Found this article in the longreads community arguing why “politically correct” terms shouldn’t be used. You guys have any thoughts?
deleted by creator
At the end of the day it’s about manners and putting forth a reasonable effort to make others feel welcome and comfortable.
deleted by creator
The term he keeps using as his main example is “differently-abled”, which he says has been “thrust upon an eye-rolling public”. But no one is being forced to use it, or even expected to use it—it certainly isn’t a societal norm. His complaint isn’t that he’s being forced to say it, but that he’s been forced to hear it.
The common thread behind such complaints is that critics feel new “PC” terms are giving established terms new meanings unintended by the speakers. But the point being made by people who use alternate terms like “differently-abled” is that the established terms are polysemic, and people using them have been saying things they didn’t intend all along.
I think it comes down to at its greatest core: is there a reason and are the people affected on board. And I’ll present 3 examples: transgender, differently abled, and latine
Back in the old days trans people were called transsexuals. Unfortunately that word had problems; it was a medical term, it’s diagnostic criteria had problems to say the least, and the “sexual” component had people uncomfortable as it didn’t have anything to do with sexuality. The community adopted a new term, and it spread, and eventually the old term became seen as outdated and like evidence that someone hadn’t been around trans people since we started defining our own selves.
Differently abled came from abled people who were uncomfortable acknowledging that disability is defined by what we can’t do. The social model of disability exists and bears quite a bit of merit, but the fact is it was just a platitude. It was rejected by the community it described. I don’t hate it. Good try and whatnot, try asking some of us before coining a new term next time.
Latine is more controversial. It was coined by queer Spanish speakers looking to create a gender neutral grammatical gender for Spanish that doesn’t have the jar of latinx or the unpronouncability of latin@ (which i recall had been coined as a feminist attempt to remove the neutral masculine). However many Spanish speakers don’t want a neuter gender in their language and it developed some culture war bullshit, in part because queer non-spanish speakers picked it up fairly quickly especially after years of hate against latinx and because the Spanish speakers we’re most in conversation with are the queer ones.
Oh and for a bonus one. Hearing impaired got popular as the politically correct version of hard of hearing in the late 20th century (idk when I grew up with my mom saying both terms but my grandma said hard of hearing, but schools and audiologists said hearing impaired). Anyways the deaf fucking hate the term and it’s become a clear identifier that someone sees deafness as a medical thing entirely and not a community and a culture. This has lead to the idea that while hearing impaired is the politically correct term, hard of hearing is the culturally correct term, which is a distinction I quite like
deleted by creator
Depends on the language. A language that is not controlled by a steering institution (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française) will float freely, evolving as it does by public use of words. If I use a word and you understand it, then it is a word. Definitions also float in this way.
But the argument for/against politically correct language can be interesting. Because, unlike a controlling organization, there is instead social pressure being applied. And you may disagree with the source of that pressure, politically. Sometimes it makes you an asshat, and sometimes it’s legitimate pushback.
Anyway, long short, I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with it. Nor do I think it’s weird that some people push back.
‘Politically correct’ language that is used to avoid negative connotations like racist and sexist slurs is a positive. I out that in quotes because as far as I can remembr politically correct was a disparaging term for inclusive language and not using slurs.
As with everything humans do, it does get taken too far to the point of undermining clarity and that should be discouraged. If someone collects trash for their job, they are a garbage collector. Collector instead of man is a good change because women collect garbage ad well. But they aren’t sanitation engineers if they aren’t doing any engineering.
Using language that accurately describes something while avoiding stereotypes and negativity is good, but some of what gets pushed seems to reduce clarity and it really depends on the change. Wholesale support and opposition are both wrong.
prescriptivism is wrong, actually. descriptivism FTW.
deleted by creator
This is fair. Usually when I hear “prescriptive” I have a knee-jerk reaction to it as something bad because it’s usually used to refer to people using made-up rules to enforce systems of oppression rather than fight against them like inclusive language does, but I hadn’t thought about it as “prescriptivism for good.”
deleted by creator
Ironically, instead of “prescribing against,” it seems like you mean proscribing.
deleted by creator
Using inclusive language isn’t linguistic prescriptivism. Prescriptivism is saying “this word is incorrect English/doesn’t mean what you are using it for.” Inclusive language is saying “if you use this word, you’re being a jerk.”
