5 ms·

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaffir_(racial_term)&diffonly=true https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaffir_(racial_...

kylebenzle 2y ago
Thank you! After reading the article that was my next question!
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Is the Kaffir lime [1] affected? It's a homonym. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_lime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_lime
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  I was a working cook back then and we switched to makrut lime in like 2006. Line cooks not known particularly for delicate language or sensitivity fwiw.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- IvyMike 2y ago
  In my foodie circles I hear makrut lime more often.
pfannkuchen 2y ago
I’m curious which direction the etymology goes. Often what starts out as an innocuous descriptive word gets negatively charged over time, for example “retard”. Were the plants really named after a word for nonbelievers? Or is there a common root for both. For example if it started as a regional term it could have evolved into a slur. I’m not opposed to the change, I just find it interesting/amusing from a cultural perspective if the euphemism treadmill is now extending to plants.
- pvaldes 2y ago
  South Park nailed it. Once you open this door all is an endless road of somebody, somewhere, feeling outraged by something, and demanding to be changed. In the end the goal seems to destroy one of the few things that we still agreed to do collectively as human species. Using an universal way to name the creatures that live in the planet. The same species will have different Scientific names for suiting the preferences of Chinese, USA, Brazilians or Russians. After all, it isn't "racist" not being able to use the Chinese alphabet on scientific names? Scientists will be automatically tagged as belonging to ideology or political party by the names that they will choose to enforce. Countries with republics will try to wipe names honoring the kings of monarchies that patronage the scientific expeditions. They don't even understand, or even worse don't care, about the precedent that they are setting.
  - erulabs 2y ago
    I don’t disagree, but a counter point is that no one has ever agreed on everything - and colloquial names for species already exist — and that language drifts to and fro like a fog. Statis in connotation or denotation sounds somehow totalitarian to me. Even outside of colloquial speech and in the world of science, everything should be in flux, shouldn’t it? The idea that the whole world would use the same language sounds much worse than the opposite: that different people would act differently.
    - pvaldes 2y ago
      > no one has ever agreed on everything Every biologist since 1700 agreed to use the Taxonomic rules (or tried, and failed, to improve the system). This collective project is one of our main success as species. Or maybe we should say "it was", that building has eroded a lot in the last 100 years. That congress is basically the mess what happens where all scientists had been replaced by politicians.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    Do you realize this isn't a precedent being set now though? Species names change all the time, for a variety of reasons only some of them strictly scientific or out of actual taxonomic necessity. The hypotheticals you're alarmed at have already happened, in some cases over a century ago.

kylebenzle 2y ago

Thank you! After reading the article that was my next question!

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

Is the Kaffir lime [1] affected? It's a homonym. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_lime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_lime

giraffe_lady 2y ago
I was a working cook back then and we switched to makrut lime in like 2006. Line cooks not known particularly for delicate language or sensitivity fwiw.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
IvyMike 2y ago
In my foodie circles I hear makrut lime more often.

pfannkuchen 2y ago

I’m curious which direction the etymology goes. Often what starts out as an innocuous descriptive word gets negatively charged over time, for example “retard”. Were the plants really named after a word for nonbelievers? Or is there a common root for both. For example if it started as a regional term it could have evolved into a slur. I’m not opposed to the change, I just find it interesting/amusing from a cultural perspective if the euphemism treadmill is now extending to plants.

pvaldes 2y ago
South Park nailed it. Once you open this door all is an endless road of somebody, somewhere, feeling outraged by something, and demanding to be changed. In the end the goal seems to destroy one of the few things that we still agreed to do collectively as human species. Using an universal way to name the creatures that live in the planet. The same species will have different Scientific names for suiting the preferences of Chinese, USA, Brazilians or Russians. After all, it isn't "racist" not being able to use the Chinese alphabet on scientific names? Scientists will be automatically tagged as belonging to ideology or political party by the names that they will choose to enforce. Countries with republics will try to wipe names honoring the kings of monarchies that patronage the scientific expeditions. They don't even understand, or even worse don't care, about the precedent that they are setting.
- erulabs 2y ago
  I don’t disagree, but a counter point is that no one has ever agreed on everything - and colloquial names for species already exist — and that language drifts to and fro like a fog. Statis in connotation or denotation sounds somehow totalitarian to me. Even outside of colloquial speech and in the world of science, everything should be in flux, shouldn’t it? The idea that the whole world would use the same language sounds much worse than the opposite: that different people would act differently.
  - pvaldes 2y ago
    > no one has ever agreed on everything Every biologist since 1700 agreed to use the Taxonomic rules (or tried, and failed, to improve the system). This collective project is one of our main success as species. Or maybe we should say "it was", that building has eroded a lot in the last 100 years. That congress is basically the mess what happens where all scientists had been replaced by politicians.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Do you realize this isn't a precedent being set now though? Species names change all the time, for a variety of reasons only some of them strictly scientific or out of actual taxonomic necessity. The hypotheticals you're alarmed at have already happened, in some cases over a century ago.