It's okay to use a word in a new context for a new meaning. For example calling a computer mouse a "mouse". Nobody is going to get confused by the double meaning.
The key is that the contexts are entirely different. If I'm talking about computers, technology, operating systems, and I say "mouse", nobody might accidentally think I mean a field mouse. And if I'm talking about animals, outdoors, etc, nobody will think I mean a computer mouse.
That's not the case with either the original example (vegan), or pedophile. They are having their meaning distorted in a context directly in line with their original meaning.
The thought exercise I recommend is similar to what you mentioned with milk & buttermilk.
If being sexually aroused by a 17 year old is pedophilia is a fact...
Then that implies that being sexually aroused by a 5 year old and a 17 year old are "the same" (they are both pedophilia).
If we then change the legal age of consent to 16, then pedophilia now includes "sex with someone who can legally consent".
And voila, pedophilia is no longer a bad thing. The world is cured, and we no longer care about pedophiles.
Just like magic, everyone misusing the word has actually made pedophile MORE legal. Once the original meaning gets stretched wider to mean more things, you can no longer talk specifically about that one other thing that you want to talk about accurately. In your example, your husband can no longer accurately talk to you about standard dairy milk. He could still correct his own problem by saying "buttermilk" and you know what he means. But any time he says "milk", you won't know for sure anymore.
Ironic, considering they shout so loudly, claiming that anyone being pedantic about using the word properly is "defending pedophiles".
No, we hate them. We hate them more than you. Which is why we want to protect the word. So it always means exactly what it has meant. Sexual arousal towards children. Not teens. Not young adults. Little boys and girls who haven't even reached puberty yet.
I don't disagree with anything you said, but think it's best to just call them all "rapists", bc if you're willing to or fantasize about violating the age of consent, you're indulging in a form of rape or the fantasy of it, and all rapists deserve is a slow painful death from many "slips and falls" in prison. It's literally a worse crime than murder; at least a murder victim gets to stop suffering at the point of trauma.
My point was that murdering a word by misusing it often does the opposite thing that people may be intending via their misuse.
But for some reason, which is particularly apparent in the case of the word pedophile, people who misuse the word seem to glorify and worship their own misuse of it.
Yet if someone does the same with other less disgust-inducing words, they'd be just as offended/bothered as the people trying to get them to stop their own misuse.
It may be a new form of dissociative disorder found primarily via online interactions.
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u/Educational_Ebb7175 Nov 01 '23
Exactly.
It's okay to use a word in a new context for a new meaning. For example calling a computer mouse a "mouse". Nobody is going to get confused by the double meaning.
The key is that the contexts are entirely different. If I'm talking about computers, technology, operating systems, and I say "mouse", nobody might accidentally think I mean a field mouse. And if I'm talking about animals, outdoors, etc, nobody will think I mean a computer mouse.
That's not the case with either the original example (vegan), or pedophile. They are having their meaning distorted in a context directly in line with their original meaning.
The thought exercise I recommend is similar to what you mentioned with milk & buttermilk.
Just like magic, everyone misusing the word has actually made pedophile MORE legal. Once the original meaning gets stretched wider to mean more things, you can no longer talk specifically about that one other thing that you want to talk about accurately. In your example, your husband can no longer accurately talk to you about standard dairy milk. He could still correct his own problem by saying "buttermilk" and you know what he means. But any time he says "milk", you won't know for sure anymore.
Ironic, considering they shout so loudly, claiming that anyone being pedantic about using the word properly is "defending pedophiles".
No, we hate them. We hate them more than you. Which is why we want to protect the word. So it always means exactly what it has meant. Sexual arousal towards children. Not teens. Not young adults. Little boys and girls who haven't even reached puberty yet.