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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

#471

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

#472

Post by molsongolden »

golemotron wrote: post #439
pizza234 wrote: post #418

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

#473

Post by scoutt »

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #125

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.

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

#475

Post by josephg »

angarg12 wrote: post #238
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…

It seems to me that one of the issues is that the (more extreme) woke culture has put the entire burden of communication on the speakers rather than the listeners. Is not enough that you intend to offend, or that you say something that offends someone, is whether something that you say could possibly offend someone, even if you didn't have the slightest intentions. On the other say the listeners are free to interpret…

Yep. There’s an old saying I love - “Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child”.

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

#476

Post by chronogram »

lynx23 wrote: post #363

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…

Your opinion as a blind person doesn't matter to someone not wanting to call you blind, it's the opinions of others around them that matter to them.

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

#478

Post by recuter »

wonderwonder wrote: post #466
recuter wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Could You Make Tropic Thunder Today? w/Robert Downey Jr. | Joe Rogan (12m views, from 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugC3TXSKoE

tl;dw - Nope.

Ain't that some shit?

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

#479

Post by boomboomsubban »

lynx23 wrote: post #363

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…

From spending time with students of my local school for the blind and visually impaired, I am under the impression "blind" and "visually impaired" are seperate things. Some of the people I knew seemed to care about the distinction, so it seems better to stick with something neutral until I am sure.

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

#480

Post by herewulf »

jimbokun wrote: post #372
docandrew wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Shouldn't intentionally butchering someone else's non-English language be considered offensive?
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