[esperent]

> So what you're saying is that you agree with the underlying message

No, that's the complete opposite of what I said.

Please read again. The part where I said that the underlying message is "you are wrong, you should feel bad, you're not allowed to use the thing you were wrong about anymore".

If the message had been "you're wrong about something, here's the truth, now make up your own mind about whether you want to keep using it", I'd be completely on board with the article. My decision would probably be that I'm gonna keep using the phrase because all of linguistics is built on misunderstandings, mistranslations, and downright lies, so avoiding every phrase that has "bad" origins is a step on the road to 1984. But that's just like, my opinion, man. You can decide otherwise and we can all get along just fine.

[djur]

I assume you think it's a good thing that we don't use phrases like "[black person] in the woodpile" or "[black person] toes" or "[black person] rigged" anymore. Maybe you agree we shouldn't use names for the Romani or Jewish people as idiom for being cheated. I am certain that there is some phrase or term you wouldn't use that my grandfather would have considered harmless, or his grandfather, etc.

I don't like arbitrary language policing, either. I think there was a much stronger case for eliminating "master"/"slave" than "master branch", for instance, and if people were to argue for eliminating "mastery" as well I'd consider that ridiculous. It's fine if you don't consider this particular argument persuasive, but if it's a step toward Ingsoc we've all already been sprinting in that direction for centuries.

[peoplefromibiza]

> Maybe you agree we shouldn't use names for the Romani or Jewish people as idiom for being cheated

All good and admirable, but

when I meet someone from the States and say I'm Italian, it usually ends up like this

https://www.alessandravita.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12...

or this

https://static1.thegamerimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uplo...

or with a combo

https://preview.redd.it/italian-stereotypes-starter-pack-v0-...

It's not the words or the metaphors, it's the people!

If someone wants to use words against someone else, they'll find a way, no matter what.

Policing words is fascist, if anything, police people bad behaviour, actually, police how your society works and start investigating why you you masterfully created, nourished and spread to the World so many cultural stereotypes about everyone who is not you and doesn't want to be like you! They talk to us about you, it's not the words you use, but *how* you use them.

Try to understand that thinking "you person of color -> you bad" it's not any better than thinking "you [n word] -> you bad".

[JohnBooty]

I’m always puzzled by this common sort of tone-policing reaction to an article that says “we should do X” or even “you should do X.”

This sort of phrasing of one’s opinion is as old as essays and speeches themselves, as far as I know. Here is an english translation of a speech by Cicero, the one from which our good old lorem ipsum placeholder text was derived.

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de...

Of course it is sensible for a person to have an opinion on the conduct of others, and to express that opinion. Where is the problem?

Unless said author was in a position of power over me I would understand the “we should X” phrasing as kind of like… the standard way that opinions have been expressed throughout history…

[esperent]

Well, maybe this - writing in this imperative tone - is something that we should work on changing? It seems like a more useful change than policing individual words or phrases because of dubious historical misunderstandings.

[JohnBooty]

Did you ever write something like this in a school essay?

   "I think that people should do XYZ"

If so, and your English teacher was at least minimally engaged, they should have pointed out why the "I think" is entirely redundant and best removed.

The reader knows that this is your opinion. They may reasonably presume these are your opinions and that you are not writing the essay at gunpoint or while under the influence of alien mind control. Furthermore, no reasonable reader would mistake your opinion for some sort of imperative they are compelled to obey.

(Now, I hope this isn't misconstrued to mean that all opinions should be expressed authoritatively and imperatively. That is not always the right tone.)

[esperent]

I think that your focus on high school grammar is (perhaps intentionally) missing the point here. I've explained my position on multiple other comments in this thread, if you care to look, and it's not about a grammar issue. It's a societal issue which I've seen called SJWs (social justice warriors) which is characterized as mostly wealthy white Americans (although it spread to other groups too) deciding that they need to "help" minorities that they've never met in some way, usually by policing language or fashion. It's a low effort way to appear to be affecting social change while actually not doing much and in fact most likely just alienating potential allies who would otherwise be supportive of more important changes.

[JohnBooty]

Can you talk about your observation (assumption?) that people talking about these issues are talking instead of helping in material ways. This is a false dichotomy. Talking about a thing is not incompatible with doing a thing.

(I see from your comment history that you've talked about Typescript, and being Irish. Does that mean you don't actually write Typescript and you're, uh, not being Irish in a proper enough way? No.)

It's acceptable to discuss a societal issue even if you're not actively doing something about it. There are a lot of things going on in the world and a finite amount of hours in one's day. We can only personally reach out and touch a depressingly small subset of them. I think Putin is a rather malignant head of state, but I am not actively working to depose him, and I don't see a conflict there as long as I'm clear about that.

    deciding that they need to "help" minorities that they've 
    never met in some way, usually by policing language or fashion.

This is a key concept and I'm sure I won't change your mind. But for the record: the belief here is that when you have a privileged group and an underprivileged group, the privileged group has a large role to play in righting this wrong.

As an admittedly contrived example, suppose we work at a majority-white company where white employees are openly using racial slurs against black employees. As a white person, I've got a responsibility to confront this and steer things in a better direction. If I'm in management then part of my job is to shape enact and enforce policies to keep this from happening.

I think we'd agree on that cartoonishly obvious example, but another key belief is that there are a lot of "lesser" racist acts that may not be as egregious as the "n word" but are still well worth combating.

Certainly, I think that any particular policy at any company is up for discussion. I've no doubt there's a lot of overreach in this area. Some companies are surely doing real shitty jobs, but the problem here is "companies doing real shitty jobs" and not the core idea of "hey, let's shape a good company culture here."

But I think you are making a lot of other unsupported assumptions: that these policies are enacted by "rich white people" with zero input from the groups they claim to protect, and that these policies are being enacted without other more material changes, and so on. Again: surely true in some cases, but I believe you are conflating bad implementations with bad ideas.

[esperent]

> I'm sure I won't change your mind. But for the record: the belief here is that when you have a privileged group and an underprivileged group, the privileged group has a large role to play in righting this wrong.

I think you'ce misunderstood me here. I strongly believe in positive, progressive social change, and I strongly believe that in a large part this has to come from the dominant section of society.

The issue I have here is with frivolous linguistic change wrapped up as real social change.

These SJWs, or whatever you want to call them, are essentially role playing at social change.

I will highlight again that I don't think these are all rich white Americans, just that that is where the movement originated.

Sure, they can force through a minor change (often entirely incorrect, in the case of master branch having anything to do with slavery, or deciding that latinos should be referred to as latinx even though the actual latinos seem to largely deride this term).

But that does exactly zero to improve anyone's lives, except for these few already mostly privileged SJWs who get to pat themselves on the back.

Meanwhile, the main actual change that has happened is that loads of people - potential allies - have been frustrated or even alienated by this whole foolish endeavor, and society as a whole has shifted a step to the right.