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What are some modern, western examples? Politically correct speech? Precision pronouns? "Person of color" is one striking contortion. My trans friend insists
by swayvil 4y ago
What are some modern, western examples?
Politically correct speech? Precision pronouns?
"Person of color" is one striking contortion.
My trans friend insists on the royal "we" and "they".
It a linguistic reaction to an emotion.
It's a kind of built-up language. It's got layers.
Like Germanic agglutination, except in a different dimension.
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What, we can put the Australians and Africans under the microscope but not us?
- slicktux 4y agoI have an example for you: this is a story from a friend that worked in a baskin robins during high school…it was in “the hood” and a gentleman belonging to Blood gang ordered cookies and cream but like so; “boobies and bream”. See, being from the blood gang the gentleman would not use the letter C in their speech hence the absurd pronunciation of a common ice cream… Kinda hilarious and fascinating but it’s real…
- mock-possum 4y agoSounds about as ridiculous as ‘freedom fries’
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- evan_ 4y agoThe common thread in the Wikipedia article is that the words one uses change depending on whether you’re in the presence of a particular relation. If you use the term “person of color” only in the presence of people of color and you use a different word when they’re not around- that sounds like something else.
- JohnMakin 4y agobecause this is not avoidance speech. Implicit in your assumption here that "person of color" is avoiding saying, I dunno, a racial epithet? It isn't the same thing and this isn't an intelligent point that you think you're making.
- anononaut 4y agoIn what way is that not avoidance speech?
- JohnMakin 4y agoPer the wikipedia article listed in this topic: "Avoidance speech is a group of sociolinguistic phenomena in which a special restricted speech style must be used in the presence of or in reference to certain relatives."
- ilyt 4y agoSo it is avoidance speech by that definition
- JohnMakin 4y agoI'm not sure that you read what I posted. It's specifically in the familial context, not the large socio-economic one you're thinking of. Sorry, no matter how hard you want it to be, avoiding using the n word or whatever pejorative you can imagine is not some weird phenomenon, it's basic decency. What this article references is a unique sociological phenomenon outside the context of this conversation.
- Woeps 4y agoBasically any swearing like "gosh darn" is to prevent from taking the lord's name in vain. So that could fit the bill right?
- version_five 4y agoGetting people to say things the way you want then to is generally a way of exerting power over others. It's more like a kind of colonialism than the avoidance discussed in the article.
- circlefavshape 4y agoFormal and informal "you"s in French and Spanish (and presumably other European languages). Using title-plus-surname versus first name in English.
- charles_f 4y agoI don't know if it's the same, but I definitely clean-up my language when my mother in law is around
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]