4 ms·

Words change in their meaning over time. “Aesthetic” is my current bugbear.

AinderS 4y ago
Sometimes that change is more sudden than others. On September 28th, 2020 (the closest preceding archive) it was not yet offensive. On October 13th, she used "sexual preference" in her congressional hearing. The very next day, on October 14th (the 1st subsequent archive), Merriam-Webster already had the new, "offensive" definition in place. The fluidity of language really is fascinating to behold.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago
  Back in the day I too thought that it's all about the fluidity of language, language as a living "thing" that evolves with time. Then I read Orwell's Politics and the English Language, and 1984. After that, the fluidity of language appears to me to be more and more in the hands of lexicographers as Newspeak developers who work hand-in-glove (with Them, whom else? :P ) to form the new way of thinking. No more romantic notions of lexicography as the track record of a civilization's linguistic endeavours.
- notahacker 4y ago
  It's perhaps unsurprising that LGBTQ community's longstanding objection to the implications of "sexual preference" in discourse gained recognition after a high profile news story involving a high profile person using, receiving objections to and then apologising for it. Ironically, it's the exact same media attention phenomenon that meant that some people who have longstanding and entirely sincere objections to undue emphasis placed on US institutions in Wikipedia rocked up this week to the Recession article to question whether the NBER definition has been given undue prominence for the last 15 years, and not some other time when the definition of recession wasn't a major news story with unfortunate implications for a certain political figure.
  - AinderS 4y ago
    > LGBTQ community's longstanding objection to the implications of "sexual preference" So longstanding that not a peep of complaint is heard when Democracts use it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsYGOAVqmQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsYGOAVqmQI Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a 2017 interview: "Our society has come to respect people, whatever their sexual preference," Ginsburg said. - https://freebeacon.com/courts/barrett-shredded-for-saying-sexual-preference-but-biden-democrats-have-said-it-for-years/ https://freebeacon.com/courts/barrett-shredded-for-saying-se... But I'm sure there's a very sophisticated, nuanced distinction I'm missing, that explains the different treatment as totally not partisan gaslighting. Starting with an explanation for why "preference" is considered changeable - I can't make myself prefer one food over another, but maybe I'm an exception.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      I mean, here's a media style guide from 2003 citing the American Psychological Association to warn against the "problematic" use of "preference". https://web.archive.org/web/20120813022744/http://www.colby.edu/psychology/APA/Gender.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20120813022744/http://www.colby.... Perhaps it was the work of time travellers desperate to create the impression that Amy Coney Barrett is not a born again liberal, or perhaps, if the extent of your knowledge of the debate is restricted to gotcha videos involving Democrat politicians from the Washington Free Beacon, you're not particularly qualified to tell people with a personal stake in the debate that they actually invented all the longstanding objections to "preference" to criticise a foreign judge's comments they were barely even aware of, that they're the ones indulging in partisan gaslighting...
      - AinderS 4y ago
        Well if this was so widely know since 2003, it's odd how it took 17 years before any politician took objection to it, until that confirmation hearing, isn't it? That was the exact moment everyone got the memo? Call it a "gotcha" video all you want, but it's clear to everyone else what it is - a plain as day demonstration of double standards. Of course politicians being self-serving hypocrites isn't news, or limited to Democrats, as the Republicans demonstrated when they argued it isn't appropriate to make a Supreme Court appointment near the end of Obama's term, only to find it very appropriate when they got to appoint a judge. What is news is that now dictionaries cooperate in their hypocrisy.
no-dr-onboard 4y ago
Agreed, in general. I suppose the larger argument is "Who gets to decide what words mean?" Is it the case that because Merriam-Webster or the Oxford University Press decide arbitrarily to change the meaning of a word that we all have to concede to that authority? Is there room for another dictionary forum to exist? At what point does language diverge into different dialects because of this phenomena?

Sometimes that change is more sudden than others. On September 28th, 2020 (the closest preceding archive) it was not yet offensive. On October 13th, she used "sexual preference" in her congressional hearing. The very next day, on October 14th (the 1st subsequent archive), Merriam-Webster already had the new, "offensive" definition in place. The fluidity of language really is fascinating to behold.

MonkeyClub 4y ago
Back in the day I too thought that it's all about the fluidity of language, language as a living "thing" that evolves with time. Then I read Orwell's Politics and the English Language, and 1984. After that, the fluidity of language appears to me to be more and more in the hands of lexicographers as Newspeak developers who work hand-in-glove (with Them, whom else? :P ) to form the new way of thinking. No more romantic notions of lexicography as the track record of a civilization's linguistic endeavours.
notahacker 4y ago
It's perhaps unsurprising that LGBTQ community's longstanding objection to the implications of "sexual preference" in discourse gained recognition after a high profile news story involving a high profile person using, receiving objections to and then apologising for it. Ironically, it's the exact same media attention phenomenon that meant that some people who have longstanding and entirely sincere objections to undue emphasis placed on US institutions in Wikipedia rocked up this week to the Recession article to question whether the NBER definition has been given undue prominence for the last 15 years, and not some other time when the definition of recession wasn't a major news story with unfortunate implications for a certain political figure.
- AinderS 4y ago
  > LGBTQ community's longstanding objection to the implications of "sexual preference" So longstanding that not a peep of complaint is heard when Democracts use it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsYGOAVqmQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsYGOAVqmQI Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a 2017 interview: "Our society has come to respect people, whatever their sexual preference," Ginsburg said. - https://freebeacon.com/courts/barrett-shredded-for-saying-sexual-preference-but-biden-democrats-have-said-it-for-years/ https://freebeacon.com/courts/barrett-shredded-for-saying-se... But I'm sure there's a very sophisticated, nuanced distinction I'm missing, that explains the different treatment as totally not partisan gaslighting. Starting with an explanation for why "preference" is considered changeable - I can't make myself prefer one food over another, but maybe I'm an exception.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    I mean, here's a media style guide from 2003 citing the American Psychological Association to warn against the "problematic" use of "preference". https://web.archive.org/web/20120813022744/http://www.colby.edu/psychology/APA/Gender.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20120813022744/http://www.colby.... Perhaps it was the work of time travellers desperate to create the impression that Amy Coney Barrett is not a born again liberal, or perhaps, if the extent of your knowledge of the debate is restricted to gotcha videos involving Democrat politicians from the Washington Free Beacon, you're not particularly qualified to tell people with a personal stake in the debate that they actually invented all the longstanding objections to "preference" to criticise a foreign judge's comments they were barely even aware of, that they're the ones indulging in partisan gaslighting...
    - AinderS 4y ago
      Well if this was so widely know since 2003, it's odd how it took 17 years before any politician took objection to it, until that confirmation hearing, isn't it? That was the exact moment everyone got the memo? Call it a "gotcha" video all you want, but it's clear to everyone else what it is - a plain as day demonstration of double standards. Of course politicians being self-serving hypocrites isn't news, or limited to Democrats, as the Republicans demonstrated when they argued it isn't appropriate to make a Supreme Court appointment near the end of Obama's term, only to find it very appropriate when they got to appoint a judge. What is news is that now dictionaries cooperate in their hypocrisy.

no-dr-onboard 4y ago

Agreed, in general. I suppose the larger argument is "Who gets to decide what words mean?" Is it the case that because Merriam-Webster or the Oxford University Press decide arbitrarily to change the meaning of a word that we all have to concede to that authority? Is there room for another dictionary forum to exist? At what point does language diverge into different dialects because of this phenomena?