4 ms·

What's this obsession with words about? "Sexual assault" instead of "rape", "romance baiting" instead of "pig butchering". "unhoused" instead of "homeless". Man

What's this obsession with words about? "Sexual assault" instead of "rape", "romance baiting" instead of "pig butchering". "unhoused" instead of "homeless". Many others. What do we achieve by focusing on words instead of focusing on the substance of the problem?

bongoman42 2y ago
It gives a group of people something to do and divert discussions from being about to the actual topic to how to talk about the topic. It gives them importance and they can actually hound out people who have experience with these because they use the older unapproved terms.
- quercusa 2y ago
  Most people I know who were once called 'handicapped' did not like being called 'disabled'
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  That’s how it feels to me. Calling out people over incorrect words is easier than working on issues but still feels good.
erehweb 2y ago
In this particular case, "Interpol argues that the term [...] [deters] people from coming forward to seek help and provide information to the authorities." We can argue about whether or not that's true, but it seems to be at least not just cosmetic in intent.
pmezard 2y ago
As someone not immersed in US media slang, I do not know what "pig butchering" is (or at least that is not what is meant here) while I have a fairly good idea about "romance baiting". That is probably not why Interpol wants that though. And I agree with you about the other examples.
- kmoser 2y ago
  The scam, and the term to describe it, is believed to have started in China, so the phrase is not American.
- hooverd 2y ago
  I thought it involved pork. Clearly these people aren't paying for a quarter cut they won't receive.
genter 2y ago
George Carlin explained it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0
- ghostpepper 2y ago
  Was going to post this if someone else hadn’t already
smokedetector1 2y ago
> What's this obsession with words about? There's a few different cases here, but the general principle is that, for many people, words carry emotional or semantic connotations, and we want to use different words to manage these connotations. 1) For the "sexual assault vs. rape" case - Some words may be more unpleasant for many people to hear. Many people may find the word "rape" to evoke more unpleasant emotions than the more muted "sexual assault," so may use the latter in situations where we prefer not to elicit a strong emotional reaction, such as in a professional or therapeutic environment. 2) For the other cases - many people find certain terms more dehumanizing than others. With the homeless example, many people feel that "homeless" has become not just a descriptive term, but a term that carries connotations such as "crazy," "disgusting," "failed," and maybe above-all, "other" - outside the realm of people we consider "us". In contrast, the term "unhoused" carries more of a connotation of a temporary state a person is in, rather than an inherent label or trait of that person. There is certainly a treadmill phenomenon to this - in a few years, if "unhoused" catches on, and if homeless people are still dehumanized, it's likely that the word will take on a dehumanizing connotation and many will seek to replace it. > What do we achieve by focusing on words All that said, while I think language is important, I do agree with you that there is an excessive focus on language and an inadequate focus on actual solutions. I would say that the current economic system and power structures make solving these problems very very hard, and as a result many people focus on policing and adjusting language because it is something that they feel they can actually change.
- ghostpepper 2y ago
  > Many people may find the word "rape" to evoke more unpleasant emotions than the more muted "sexual assault," IMHO the action being described evokes an extremely strong emotion, and therefore so too should the word we use.
  - smokedetector1 2y ago
    I think that's a valid opinion and it's probably true that it's euphemized too much.
  - hooverd 2y ago
furyofantares 2y ago
I don't know about unhoused but the other two seem like genuinely useful improvements in terms of communication. I don't think using words that better communicate the idea has a negative effect on working against the thing.
alanbernstein 2y ago
I don't know about this specific example, but the concept is sometimes referred to as the "euphemism treadmill", which suggests a sort of cyclical nature to it.
truculent 2y ago
It’s not new: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill
IanCal 2y ago
People still use rape but there's a thing there around understanding exactly what that might mean. I've been "sexually assaulted" but not raped, legally, because of UK laws. Unhoused may be because homeless covers people living in homes. But I'm not arguing this case because I don't trust that's a real issue you're raising given the others. > Interpol argues that the term 'pig butchering' dehumanizes and shames victims of such frauds, deterring people from coming forward to seek help and provide information to the authorities." There you go. You're arguing this like this is instead of, rather than alongside, targeting criminals. How victims feel and how likely they are to report issues is important. If you called fraud "scammed an idiot" would you get as many people reporting? Pig butchering is a shockingly dehumanising term.
- vasco 2y ago
  > Unhoused may be because homeless covers people living in homes. My understanding of the word homeless depends on the fact that someone has no home. Can you expand on what you mean? adjective plural noun: the homeless; adjective: homeless (of a person) without a home, and therefore typically living on the streets.
  - tharkun__ 2y ago
    A lot of homeless people actually don't have a home. They do not live on the streets. They live on couches at friends houses, typically for short-ish periods of time. They don't have something you'd actually call a home. They just have short term living arrangements such that they're not actually on the streets. So those would actually describe different things. Not everyone uses them consistently either tho to make things more confusing ;)
    - vasco 2y ago
      But then would you call yourself homeless if you had friends that let you sleep at their place? That feels disingenuous, there must be a better term for that. Like imagine that situation, if someone would ask you "are you homeless", and you have a place to sleep and say yes, isn't that strange? Perhaps I need to update my definition of common usage of the term but it seemed strange to me to use homeless for someone in, admittedly not the best situation, but with somewhere to sleep outside of a homeless shelter. Thanks for explaining.
throw948484 2y ago
Try to call something done to new born infants "mutilation " or "brutal sexual assaukt". Technically it might be correct, but not many people can stomach it.
mbauman 2y ago
Words and names are powerful — this is something that I've found over and over again as a programmer. If you can find the right name for something, then the abstractions immediately become clear. This isn't unique to programming
sharpshadow 2y ago
Politicians in Germany now sue citizens if they call them an idiot. No joke weekly some average joe gets his house raided and searched by police because he posted online that politician X is an idiot and has to pay a hefty fine. Ice on the cake are the 13 year olds which use the “wrong” party political hashtag and get their house raided.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
contrarian1234 2y ago
Isn't sexual assault and rape very different? If you kiss someone who doesn't want to be kissed then you've sexually assaulted them but you've definitely not raped them

bongoman42 2y ago

It gives a group of people something to do and divert discussions from being about to the actual topic to how to talk about the topic. It gives them importance and they can actually hound out people who have experience with these because they use the older unapproved terms.

quercusa 2y ago
Most people I know who were once called 'handicapped' did not like being called 'disabled'
rqtwteye 2y ago
That’s how it feels to me. Calling out people over incorrect words is easier than working on issues but still feels good.

erehweb 2y ago

In this particular case, "Interpol argues that the term [...] [deters] people from coming forward to seek help and provide information to the authorities." We can argue about whether or not that's true, but it seems to be at least not just cosmetic in intent.

pmezard 2y ago

As someone not immersed in US media slang, I do not know what "pig butchering" is (or at least that is not what is meant here) while I have a fairly good idea about "romance baiting". That is probably not why Interpol wants that though. And I agree with you about the other examples.

kmoser 2y ago
The scam, and the term to describe it, is believed to have started in China, so the phrase is not American.
hooverd 2y ago
I thought it involved pork. Clearly these people aren't paying for a quarter cut they won't receive.

genter 2y ago

George Carlin explained it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0

ghostpepper 2y ago
Was going to post this if someone else hadn’t already

smokedetector1 2y ago

> What's this obsession with words about? There's a few different cases here, but the general principle is that, for many people, words carry emotional or semantic connotations, and we want to use different words to manage these connotations. 1) For the "sexual assault vs. rape" case - Some words may be more unpleasant for many people to hear. Many people may find the word "rape" to evoke more unpleasant emotions than the more muted "sexual assault," so may use the latter in situations where we prefer not to elicit a strong emotional reaction, such as in a professional or therapeutic environment. 2) For the other cases - many people find certain terms more dehumanizing than others. With the homeless example, many people feel that "homeless" has become not just a descriptive term, but a term that carries connotations such as "crazy," "disgusting," "failed," and maybe above-all, "other" - outside the realm of people we consider "us". In contrast, the term "unhoused" carries more of a connotation of a temporary state a person is in, rather than an inherent label or trait of that person. There is certainly a treadmill phenomenon to this - in a few years, if "unhoused" catches on, and if homeless people are still dehumanized, it's likely that the word will take on a dehumanizing connotation and many will seek to replace it. > What do we achieve by focusing on words All that said, while I think language is important, I do agree with you that there is an excessive focus on language and an inadequate focus on actual solutions. I would say that the current economic system and power structures make solving these problems very very hard, and as a result many people focus on policing and adjusting language because it is something that they feel they can actually change.

ghostpepper 2y ago
> Many people may find the word "rape" to evoke more unpleasant emotions than the more muted "sexual assault," IMHO the action being described evokes an extremely strong emotion, and therefore so too should the word we use.
- smokedetector1 2y ago
  I think that's a valid opinion and it's probably true that it's euphemized too much.
- hooverd 2y ago

furyofantares 2y ago

I don't know about unhoused but the other two seem like genuinely useful improvements in terms of communication. I don't think using words that better communicate the idea has a negative effect on working against the thing.

alanbernstein 2y ago

I don't know about this specific example, but the concept is sometimes referred to as the "euphemism treadmill", which suggests a sort of cyclical nature to it.

truculent 2y ago

It’s not new: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill

IanCal 2y ago

People still use rape but there's a thing there around understanding exactly what that might mean. I've been "sexually assaulted" but not raped, legally, because of UK laws. Unhoused may be because homeless covers people living in homes. But I'm not arguing this case because I don't trust that's a real issue you're raising given the others. > Interpol argues that the term 'pig butchering' dehumanizes and shames victims of such frauds, deterring people from coming forward to seek help and provide information to the authorities." There you go. You're arguing this like this is instead of, rather than alongside, targeting criminals. How victims feel and how likely they are to report issues is important. If you called fraud "scammed an idiot" would you get as many people reporting? Pig butchering is a shockingly dehumanising term.

vasco 2y ago
> Unhoused may be because homeless covers people living in homes. My understanding of the word homeless depends on the fact that someone has no home. Can you expand on what you mean? adjective plural noun: the homeless; adjective: homeless (of a person) without a home, and therefore typically living on the streets.
- tharkun__ 2y ago
  A lot of homeless people actually don't have a home. They do not live on the streets. They live on couches at friends houses, typically for short-ish periods of time. They don't have something you'd actually call a home. They just have short term living arrangements such that they're not actually on the streets. So those would actually describe different things. Not everyone uses them consistently either tho to make things more confusing ;)
  - vasco 2y ago
    But then would you call yourself homeless if you had friends that let you sleep at their place? That feels disingenuous, there must be a better term for that. Like imagine that situation, if someone would ask you "are you homeless", and you have a place to sleep and say yes, isn't that strange? Perhaps I need to update my definition of common usage of the term but it seemed strange to me to use homeless for someone in, admittedly not the best situation, but with somewhere to sleep outside of a homeless shelter. Thanks for explaining.

throw948484 2y ago

Try to call something done to new born infants "mutilation " or "brutal sexual assaukt". Technically it might be correct, but not many people can stomach it.

mbauman 2y ago

Words and names are powerful — this is something that I've found over and over again as a programmer. If you can find the right name for something, then the abstractions immediately become clear. This isn't unique to programming

sharpshadow 2y ago

Politicians in Germany now sue citizens if they call them an idiot. No joke weekly some average joe gets his house raided and searched by police because he posted online that politician X is an idiot and has to pay a hefty fine. Ice on the cake are the 13 year olds which use the “wrong” party political hashtag and get their house raided.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

contrarian1234 2y ago

Isn't sexual assault and rape very different? If you kiss someone who doesn't want to be kissed then you've sexually assaulted them but you've definitely not raped them