Let's just not create any new words / neologisms for "social justice" purposes. To be clear, no newspeak. Let's remain using the OED from circa 2006.
Banning words won’t make the world more just
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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
People want to recognize inequities and lived experiences and choose to do something about it that is within their power, change their language. As the article embraces, this is a morally driven impulse that is unimpeachable in its intent, but in aggregate, fails and sometimes, even oppresses. Interesting article.
I wonder... what is the difference between an "experience" vs a "lived experience"? If I have an experience-- such as walking through the park, this afternoon and picking a blackberry... What is a "lived experience" version of that same experience?
As our societies functional literacy has declined we have lost words that gave us nuanced shades of meaning.
"Experience with" meaning, "Have dealt with this personally, first hand" gradually became, "has been near or studied and feels comfortable claiming authority on that basis." So the new compound word "Lived experience" was created to allow us to still use the first definition reliably.
Many times people who have "experience with" a topic have really "studied" it.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#23Is this going anywhere outside the US?
The "pronouns" thing went nowhere in France. It was considered damaging to the French language.
> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color.
Also, the shift from moron to mentally defective to retarded to whatever.
This is such a sideshow. First, conservatism lost its way. Then liberalism lost its way. If only we had a center with a clue. Nobody wants to tackle the hard but solveable problems. We get "defund the police", rather than "fire the bottom 10% of cops".
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#24The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…
> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color.
You missed a couple at the beginning of your list. A really significant one in particular.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#25Has anyone considered that non-binary Latine benefit from inclusive language differently than people pretending there is a ban on the word Latino?
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#26The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…
Can you provide sources for "the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is more or less rejected by linguists"? I took a university course in "Philosophy of Language" around 2008 and I was taught in no uncertain terms that language structures thought.
The wikipedia article for Linguistic Relativity[0] states:
> Research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting linguistic relativity, and this hypothesis is provisionally accepted by many modern linguists.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#27if people don't want certain words associated with them, i'll do my best not to do that. I may not know, or i may fail, but i will attempt to do that which is asked of me. Because it's not a problem for me to try.
That's the thing, most of the people described by these changes are not requesting them. Small self appointed experts are coming up with the rules and attempting to force them on society.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#28> The project of the guides is utopian.
What I've learned from history is that every utopian dream realized is a dystopia. "In theory, theory is no different from in practice..." as the saying goes.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#29"The American Cancer Society advises that Latinx, along with the equally gender-neutral Latine, Latin@, and Latinu, “may or may not be fully embraced by older generations and may need additional explanation.” Cool cool, I look forward as a white guy to explaining to a group of Spanish people why they are wrong and are really LatinX and I'm doing it for their protection. Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn…
A good friend of mine is a Spanish translator for a social services agency. She was telling me that the "latinx" thing is a real problem, because for people -- particularly older people -- who are not strong on their reading in the first place, they hit "LatinX" and genuinely have zero idea what that's supposed to mean.
So then time, energy, and goodwill gets wasted by having to explain to people what they "should" be calling themselves. The people she's talking to thinks the whole thing is just stupid, and is a thing that only white people care about.
But she also mentions that the younger generation of LatinX people do care, and often prefer the term. It's all a big mess and makes compassionate communication more difficult.
Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just
#30"The American Cancer Society advises that Latinx, along with the equally gender-neutral Latine, Latin@, and Latinu, “may or may not be fully embraced by older generations and may need additional explanation.” Cool cool, I look forward as a white guy to explaining to a group of Spanish people why they are wrong and are really LatinX and I'm doing it for their protection. Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn…
As a Hispanic American, I very regularly tell people I am Latino and that Latinx is incredibly offensive to my heritage. I'm in my 30s and the younger people I know also find it offensive.