Disabled can't be used because you can't describe someone based on one trait. Birthing people must be used, which describes someone based on one trait. At least you can't accuse them of being consistent.
I have been talking about this subject for many years. I come from a background of homelessness, mental health issues and unemployment. The world I live in is one of institutionalisation. The issue of Jargon and language policing became prominent around the year 2000. The support workers and mental health workers seemed to lose their personal identity overnight . They became a collective of service providers and I along with my peers became service users. Our relationship was reduced to a description based on the financial aspect and workings of the institution. My name ‘ Stewart ‘ had been replaced. What I noticed was a fall in standards and a growing sense of power politics at work.
Yes, the aim is to keep one step ahead of you so that your are always wrong-footed and wrong and in need of being corrected/re-educated. Thus the 'correct' word will be changed to a new 'correct' word just as soon as it appears that people are getting used to using the last one. It's all about power.
Just imagine when the words irony, paradox, sarcasm, unthinking are no longer ‘permitted’. When it is no longer acceptable to have a ‘sense of humour’, when all the language we have is dismantled, where will we be? Desist the nonsensical. I am getting so old, I have no idea what is ‘right’, correct, acceptable. But I,m getting very wary of all this ‘discriminatory’ diversity training is attached to everything. Thank you Lionel.
The idea that this thought fascism is coming primarily out of institutions of higher learning--the very place where free inquiry should be enshrined and the last place where you would expect censorship--is nothing short of terrifying.
The lists are there because college administrators are getting complaints about professors using offensive words from students. The faculty are saying, "Where's the memo alerting me of these banned words? How am I supposed to know?" This is the memo.
I always thought the move from handicapped to disabled was bizarre. Handicapped is a very good word as it doesn't suggest a person is completely non-functional which disabled does, it only suggests that they have some disadvantaging factor.
Read up of the 'Euphemism Mill'. Words are introduced to replace words which have come to be used as insults. Happens with language around the disabled and mentally ill, but also language around racialised people and language around women
@Eli Driscoll Yes, but in about 8 seconds after the change in word usage, the new word will be an insult. Don't really understand that point in changing it. Also, racialised people? Don't know what that means. Might a new one I've not encountered yet. What words relating to women have changed. Can't think of any.
@Jessica Oh right. That stuff. I just don't see any of that ever gaining any real traction. I suppose we will find out in a few years but I doubt very many women don't find those labels offensive. We seem to be at peak stupidity with wokeness right now.
That was great, some sanity in an ocean of nonsense. I particularly liked Lionel's antidote, something i practice myself. Glad to hear an American complaining about the butchering of the English language, and i'll be laughing along too.
It’s bizarre. We use the term housekeeping frequently in our generally, exclusively male workplace, to describe the act of keeping the workplace safe and tidy. There is no connotation that this is only a female activity. It would appear that some university departments are so isolated in their ivory towers, and have nothing better to do.
Exactly. They're the ones assuming women do the housekeeping. I do most of the cleaning washing and cooking at home atm but that's because my husband does most of the "breadwinning". It's been the other way round in the past. I haven't got a problem with that because we work as a team. But I do have a problem with being "protected" by people that want to abolish "offensive" words but then define me as a "birthing person".
A school bus driver was fed up with the kids arguing and shouting on the school bus. He told them to stop it and just imagine they were all green, all the same colour. He then told them that he wanted the dark greens to sit at the back and the light greens to sit at the front.
Yep, agree with her comment about the heat. We are wearing hats and coats during the day and the heating only goes on if the weather is close to fridge temperatures or in the evening when we are all at home.
You haven't had heating for 15 years? I know London is a bit warmer than where I live in Manchester but blimey you must be tough. Mind you when I was growing up in a 3 bed house, only the living room was heated most of the time. The bathroom was freeeezing, so were the bedrooms but you get used to it. When I stayed somewhere centrally-heated as a child, it felt unpleasantly stuffy. Not any more though.
@@thedativecase9733 Aha! You know it, yourself. Can get used to anything (except a drill on the tooth without cocaine). Actually, when I visit an open coal or wood fire it becomes an amazing treat.
Happening now in a large supermarket as the diversity and inclusive training asks you stay away from using the term ‘guys’ when talking in general with your whole team 🙄
Resist this. Offense is an innately oppressive yardstick to determine what can be done or said. Let the these zealots be offended, and tell everyone how offended they are, by all means, but don't let that offense compel another in any way whatsoever. Resist every instance of it, no matter how small.
What these language commissars don't get is that language is constantly developing and changing in an organic way. Words come into use or fall out of favour according to how well they fit people's need to communicate and express themselves, not by decree. You might as well try to control the weather or turn back the tide.
When you play around with language it can get you into terrible trouble. Reminded me of the sketches from the Dick Emery show with a vicar who made up words to replace those he deemed unsuitable. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6Gk_2TO8uwM.html
🇬🇧LADY BALLS: "Elsie, serve tea in the drawing room. Scones. Jam. Sandwiches. The usual. Wayne: prepare the bedrooms for our guests. Oh LADY FARTWELL! How lovely to see you again!!..."
If Lionel is reading this, I completely agree with you - well on most things - but in this instance when it comes to the heating. Dropped mine to 9.5 this year - from 10 - and quickly got used to it to the 'degree' that I am now surprised when it kicks in. 9.5 feels perfectly warm, at least when wearing a wooly hat and thermals.
There are a couple of words I can think of that best describe people offended by these words.... "dickhead", "loony". But perhaps the best words are "authoritarian", "fascist", "hateful".
Yes an actress must be called an actor but if the same woman gets a part time job waiting tables in a restaurant she's still a waitress not a waiter. Why is that? It confuses me.
If “housekeeping” is now a naughty word, will they edit out housekeepers from classic novels? They’ll change them to house-managers. Oops, house-running-persons.
Lionel Shriver, in some talk show (new cultural forum?), when asked who she would vote for in the US elections, said that she would vote for Joe Biden. Two years ago. That tells you something about the quality of her intelligence. Ie, it's overrated.
Trudeau interrupted a mother speaking of mankind and said, "We say 'peoplekind now''" In addition to the rude, arrogant interruption was added a barefaced lie. This is the ultimate example of linguistic bs for me.
@ Andy Durant - as a born and bred Scouser who lived through the 60’s & 70’s we ate blind scouse on many occasions as my mum just didn’t have the money to buy meat. We thought we were poor, turns out we were early proponents of a plant based diet!
