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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

#481

Post by Version467 »

imgabe wrote: post #303
randomdata wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm no graphic designer or artist, they look brown to me. They still sell them at Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Self-Standing-Lunch-B...

I could be wrong, but I think the parent comment is just a reference to the fact that brown doesn't exist. There's no wavelength that our brains map to brown. Instead what we perceive as brown is just orange, but less bright. And wether we see it as brown or dark orange depends entirely on context.

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

#483

Post by prepend »

psyfi wrote: post #425
Lazare wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner is disabled, and by chance and via support groups she is a member of, she has many friends annd acquaintences who are as well. And while it's by no means universal, she and all her disabled friends absolutely loathe the "people first language" currently in vogue (ie, "person with a disability" over "disabled"). And it's odd! Because while there are certainly disabled people who prefer one form over another…

Even worse, some people will use "people of determination" despite being more vague and non-descriptive

Is this mean someone is determined or steadfast in their constitution?

I worked with someone who was really smart but annoyed me because his variable names were cartoon characters, like Tom,jerry,bugs, etc.

I asked him not to do this and he said that each variable was documented so it’s better to use an arbitrary label that never needs to change should the business change it’s name (ie if you called a variable division_names and the org decides to rename divisions to units). We argued over this and he never changed his variable names.

But now I get it. I’d rather just have some arbitrary label that means disabled and never have to change it as “prepend is foo” would stand the test of time while “prepend is disabled” might change to “pretend is of disability” might change to “prepend is not hindered by disability” to “prepend is a human first and valiantly overcomes a limitation in ability” to “prepend only has one arm” etc.

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

#484

Post by yathaid »

b112 wrote: post #434
imoverclocked wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

"It's ok to be _____" but learned that it's actually a dark dog whistle thanks to Scott Adams. The fact that someone can be labeled something, because they use a phrase which is currently, out of the blue, a big deal? And you can only know if you obsessively read all sorts of popculture websites, or fluff news stories daily? That's very sad.

Sure. But you should do your research on the phrase and the polling company that pretends it is a straightforward question before going on a racist screed to get away from a racial group.

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

#485

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

wonderwonder wrote: post #363
recuter wrote: post #301

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.

Someone asked Mel Brooks the same about Blazing Saddles once.

"Today? You couldn't even make it then!"

We overestimate the effect the this sort of thing has.

I imagine someone reading that line is about to talk about the cancelling of some so-and-so, but in almost all cases that is either just a lot of hot air from Twitter or the so-and-so in question is legitimately and obviously actually a bigot.

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

#486

Post by marmee »

hutzlibu wrote: post #377
wonderwonder wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the people they are relabeling as children that need the kind progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending. Minorities don't need white Knights to save them, neither do the disabled. If an individual wants me to not refer to them as x because they find it offensive, no problem. But a group of academics should not be able to sit around and decide…

[flagged]

Jews in WW2 needed the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, they did not need Churchill to stop using the word Jew because it is offensive.

It is not similar, unless if you have the preconceived notion that 'language is action'

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

#488

Post by Joker_vD »

jimbokun wrote: post #241
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…

Hard to miss the similarities with Orwell’s Newspeak. The attempt to make certain thoughts unthinkable by removing the words that denote those ideas.

Absolutely:

> Once you acquire the vocabulary, it’s actually easier to say people with limited financial resources than the poor. The first rolls off your tongue without interruption, leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion.

Compare with Orwell's "Politics and the English Language":

> Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. [...] A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

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

#489

Post by SyzygistSix »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #109
ryandrake wrote: post #91

Earlier 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…

>in the 2010s it's become totally lingua-non-grata* I thought it was the 2020s. But it's too good not to use, and it's the last good insult we have. Mental ableism is the last bastion. I make my stand here. The slippery slope we're being forced down on leads to "don't be mean to anyone ever", and I, as a product of the era of https://youtu.be/C4dnCZSYmbY , fundamentally refuse to accept that.

I personally have replaced it with fucktard, just so there isn't any confusion.

Also I'm bringing back "special".

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

#490

Post by boredumb »

hutzlibu wrote: post #377
wonderwonder wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the people they are relabeling as children that need the kind progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending. Minorities don't need white Knights to save them, neither do the disabled. If an individual wants me to not refer to them as x because they find it offensive, no problem. But a group of academics should not be able to sit around and decide…

[flagged]

You mean the home-country-challenged people living among THE biggest oppressors in history needed help after literally-hitler was about to unalive them?
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