perhaps it wasn't as bad as the Nazis' "useless mouths", but it certainly wasn't great.

Nowadays we call white immigrants "expats" and other immigrants "immigrants".

Words have power.

The problem is when people start using words to create a sort of password game. It keeps some people busy, makes them feel better than others for knowing the passwords, and does little for anyone else.

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

#366

Post by josephg »

imoverclocked wrote: post #346
Sunspark wrote: post #287

In my life, I have been deaf, hearing impaired, hard of hearing, hearing challenged. I suppose at some point I will be acoustically disadvantaged. You know what? At the end of the day, I'm still deaf. It's true. I have limitations that others take for granted. If I can't see someone speaking or if I'm out of batteries, we aren't going to be communicating well. That's pretty deaf. I won't be offended, it's just realit…

> Character and intent is what matters. This. I recently ran up against a filter on Reddit where I used a phrase that I was completely unaware of. My account was flagged for hate speech. The comment had no ill-intent. The problem with language is that we want individual words to have inherent meaning but as people adopt phrases to identify a movement, those meanings get carried along for the ride. eg: until recently,…

> I suspect the unease you perceive with people using different terms for blindness are unease with their own attachments to those words.

Nah. I think people are just terrified of coming across as a jerk for not knowing the latest non-offensive term for things. Black? African American? Oh black is ok again? Will I get in trouble with HR/Twitter for calling you blind? And if so, what word do I use instead? Do I ask? Is that awkward? Am I making it awkward??

It feels like a minefield, where the location of the mines change every few months and stepping on a mine could cost you big time.

The language police keep finding new things to get offended by, too. The Stanford “harmful language list” includes things like “user”, “tribe”, “client” and “addict”. Pleasing these people is exhausting.

[1] https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguag...

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

#367

Post by bruce343434 »

zuminator wrote: post #333
ShredKazoo wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NAACP stands for "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People". Interesting how "Colored People" was an enlightened term in 1909, but "Colored People" is now out and "People of Color" is the new way to go.

Colored People and People of Color are two different things. Colored People was the polite term for blacks 60+ years ago. People of Color means nonwhite. Also, side point, the founders of NAACP included both black, white, and at least one person (Mary Church Terrell) that we would in 2023 consider mixed race. And initially it was predominately led by white Americans.

As a non native speaker I would have never known this. Learned something today!

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

#368

Post by herewulf »

mc32 wrote: post #5
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.

It's the new prescriptivists who want to set the rules for the commoners to follow -reminds me of the apocryphal story about a Spanish king of some sort who had a lisp and in turn, the population not wanting to offend him began speaking with a lisp so Spanish ended up with a "th" sound where other romance languages did not.

That's apocryphal. Sound change in language is constant and "s" and "th" are close sounds. This was just a natural process in Castilian Spanish.

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

#369

Post by molsongolden »

golemotron wrote: post #340
pizza234 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same dynamic that happens with comedy. When a comedian offends a group, it's typically not people from that group who complain - it's third parties who step in to represent that group. IMO the purpose of language changing is not to improve the world; instead, it's to give the feeling of changing the world without putting any real effort. Fun (in a sad way) fact: a friend of mine collaborates with an…

> IMO the purpose of language changing is not to improve the world; instead, it's to give the feeling of changing the world without putting any real effort. It's worse than that. It's a way of signaling. When I started to read the article I hoped that it would mention Steven Pinker's Euphemism Treadmill. I was disappointed. The short story is that changing language is a quick way of differentiating an in-group from a…

Looked up the Steven Pinker article and it was an interesting read. Written in 1994 but could have been written yesterday.

[PDF]https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/1994_04_03_newyo...

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

#370

Post by scoutt »

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #93

Those whose focus is on controlling language are not primarily concerned about controlling your words. They're primarily interested in controlling you . I'm old enough to remember when the word 'retard' was the politically correct term before it became "mentally handicapped" then "challenged" and so on. Same goes for 'cripple' which also accurately and concisely describes a particular class of physical impairment. Th…

> Those whose focus is on controlling language ... They're primarily interested in controlling you.

I don't know who are "those", but I think they're primarily interested in controlling backlash and preventing conflicts. They don't want lawsuits or twitter outrage.

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