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RE: Sick of PC - 10/9/2006 6:39:02 PM

becca333

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This discussion has stuck on the use and background of a single word that offends the black community, or African American, we can't even really agree on that term. Since there's so much angst about it, could I suggest we do something really extreme and ASK members of that community how they feel about the term, and what name they wish to apply to themselves?

One of my particular dislikes of the PC terminology craze is that so often it doesn't come from the group being 'protected', it's imposed from outside. My deaf friends call themselves 'deafies', not 'hearing-impaired' or acoustically challenged, or whatever is in fashion now. Paraplegics call themselves 'wheelies'. The Sydney Lord Mayor didn't bother with Christmas decorations one year, as it might offend non-Christians; members of other religious communities came forward to say that they liked the decorations, it was good for business, blaming them for not decorating gave them a bad time, and that they'd never been asked about it or objected to the decorations in the first place.

Too often PC becomes patronising. Instead of discussing how to avoid offending people, why not just ASK them?

(in reply to redpetals)

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RE: Sick of PC - 10/9/2006 7:16:56 PM

ownedgirlie

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Great point, Becca. In the ASL (American Sign Language) class I took a couple of years ago, the instructor, a deaf woman, made it clear that she is not "hearing impaired," and that "hearing impaired" referred to those who could actually hear but had trouble doing so. She, on the other hand, was deaf. As were her other non-hearing friends. Those of us in class had a hard time adjusting to that, since we had been programmed to believe that "deaf" was somehow a bad term.

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RE: Sick of PC - 10/10/2006 1:44:59 AM

becca333

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That's so true! Who are these people who decide what terms we're supposed to use? Is there a Renaming Committee somewhere? If so, they're a pack of idiots.

Sorry, I mean they're realism-challenged.

(in reply to ownedgirlie)

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RE: Sick of PC - 10/10/2006 6:47:39 AM

Amaros

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

Yeah, of course. No "argument" is ever going to convince you, because you're convinced of what you're saying, even if no one else in the world accepts it. But at least don't ask people to look up etymologies in OED when those same etymologies refute what you're trying to say.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Amaros

I don't wish to argue the point further, untill I can do some real research on it, have it your way, I stand by my original post, with the qualifications stated in the follow up. Your argument has, as yet, failed to convince me otherwise.

As I said, I'll take the subject up with you later, when I'm in a position to provide more subtantive backup than my sometimes faulty memory. I did concede that the Portugest "Niger" may have been combined through metathesis - two words that sound much alike - homophones - meet, and the actors decide it must simply be a difference in pronunciation, and one word emerges, with a new, more specific meaning.

The root word Nigla, Scandanavian in origin, may have been introduced during the Norman conquest, and migrated it's way over here - it's derivitives seem to have been first used among the Pennsivania Dutch (German, Dutch is mistranslation of Deutsch), and was not used explicitly to describe Blacks.

i.e. Nigla and it's derivitives are very similar in sound to Negro, noir, etc., Latin derived words for "Dark", and it's not difficult to see how confusion might arise in a multicultural social environment. IN fact, the two meaning are still confused, one runs a certain risk using "niggard", which explicitly derives from Nigla, because it sounds so similar to the other one.

Read "A People History of the United States" for a more accurate description of that social environment - the social division between Blacks and Whites did not always exist in the common culture the way it does now.

Wikipdia asserts that Nigla and that other word are not related, but cites nothing to back up their assertion, and neither do you - I'm pretty certian I didn't imagine the research paper I read, but I don't currently have access to the college library where I read it. Next time I take classes I'll see if I can find it again, and furnish the citation for you.

(in reply to Lordandmaster)

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RE: Sick of PC - 10/10/2006 6:57:51 AM

Amaros

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I don't see where we need to discuss the N-word anymore, I brought it up originally as an example, there are others I'm sure, and I think the OP was concerned with the requirement to be sensitive to others feelings in general - any other examples that aren't references to cultural identity in terms of the geographic origin of ones ancestors or minor morphological distinctions?

Sexual identity perhaps?

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RE: Sick of PC - 10/10/2006 8:38:24 AM

popeye1250

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quote:

ORIGINAL: becca333

That's so true! Who are these people who decide what terms we're supposed to use? Is there a Renaming Committee somewhere? If so, they're a pack of idiots.

Sorry, I mean they're realism-challenged.

Becca, I've often wondered that myself.
Surely they're Anal-Retentive.
Probably sitting in some university somewhere thinking that they know better than the rest of us.

(in reply to becca333)

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Post #: 126