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Bill Collins
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Posted: 20 July 2019 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

What about
herbivore, hereditary, heresy?
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Joe Zhang
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Posted: 20 July 2019 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Capitalists try to change the world with money. Communists, through government. The latter never quite understands that adage, you catch more flies with honey. 
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Matt Reed
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 1:30am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

 Michael Roberts wrote:
 Marc Baptiste wrote:
It seems the far left is determined to NEVER be outdone by the far right!

I’m not sure enforcing really dumb rules to be inoffensive really compares to rallying around deporting non-white Americans and taking away women’s options for unwanted pregnancies.

This.  
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 7:49am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I have long been aware that Mankind isn't intended to represent any gender preference. It's an identifier, no more offensive than dogkind, fishkind, etc. I mean, if it needs to be switched, we could refer to bitchkind, cowkind, lionesskind, and so on. The fish can go to hell. ;)

Those who wish to be offended by the past are more than welcome to be. It will never change one single letter or one line, but complain away. Maybe if they bitch hard enough, a script will magically change and become "Two Ladies of Verona", etc.

There is no doubt that males have been emphasized more than females with regards to the English language. But English has changed before, and if there is enough demand or pressure, it can change again.

It might not be a bad idea, as a resolution to the problem, to rename "manholes" to "maintenance access." But that won't change the situation from where I'm sitting. Hell, there are more women than men in the United States right now. If they want a candidate of their own, they can just DO it. If they want to change the language, I think they can just do it. 

But A) are they seeking equality or retribution? B) Can they agree to act unilaterally? C) Understandably, the Old White Men network still runs things. Is there a way to upset this applecart within the next ten to twenty years? I mean, the old bastards gotta die sometime.

I'm for treating sexes equally*, and giving women their deserved due. But a flash-in-the-pan novelty fix such as this doesn't seem an effective way to get it done - to me at least.

*Of course, men and women aren't equal and have never been. But the reasons men have been superior are failling aside more and more. It's time for some kind of change... but we may not understand it until it's been effected in twenty years.
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David Allen Perrin
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 7:53am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

“But the reasons men have been superior....”

Men are superior?   

Nah. You’ve never met my mom.


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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 7:56am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Really? How would she do in an arm wrestling contest against a guy? A foot face? A climbing contest?

Does that apply to every man? Of course not! She'd beat me in straight sets at every one of those (and I don't even know your mom.)

But there's a reason evolution made males brighter and more colorful, stronger, and "superior" in battle. Without 90% of males, a race might continue. Without 90% of females, it's over.

Although I HAVE heard rumors of "Ma Perrin, Terror of Seven States!"
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 8:00am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Thinking a little of George Carlin now, I think some of the changes in terminology, even for an ostensibly good cause, render our language a lot less vivid and evocative -- e.g., as Carlin pointed out, changing "shell shock" into "battle fatigue" and then ultimately "post-traumatic stress disorder." It's not just a move from the poetic to the clinical, a matter of appreciating artistic diction over scientific definition: word choice, as Carlin discussed, can motivate how we think and act.


 QUOTE:
I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I'll give you an example of that.

There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap.

In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves.

That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue.

Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, we're up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.

Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I'll bet you if we'd have still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.

Here is Carlin's bit, live.

"Manhole" may be (unfairly?) gender specific, but at least it directly expresses the uncomfortable truth of a human being having to go down a hole in the ground and do this necessary but dirty work.


Edited by Michael Penn on 21 July 2019 at 8:03am
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David Allen Perrin
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 8:10am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

@Eric....

The word ‘superior’ is pretty loaded.  And reading it in this context just didn’t sit right with me.  

And my mom is pretty fucking awesome.  She taught me that no one is ‘superior’ to anyone else.  


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John Byrne
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 8:13am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Not many (any?) women were interested in going down manholes when the term was coined.
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Bill Collins
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 8:29am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Here`s a thing that comes from America, that has
permeated into the UK...calling a group of people no
matter the gender "Guys"
Is nobody taking offence at that? (Being sarcastic!)

Where does it end? Instead of trying to make society a
genderless, homogenised mass of nothing interesting, why
are we not celebrating and understanding our
differences, rather than denying them?
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Eric, can you please explain your statement ‘There’s a reason evolution made males brighter, & more colourful, stronger & superior in battle’ please?

I’m particularly interested in the brighter and more colourful bit. Firstly, what exactly do you mean by those words and secondly, how are you measuring them?
Finally, do the descriptions pertain only to battle?
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 21 July 2019 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

We've discussed the fact that the English language is evolving, and I don't see why some gender-specific words can't be changed or dropped in the name of accuracy.

"Mankind" for example isn't a technically accurate term, unless of course you actually want to refer to just the men on this planet; "humanity" is more accurate. Ditto "manhole" (sewerhole), "manpower" (workforce), etc.

But equally, dropping gender-specific pronouns like "he" and "she" just to be inclusive means sacrificing accuracy and specificity, so it shouldn't be encouraged.

The problem seems to be not so much a logically motivated change, as a politically motivated change designed to appease the most vocal section of society (squeaky wheel syndrome). The end result is that you will get a backlash, winding up with the opposite result to what was intended: increased division and a stronger need by each and every group to assert their "unique identity" lest it be lost.
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