Re: [NTG-context] Grammar

Dnia Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 09:29:49AM +0000, John Haltiwanger napisał(a):

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 10:57 PM, Marcin Borkowski wrote:

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Dnia Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 01:06:27PM +0000, John Haltiwanger napisał(a):

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On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Marcin Borkowski wrote:

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Hi,

what an interesting discussion!

My personal point of view is that the so-called "political correctness" is something I actively fight against, by means of NOT using "they" or "Afroamericans" or other such strange inventions.  These new words somehow remind me of Orwell's 1984...

So what do you write instead? Negro?

And what's wrong with "Negro"?  AFAIK, it means "black", so it just describes the reality.  This is what a word should do, right?  And btw, the term "Afroamerican" doesn't really make much sense to me: what would you call a Negro, born in France, and living in Germany, when you wanted to distinguish him from a white man?  (Please note that by "man", I mean "a human being of any sex";).)

To be more serious: I accept that there might be a problem caused by the fact that I am not a native speaker of English.  I suspect that somehow the neutral term "Negro" started being used in a derogatory fashion, and that it might be unpleasant to black people to be called Negroes.  And that's why I usually say just "black people".

So what is your issue here then? You are already working by the rules I proposed:

using the words that the group wishes to be called by (or at least not using the words which they don't).

I guess the difference lies at least in one point: "black man" is something that *means* a black man. "Afroamerican" means nothing or something different. I prefer to use words in *their* meanings. And (though I am not sure about it at all) I think it might be the case that the introduction of "black people" instead of "Negroes" might have been more spontaneous, and "Afroamericans" seems to be supported by some governmental/lobbyist groups.

BTW, 'Negro' is definitely not a term to be used for referring to black Americans. IIRC, it is a positive term in Brazil. The point is to be aware of these things and to respect people's wishes regarding them, rather than blithely pretending that any name you use should automatically be fine simply because, well, YOU don't see the problem with using the term Negro (for instance).

The point is, is it the wishes of the people involved, or the wishes of some groups who *claim* to represent them?

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'Political correctness' can be onerous, and often contradictory to my anti-authoritarian nature, but in the end it is not "the Man" who issues requests for language changes so much as the marginalized groups that take issue with existing phrasing. Afroamericans, for instance, was deprecated sometime around that year 1984.. It all boils down to whether you care about what the people concerned are saying, which is why I note the author's position when I encounter it. (Rather than throwing their paper away, ala Khaled).

Well, "onerous" might not be the best word.  "Scary" might be better.

You see, I am quite convinced that trying to manipulate language "by hand" is a very bad idea.  Maybe this is partly because I live in a former Communist country (Poland); we have seen such things in the past. Another reason maybe that it seems to me that one of the first groups to talk about "political correctness" (maybe even coining the phrase, I don't know) were feminists, who did so much more harm to women in general than we usually imagine.

I understand your sensitivity vis a vis Regime Imposed language tuning. You have got to be kidding me with that anti-feminist talk, though. I'm not going to go there with you, especially after your explanation below.

Well, you don't have to. Maybe it would be a good idea to mention that I know some women who have the same opinion as me on feminism.

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This is always a contentious issue when software/coder types are involved, one of the serious reasons why female participation in IT (in general) and FLoSS (in particular) are so low: many men in these circles will not, or can not, give room to critical complaints. The problem always originates in the person complaining---they need to be less serious, no one around here cares so stfu, etc. This is a serious issue, and this is probably one of the least contentious starting points for encountering it. That theory would be thrown away because it attempts to consciously address real gender inequalities is a depressing thought.

I am not sure that I understood your point, but I am quite convinced that the low percentage of women in mathematics or IT is caused primarily by the simple fact that an average female brain is not well fit for this particular purpose.  (Of course, we all know notable exceptions.  Also note that "better/worse fit for one particular purpose" is completely unrelated to "better/worse in general".)

I'd laugh at this if it wasn't the same shit that's been going around for years in the math/IT circles. Socialization is the cause behind this, not natural differences in brain structure. If the society has decided to accept and repeat this "fact" over and over, and men will generally act as if it is true (pushing out females who make the attempt), then it will come to "appear" as true. But that doesn't make it any less BS.

Put out some science for that one, dude.

As I wrote a minute ago - I can't, and neither can you, I guess. Regards -- Marcin Borkowski (http://mbork.pl)