5 ms·

I don't find it silly. The language we use, shapes the world we live in.

croes 2y ago
We still click on the disk icon to save files although many never have seen a disc. Sometimes terms and icons loose their word by word meaning and their own independent one. That's how idioms work.
- lencastre 2y ago
  Yeah, why are we like that? I haven’t seen a floppy disk in weeks. And the noise it makes when I’m saving the drill protocol on which our monthly invoicing depends (+/- hundreds of thousands of euros) gives me cold sweats…
- jraph 2y ago
  But the disc is inoffensive. Changing this wouldn't fix anything because we haven't found a clearer / clearly better icon for save afaik, so we stick we what we have. But words shape the images we form in our minds. The issue with man-limited phrases is that we imagine men, specifically. That's also how words work and we know this through studies. So we ought to fix this. But I'm sure OP already know why people seek to get rid of these unwanted gendering in idioms. That's not new anymore. It's mildly annoying because we are used to the old term but that's very temporary, for the time of the transition. But I'm sure OP instantly understood the meaning of Person in the Middle the first time you saw it, so I have troubles understanding why someone would oppose such an evolution. Surely it's not about clarity. We never fixed anything by refusing change and staying in the past.
  - huygens6363 2y ago
    Guys, I know you hate change, but if these terms were all so innocuous and innocent, why the hate against this small change? I’m from Holland and we have this weird thing called Sinterklaas where we dress up as black people and basically make fun of them. However, don’t tell them this because they will tear you a new one. How dare you touch these sacred traditions. I feel the same way about master/slave and gendered bullshit. It’s not the end of the world and let’s not make it bigger than it is, but sometimes you at least just have to admit things are fishy.
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      For context to the above comment: "things are fishy" is a translation of a Dutch phrase "het klopt niet", which was thrown around during the pandemic, farmer's protests, a short lived qanon phase and other conspiracy thinking waves. It's an empty statement and feels tacked onto the above comment without explaining what exactly is fishy. The push against making the Sinterklaas character of Zwarte Piet less of a racist stereotype is another culture war, provoked by shady organizations. Remember that there's foreign powers in whose interest it is to get people really upset over issues like this; they don't care who "wins", as long as people get upset over it and feel threatened by a boogieman.
      - huygens6363 2y ago
        Dutch people demand to know what is fishy about making a black face, dressing up in colonial clothes and acting childish. They think this is “empty talk”. There is a long, long list of these kinds of “cultural” behaviors. Especially the rural area is particularly backwards. I don’t know what to say. Meet some people outside your bubble. It certainly helped me. Anyway, the Dutch and their deep-rooted racism are only superficially related to this issue. My main point was to say that there exists the possibility that you may be wrong about holding on to outdated norms and changing things might be a good idea. Sinterklaas is just a particularly obvious one, but as you show, a lot of people still have some way to go.
        andsoitis 2y ago
        > the Dutch and their deep-rooted racism ouch
    - alexthehurst 2y ago
      Agreed entirely. The substitution in the article didn’t cause much inconvenience to the readers, even if it was new to them (it was new to me). But people sure seem to have an appetite for complaining about it rather than the substance of the article.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  - croes 2y ago
    MITM isn't offensive either. It's bikeshedding, we have climate change, rise of extremism, wars around the world etc. BTW do all people identify as person?
    - jraph 2y ago
      > MITM is not offensive either. It's one of these phrasing assuming a world of men. I consider this to be problematic. > we have climate change, rise of extremism, wars around the world etc. Whataboutism? > do all people identify as person? Bad faith? And what do you mean? What are you trying to imply? People is pretty much the plural of person. Would you blame a woman not identifying as a man?
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but the comment you're replying to didn't mention iconography; "save" is still the word used, but when you think about it, it's a weird word to use for the act of storing something. "Save this file from being lost in case my computer shuts down" kinda thing.
  - croes 2y ago
    That's why I mentioned terms and idioms further down.
erik_seaberg 2y ago
That is an odd hypothesis that Sapir and Whorf were never able to prove.
- Voultapher 2y ago
  > The hypothesis has long been controversial, and many different, often contradictory variations have existed throughout its history.[2] The strong hypothesis of linguistic relativity, now referred to as linguistic determinism, is that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and restrict cognitive categories. This was claimed by some of the early linguists before World War II;[3] but, it is generally agreed to be false by modern linguists.[4] Nevertheless, research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting a weaker version of linguistic relativity:[4][3] that a language's structures influence a speaker's perceptions, without strictly limiting or obstructing them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity So there is empirical evidence that it has a non-zero impact on the way people view the world. What's wrong with Person-In-The-Middle? If we can include more people and make the topic more accessible and move a little stone off of the patriarchy mountain, seems like an easy win to me. Assuming you believe that systemic privileges exist and that they are bad and should be changed.

We still click on the disk icon to save files although many never have seen a disc. Sometimes terms and icons loose their word by word meaning and their own independent one. That's how idioms work.

lencastre 2y ago
Yeah, why are we like that? I haven’t seen a floppy disk in weeks. And the noise it makes when I’m saving the drill protocol on which our monthly invoicing depends (+/- hundreds of thousands of euros) gives me cold sweats…
jraph 2y ago
But the disc is inoffensive. Changing this wouldn't fix anything because we haven't found a clearer / clearly better icon for save afaik, so we stick we what we have. But words shape the images we form in our minds. The issue with man-limited phrases is that we imagine men, specifically. That's also how words work and we know this through studies. So we ought to fix this. But I'm sure OP already know why people seek to get rid of these unwanted gendering in idioms. That's not new anymore. It's mildly annoying because we are used to the old term but that's very temporary, for the time of the transition. But I'm sure OP instantly understood the meaning of Person in the Middle the first time you saw it, so I have troubles understanding why someone would oppose such an evolution. Surely it's not about clarity. We never fixed anything by refusing change and staying in the past.
- huygens6363 2y ago
  Guys, I know you hate change, but if these terms were all so innocuous and innocent, why the hate against this small change? I’m from Holland and we have this weird thing called Sinterklaas where we dress up as black people and basically make fun of them. However, don’t tell them this because they will tear you a new one. How dare you touch these sacred traditions. I feel the same way about master/slave and gendered bullshit. It’s not the end of the world and let’s not make it bigger than it is, but sometimes you at least just have to admit things are fishy.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    For context to the above comment: "things are fishy" is a translation of a Dutch phrase "het klopt niet", which was thrown around during the pandemic, farmer's protests, a short lived qanon phase and other conspiracy thinking waves. It's an empty statement and feels tacked onto the above comment without explaining what exactly is fishy. The push against making the Sinterklaas character of Zwarte Piet less of a racist stereotype is another culture war, provoked by shady organizations. Remember that there's foreign powers in whose interest it is to get people really upset over issues like this; they don't care who "wins", as long as people get upset over it and feel threatened by a boogieman.
    - huygens6363 2y ago
      Dutch people demand to know what is fishy about making a black face, dressing up in colonial clothes and acting childish. They think this is “empty talk”. There is a long, long list of these kinds of “cultural” behaviors. Especially the rural area is particularly backwards. I don’t know what to say. Meet some people outside your bubble. It certainly helped me. Anyway, the Dutch and their deep-rooted racism are only superficially related to this issue. My main point was to say that there exists the possibility that you may be wrong about holding on to outdated norms and changing things might be a good idea. Sinterklaas is just a particularly obvious one, but as you show, a lot of people still have some way to go.
      - andsoitis 2y ago
        > the Dutch and their deep-rooted racism ouch
  - alexthehurst 2y ago
    Agreed entirely. The substitution in the article didn’t cause much inconvenience to the readers, even if it was new to them (it was new to me). But people sure seem to have an appetite for complaining about it rather than the substance of the article.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
- croes 2y ago
  MITM isn't offensive either. It's bikeshedding, we have climate change, rise of extremism, wars around the world etc. BTW do all people identify as person?
  - jraph 2y ago
    > MITM is not offensive either. It's one of these phrasing assuming a world of men. I consider this to be problematic. > we have climate change, rise of extremism, wars around the world etc. Whataboutism? > do all people identify as person? Bad faith? And what do you mean? What are you trying to imply? People is pretty much the plural of person. Would you blame a woman not identifying as a man?
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Not to be pedantic, but the comment you're replying to didn't mention iconography; "save" is still the word used, but when you think about it, it's a weird word to use for the act of storing something. "Save this file from being lost in case my computer shuts down" kinda thing.
- croes 2y ago
  That's why I mentioned terms and idioms further down.

erik_seaberg 2y ago

That is an odd hypothesis that Sapir and Whorf were never able to prove.

Voultapher 2y ago
> The hypothesis has long been controversial, and many different, often contradictory variations have existed throughout its history.[2] The strong hypothesis of linguistic relativity, now referred to as linguistic determinism, is that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and restrict cognitive categories. This was claimed by some of the early linguists before World War II;[3] but, it is generally agreed to be false by modern linguists.[4] Nevertheless, research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting a weaker version of linguistic relativity:[4][3] that a language's structures influence a speaker's perceptions, without strictly limiting or obstructing them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity So there is empirical evidence that it has a non-zero impact on the way people view the world. What's wrong with Person-In-The-Middle? If we can include more people and make the topic more accessible and move a little stone off of the patriarchy mountain, seems like an easy win to me. Assuming you believe that systemic privileges exist and that they are bad and should be changed.