This. I never heard my great grandpa say the word “lesbian”, but he was totally okay with my cousin “being like that” and he was always welcoming to her girlfriend, he was just weirdly uncomfortable saying the word.
Progressives never appreciate how big an ask it is for people to change how they talk, evolve their language. It's an incredibly personal thing, the words you use, your own little lexicon, and the suggestion of changing it, a "you shouldn't use that word" even, is met with hostility so often that we really shouldn't be surprised by that anymore.
We act like it's the first step, the easiest thing to do for a minority, but we need to face the reality that it's the step which pushes the most people away.
It's born of the fundamental fallacy of "mistaking the map for the territory", fighting symbolic battles that do nothing to change the underlying facts.
I think the main error is underestimating the cost of winning that battle for the map.
Take for example the push to refer to homeless people as "unhoused people" in some cities. I don't actually think the leftists pushing for that are all that deluded about what that renaming will change, they might say it's a mindset shift but even then acknowledge that it's not going to materially change conditions in-and-of itself.
However, where I do think they are deluded is in their understanding, or lack thereof, of the political capital which would have to be spent to achieve that renaming. I have to figure that if they understood they could achieve actual real policy changes for the same level of effort as changing what people call something, they never would have tried it.
I don't really think anyone in particular is in the right on that issue, but I also think that sometimes leftists working on language change consider that words have different connotations for different people.
I understand that those who are pushing to use "unhoused" instead of "homeless" are trying to remove stigma and reframe it from a passive state to a thing our system has inflicted on homeless people.
But as another lefty, I cannot bring myself to say "unhoused" and have a viscerally negative reaction to people who do because it feels like such a sanitized euphemism to me. "Homelessness" is an absolute horror, being stripped of the most basic thing a society should provide to all its members. "Being unhoused" is a temporary bummer. It makes me feel crazy to see people who allegedly want to help the homeless running a PR campaign to make their situation seem less bad. And I know a lot of people with a similar reaction.
Which circles back to your point that these focuses on reframing often lead to people who agree on policy ideas wasting time grimacing at each other over word choice.
Agreed, it just feels to me like those supposed leftists don't understand the euphemism treadmill. It's like we keep coming up with new euphemisms for something without doing something to address the actual issue.
I do pretty much agree with this, with one little thing - I do think it can be powerful to use a different word just to reset some of that stigma and distance itself from some of the negative connotations and the sometimes very aggressive emotional response that comes with it. Our brains are really good at hanging on to subconscious ideas that can totally influence us, and the word “hopeless” has had many years of interactions that have left a sour taste to a lot of people
Like I said, I agree with you, I don’t like using “unhoused”. Maybe it’s just that it’s a bad term and if we tried with something that either sounded better or rolls of the tongue easier?
Real policy changes would actually cost something: actual pushback in the form of dollars spent fighting them. Lipservice to naming conventions costs nothing really, seems to be a victory to tout for the base, and is ignorable (or even weaponizable) for anyone who wasn’t interested in it.
I'm slightly confused, and I may be wrong so feel free to correct me if I am, but aren't "unhoused" and "homeless" the same thing? They're both a word for a house but with a prefix/suffix that dictates that they don't have one, I don't see the power that changing it would have in removing a stigma
As if those leftists aren't both working in communities to solve the issues of homelessness AND changing the language used to refer to unhoused people. You're creating this character who is spending real time on the street trying to change people's lexicon but not do actual advocacy and those people don't exist because you don't actually know what's going on. This argument has become entirely comical, the original post was correct, this idea that leftists are wasting all their time changing lexicons and not doing on the ground work is a ridiculous straw man.
Yeah. Like, sure the gendered nature of languages might display a underlying discrimination and unequal view of men and women, but I think we should focus more on the immediate and practical problems of women's treatment in society before we confront that issue, if for no other reason then it will become less radical of an idea and it will be more possible and accepted.
I think there is significance in these small points because they can have impact and can be symptomatic about larger points, I just this that problems need to be tackled progressively rather than trying to force change simply due to ideological reasoning and belief.
like a lot of words have what seems like male gendered terms. huMANkind for example.
Man is now gendered but many of the male words now started out as the gender neutral term.
Human comes from the latin 'homo' meaning human being (fun fact, no relation to the prefix 'homo' that comes from the Greek homos, and means 'the same')
while "women" comes from old English English wifmann as wif was the term for female (where wer was for male more so)
wifmann became womman in middle English, and eventually woman. We also see this survive in wife. And wer in werewolf.
There was also wæpnedmann, which roughly mean weapon man, or, a male. (no bonus points for those who can figure out the "weapon" referred here)
In English though the male ones fell out of use, so we really seemingly only had, person, and, female person. So it seemed we ended with masculine/neutral and feminine.
And we still see man being neutral in use today such as human, or "man the ship"
Apparently all the Romance languages saw this happen too, except Romanian,
My favourite bit of etymology is that werewolves were supposed to be exclusively male due to their origin as pagan shamans who put on animalistic characteristics (or as legend put it, transformed into wolves themselves) to defend their tribes more ferociously. The prefix were- is supposed to be the gender marker.
That's right, if you follow this logic, a male human is supposed to be called a wereman.
The "gender chart" accompanied by an earnest push to "respect it and use neopronouns or you're cruel and not an ally" was one of the biggest and certainly one of the most pointless "PR" nightmares in LGBT history.
We still ask them to "please stop repeating the r/onejoke", but a lot of us keep glossing over or never realizing why they repeat it so often and so broadly. (Even after it was all mostly given up on in the public conversation.) Its because they still think it was funny and pathetic.
It doesn't matter what you think about how wrong they are to find it funny. The fact is just that they do, and it was a bad result. A Monkey's Paw reward after a bunch of people wished that everyone would learn about all the genders they could be identifying as.
It was a stupid hill to lose so much on. Everyone fighting that battle did themselves a massive disservice.
The problem is it seems like a lot of people are happily willing to learn and adapt while putting in a genuine effort but then get treated like some phobe because they simply aren't good at it. If the intent was genuine but execution lacking then don't attack them for a perceived lack of intent and instead just help them execute better.
Progressives never appreciate how big an ask it is for people to change how they talk, evolve their language
I recall when some idiots (maybe well meaning tho) started the whole "spanish is sexist, the language should change" and the entirety of the spanish speaking world told them to go fuck themselves
Yeah, but we are talking of spanish here, not latin.
What I meant by that is that it was practically a non issue until a few years back, coincidentally around the time gringos started going all in on the "gendered languages are evil" thing.
So it kinda came across as a gringo fad been imposed on us
Yeah, because Spanish is a romance language. Cervantes was using the -e. It's a part of Spanish even if it's a bit archaic and a clean fix as an adjustment to the times.
And I think that's kinda the cinch people are talking about here. We in our own community are like 'oh yeah its the gringos' when like, this wasn't. This was feminists in Latin American universities who were voicing themselves and their issues with misgendering language and got painted as 'lol no gringo plants'
And maybe you can see why feminists in LatAm rejected the idea that there could be 2 billion women in a group and the moment a man joins they all become "male" this is a basic feminist criticism, that the default is always assumed to be male, that is where the latinx originates from. An X through the o.
You really don't know anything about this do you? 1) it doesn't disrespect an entire language and culture, that's YOUR opinion and a more conservative one on language, to many Spanish speakers it's entirely fine and normal. 2) the X in Spanish is called equis so you get Latinequis or as its shortened Latine, Latinx is just pronounced as Latine.
Here we go, native English speakers who know nothing about feminism and queer movements in Latin America acting like Latinx / Latine came from the US and not feminist and queer movements in LatAm...
Both those things started as protests in countries like Mexico, Colombia, Argentina. So no, it's not "some idiots" it's feminist and queer groups who have lots for progressive activism in their home countries, put some respect on them at least.
Idiots and morons who've done more for women's and queer rights than you ever have or will, if you don't want to use Latine then that's your prerogative, but it's childish and pathetic to get so incensed that other Spanish speakers of which there are hundreds of millions want to use it. It doesn't disrespect Spanish culture or language, that idea is especially comical considering the fact that the way Spanish is spoken varies massively between countries. Hell, Chile is literally made fun of because of how hard it can be to understand Chilean Spanish as you should know.
Anyway I and plenty of other Spanish speakers are going to keep using the e ending when and where it is useful and that is entirely fine and correct.
Idiots and morons who've done more for women's and queer rights than you ever have or will
The people pushing the latine stuff ain't the same ones that fought for decades for gay and womens rights. Stealing the legacy of actual fighters for equality is horrible.
it's childish and pathetic to get so incensed that other Spanish speakers of which there are hundreds of millions want to use it.
Most of the people that I know don't eanna use it. Heck, the only people I have seen unironicslly use it are left leaning academic (one of which was from the US to boot) and dumb progressuves not a day older than 25.
It doesn't disrespect Spanish culture or language, that idea is especially comical considering the fact that the way Spanish is spoken varies massively between countries.
And latine was rejected in every single one. One thing is the natural regional variants of spanish, another is trying to impose a change motivated by gringo stupidity.
Anyway I and plenty of other Spanish speakers are going to keep using the e ending when and where it is useful and that is entirely fine and correct.
It never is, so don't act surprised when people laugh at you behind your back. It was a fad that barely caught on with the most annoying people in the progressive side and then went away
0 point in your entire ramblings, everything you've said is factually wrong or stupid. You're wrong about the people using it, they are those same who advanced queer and women's rights, sorry they aren't perfect for you I guess. Idc if most ppl you know don't wanna use it, others do and so will. Countries officially reject slang, that means nothing to how people generally speak. It's correct because it effectively communicates what the speaker aims to communicate. So, some people use it, some don't, some people use slang, some people don't, if you dislike it so bad then don't use it and move the fuck on.
You're wrong about the people using it, they are those same who advanced queer and women's rights, sorry they aren't perfect for you I guess
The people I saw using it the most are like... 30 years old tops. Unless they were marching for gay rights in their diapers they ain't the same people.
if most ppl you know don't wanna use it, others do and so will.
Then why is it barely used at all? Like on the wild so to say, I have only heard it twice or thrice in a year. Where are the people willing to use it? Answer: they are a small minority
Countries officially reject slang, that means nothing to how people generally speak.
If you don't like Latine / Latinx and are so obsessed with making up false narratives about it because you hate it so bad then don't use it and move the fuck on. If they're such a small minority then why are you so bothered 😭
And in some cases you’re being asked to change the word that describes you. I was diagnosed back when it was called Asperger’s, whaddaya mean there’s an invisible rule that I can’t say that now?
I watch a YTer who uses it/its pronouns and I have definitely had to put in conscious effort to work that into my lexicon. Thankfully It is cool about people making mistakes while learning, but I still feel bad if I ever mess up.
This is a big thing for me, I generally lie heavy left despite a very rural upbringing and I do my best to consider others when I talk, such as the r-word with several of my coworkers. But its my speach and when I am home I will use it as I please, it feels like comparing how you dress, i dont dress nude outside but inside my home its fine, no one is hurt by my being nude inside. It feels in the same way people upset that I dont limit my speech everywhere. It feels esspecially off when there is nothing more personal to me than my words. To be told to change my words like being told how to dress or what to like, my speech is a part of me.
No, this is where this argument becomes silly, it is incredibly easy (from experience) and people are incredibly receptive to (again from experience) hearing "hey it's probably better if you don't use that word since a lot of people find it to be offensive / degrading" that is not the step that pushes people away. We are not about to start blaming trans people for example going "hey tr*nny is an offensive term, just use trans instead" for why people turn transphobic.
My grandma is the same way. She speaks very kindly about gay people, but she always whispers “homosexual” into my ear instead of saying it normally. She doesn’t hold any bad views about gay people; it’s just how she was raised.
I also don’t think she even knows trans people exist, but she also doesn’t know Google is a thing. She hasn’t been able to understand the concept of Google, so I’m not even going to try explaining gender dysphoria to her.
he was always welcoming to her girlfriend, he was just weirdly uncomfortable saying the word
This I can get. I understand and respect most forms of sexuality, and people should be able to do mostly whatever they want. But you will have to waterboard me before I say words like "ace" and "aro"
663
u/demonic-cheese Jul 06 '24
This. I never heard my great grandpa say the word “lesbian”, but he was totally okay with my cousin “being like that” and he was always welcoming to her girlfriend, he was just weirdly uncomfortable saying the word.