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You are right, and I agree. However, languages live and the people of the USA are an important determinant of where the English language is headed. They have a

by brnt 5y ago

You are right, and I agree. However, languages live and the people of the USA are an important determinant of where the English language is headed. They have a particular history involving this word, and that history has not been fully reckoned with. It makes sense that the same word, although in other contexts with a slightly different meaning, would be redefined or removed this way, in order to deal with that history. Natural languages violate the sort of origins and logical meanings all the time, so this does not have to be an exception.

mdp2021 5y ago
I am not sure if I will be able to convey the point as well as I wish, but: don't you think this way the enemy wins a battle? Terrorists attempt bending politics through terrorizing: if one is terrorized, is that one not playing their game? We greet in some sensible way, say, and somebody comes and promotes the greeting as now meaning "short people should stick to accounting": that somebody should not be nobilitated and their """cultural proposal""" accepted as norm: it should be discarded as noise. If the greeting were affected and linked to some unworthy agenda, that would mean empowering said agenda: it should have been impotent, but with your attention, and attributing it legitimacy in the creation of constraints, you made it powerful. «Languages live», but uprooted they go astray. A rubberband, like that vetting attitude you (yes really you) have been trained to develop, should always there to check validity, vis-a-vis what terms mean, coremost to how they are used. One is supposed not to forget that core. "Congratulations for having defaced our public square by defecating in the middle: you now get the privilege to do similarly with our sacred vocabulary". So should not we speak language, as an attempt, instead of «USA [determined] English language» or «natural language»? And more to the point, should not we avoid acting as resonance chambers amplifying deeds? Some culturally inferior party is not supposed to bend culture with the "strength of inferiority" - that is absurd. It is not a "de facto" bending, it is the "de facto" response to it that gives it power.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  If we accept that language is a cultural battlefield, then is this really a hill worth dieing on?
- brnt 5y ago
  > «Languages live», but uprooted they go astray. That is nonsensical. There is no such thing as a line language should not stray too far from. Languages are what they are, plain and simple. The fact that you speak English, is already a horrible affront to the French, the Celts, Angles, Saxons, both in their current day form and that of yesteryear, and any precursors to those languages in turn. English shouldn't even have the Latin-derived 'master' in the first place, if we're going that way. I am absolutely sensitive to the argument that 'master' originally, or in some other context, is not opposed by 'slave', but 'inferior' or somesuch. And it is how I've used the word, and how it and its native equivalent is used in my native tongue. But that is no argument for fixing a particular meaning or context as more important or 'native' than any other. Language is fundamentally, deeply promiscuous, and English may be the most promiscuous of them all. If this is a problem for you, your best bet is a dead language, or one you create yourself. You can fork anything you wish after all, that's how languages work :)
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    > that is no argument for fixing a particular meaning or context as more important or 'native' than any other You missed from my argument that the above statement is part of my argument: it is normal for language to also represent controversial (contextually) cases, but «that is no argument for fixing [such] particular meaning or context as more important» or having priority over, especially, its core meaning. You are missing that I oppose an appropriation, that reduces of that richness of applications to a "yes but, you see, we cannot forget what happened in Khartoum, there is no return from that episode and now if you mention it I can only think of the event". No, the richness is intact, you are covering it. And the subsequent argument I proposed, replying to you, contains: beware while covering it of not being supportive to some political effort you would otherwise oppose. Example: one extremist a few years ago apparently instructed his followers, their music shall be that of Depeche Mode - their guts should resonate with that; the authors of «the grabbing hands grab all they can» and «we are going backwards, to a caveman mentality» showed being less than impressed. If people stopped listening to Depeche Mode because an extremist finds their sound instrumental to hook underdeveloped prefrontals, and now there is an association, they should be dehypnotized. The extremist or another could have invented that 'depeche' is now a world that means their attempt world domination: I am not saying that Gore Gahan and Fletcher have a full right to the word, I am saying that one would not be justified to call the word "now embarassing" because some fool came up with his low fumes. If we measured our associations with the worse in society, we would be in deep trouble, repeat: supporting and justifying associations following the worse in society is a recipe for collective damage. Never empower the "wrong side". If already you allow them to bend your vocabulary... Technically, for the rest: a term is a pattern, one can apply it metaphorically to a large number of cases. (Its transliteration is largely irrelevant - 'jñāna', 'gnoscere', 'know'...) The core meaning is found navigating to the "original" pattern behind all applications. Etymology helps you with that. Forgetting the core pattern is what I called uprooting.

by brnt 5y ago

mdp2021 5y ago

I am not sure if I will be able to convey the point as well as I wish, but: don't you think this way the enemy wins a battle? Terrorists attempt bending politics through terrorizing: if one is terrorized, is that one not playing their game? We greet in some sensible way, say, and somebody comes and promotes the greeting as now meaning "short people should stick to accounting": that somebody should not be nobilitated and their """cultural proposal""" accepted as norm: it should be discarded as noise. If the greeting were affected and linked to some unworthy agenda, that would mean empowering said agenda: it should have been impotent, but with your attention, and attributing it legitimacy in the creation of constraints, you made it powerful. «Languages live», but uprooted they go astray. A rubberband, like that vetting attitude you (yes really you) have been trained to develop, should always there to check validity, vis-a-vis what terms mean, coremost to how they are used. One is supposed not to forget that core. "Congratulations for having defaced our public square by defecating in the middle: you now get the privilege to do similarly with our sacred vocabulary". So should not we speak language, as an attempt, instead of «USA [determined] English language» or «natural language»? And more to the point, should not we avoid acting as resonance chambers amplifying deeds? Some culturally inferior party is not supposed to bend culture with the "strength of inferiority" - that is absurd. It is not a "de facto" bending, it is the "de facto" response to it that gives it power.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
If we accept that language is a cultural battlefield, then is this really a hill worth dieing on?
brnt 5y ago
> «Languages live», but uprooted they go astray. That is nonsensical. There is no such thing as a line language should not stray too far from. Languages are what they are, plain and simple. The fact that you speak English, is already a horrible affront to the French, the Celts, Angles, Saxons, both in their current day form and that of yesteryear, and any precursors to those languages in turn. English shouldn't even have the Latin-derived 'master' in the first place, if we're going that way. I am absolutely sensitive to the argument that 'master' originally, or in some other context, is not opposed by 'slave', but 'inferior' or somesuch. And it is how I've used the word, and how it and its native equivalent is used in my native tongue. But that is no argument for fixing a particular meaning or context as more important or 'native' than any other. Language is fundamentally, deeply promiscuous, and English may be the most promiscuous of them all. If this is a problem for you, your best bet is a dead language, or one you create yourself. You can fork anything you wish after all, that's how languages work :)
- mdp2021 5y ago
  > that is no argument for fixing a particular meaning or context as more important or 'native' than any other You missed from my argument that the above statement is part of my argument: it is normal for language to also represent controversial (contextually) cases, but «that is no argument for fixing [such] particular meaning or context as more important» or having priority over, especially, its core meaning. You are missing that I oppose an appropriation, that reduces of that richness of applications to a "yes but, you see, we cannot forget what happened in Khartoum, there is no return from that episode and now if you mention it I can only think of the event". No, the richness is intact, you are covering it. And the subsequent argument I proposed, replying to you, contains: beware while covering it of not being supportive to some political effort you would otherwise oppose. Example: one extremist a few years ago apparently instructed his followers, their music shall be that of Depeche Mode - their guts should resonate with that; the authors of «the grabbing hands grab all they can» and «we are going backwards, to a caveman mentality» showed being less than impressed. If people stopped listening to Depeche Mode because an extremist finds their sound instrumental to hook underdeveloped prefrontals, and now there is an association, they should be dehypnotized. The extremist or another could have invented that 'depeche' is now a world that means their attempt world domination: I am not saying that Gore Gahan and Fletcher have a full right to the word, I am saying that one would not be justified to call the word "now embarassing" because some fool came up with his low fumes. If we measured our associations with the worse in society, we would be in deep trouble, repeat: supporting and justifying associations following the worse in society is a recipe for collective damage. Never empower the "wrong side". If already you allow them to bend your vocabulary... Technically, for the rest: a term is a pattern, one can apply it metaphorically to a large number of cases. (Its transliteration is largely irrelevant - 'jñāna', 'gnoscere', 'know'...) The core meaning is found navigating to the "original" pattern behind all applications. Etymology helps you with that. Forgetting the core pattern is what I called uprooting.