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Newspeak was a political tool that was supposed to limit society's freedom of though by making ideas that went against the ruling power's goals literally imposs
by makomk 10y ago
Newspeak was a political tool that was supposed to limit society's freedom of though by making ideas that went against the ruling power's goals literally impossible to express. Think about how that might apply here - by replacing the genderless "patronize" with the gendered "mansplain"[1], we embed the idea that this is something only men do to women into the language itself. (Obviously this doesn't make it impossible to criticize other kinds of patronizing behaviour, just harder than with this kind - Newspeak was a fictional conceit.)
[1] And yes, one is clearly gendered while the other one isn't. If someone claimed that you couldn't describe a woman as "patronizing" because that term only applied to men, this would seem like nonsense to any English speaker, whereas "mansplaining" was explicitly coined as something only men could do to women.
- tptacek 10y ago"Patronize" is not genderless.
- jimmywanger 10y agoHow is that? Currently is it. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patronize http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patronize Nowhere in there is patronize used in a gender based way at all. A patron is simply somebody who supports you and bankrolls you. Christopher Columbus had a female patron. Or are you grasping at straws here? Even m-w lists a male gendered meaning for the root word patron at the eighth definition. From m-w (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patron http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patron): 8: the chief male officer in some fraternal lodges having both men and women members
- oska 10y agoThe ultimate root of patronize is the Latin pater meaning ‘father’.
- jimmywanger 10y agoYes. Words change meanings over time/society. Why are you debating etymology? Patronize no longer has a gendered meaning. You would ask a women whether or not she patronized a store, for instance. If you're a small business owner, you'd equally thank a woman or a man for their patronage, or yell at them equally for them to stop patronizing your employees.
- tptacek 10y agoThe word has two meanings, and the one you invoke in your latter example is gendered. You would be yelling at your women customers for talking down to your employees as if from a father to a child. Which is fine; women can act like obnoxious men, too. Not only is Latin mostly gendered and the Latin root of this word clearly male, but the female root "matron" is also a common root for English words.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago>The word has two meanings, and the one you invoke in your latter example is gendered. Oh, tptacek, maybe you need to go outside and get some air. You really think that people are leafing through unabridged Latin dictionaries looking for ways to be subtly sexist?
- tptacek 10y agoNo, that is not at all what I am saying. I am not criticizing the word "patronizing".