There is at least a theoretical logic to banning words like this: if being called bossy is causing girls to lose leadership skills then maybe stopping this artificially (even if people still think it without saying it) could lead to less girls being affected, and therefore in the next generation the stigma has disappeared. Obviously it's not that simple, and I have no idea to what extent, if any, this actually works, other than in theory.
> "if being called bossy is causing girls to lose leadership skills..."
I don't think that this particular word is the root cause. More important is the reason why people are using it. If you ban that particular word without addressing why people are using it, then those people will adopt a new word to mean the exact same thing. Creating euphemism treadmills doesn't fix anything.
Yep. Some people are taking this too literally. (Nerds parsing? No!) The heightened awareness of how word choice subtly undermines behavior we presumably want to encourage, is the point. This article suggests that instead of banning, women embrace the word as a badge they're doing something right (a la 'nerd'), and undermining the undermining would work too.
When culture changes shouldn't language that reflects outdated culture also change?
Racial slurs aren't acceptable anymore. No one thinks that change is what brought about the civil rights movement, but it's obviously a consequence of it that also contributed to the whole movement in a positive feedback loop.
> Racial slurs aren't acceptable anymore. That isn't what brought about the civil rights movement, but it's an important consequence of it.
I don't really want to pick sides on 'ban bossy', but I do think this particular analogy is flawed. Unlike a racial slur (or any other identity-based slur), 'bossy' describes intrinsically negative behavior. People who are 'overly authoritative' or 'domineering' will always be looked down on in society whether or not this word is 'banned' or not.
You are starting from the assumption that this movement is in error rather than arguing it to be. The whole point of their argument is that the word "bossy" is used to police women's behavior in situations where the same behavior is considered positive for men -- so simply asserting that it always describes negative behavior doesn't exactly make a useful point.
Their claim may in fact be false. But starting from the assumption that it is false doesn't really add anything to the discussion.
They are, but their usage is limited to linguistic segregation. Nothing better to keep people in check than enforcing a correlation between the words they are allowed to use and the color of their skin.
HN, more than most, is a global forum, and with that in mind people should really stop and think before offering their opinion on a subject where critical cultural context is almost surely missing from one's perspective.
Funny you should say that. In my culture beating around the bush with irrational accusations is considered a grave insult that can only be resolved with an old fashioned duel. Choose your assistant at your earliest convenience.
My statement was neither irrational nor unclear. Just more evidence that you simply do not have the proper context to make meaningful statements on this subject (language being sub-culture specific).
It is interesting how race issues is one of only a few subjects where anyone that can form an opinion feels qualified to weigh in on it, no matter how far removed they are from the issue at hand.
They aren't slurs when used in certain contexts. Here's the internets new favorite primer on linguistic context:
My father’s name is William Paul Coates. I, like my six brothers and sisters, have always addressed him as Dad. Strangers often call him Mr. Coates. His friends call him Paul. If a stranger or one of my father’s friends called him Dad, my father might have a conversation. When I was a child, relatives of my paternal grandmother would call my father Billy. Were I to ever call my father Billy, we would probably have a different conversation.
I have never called my father Billy. I understand, like most people, that words take on meaning within a context. It might be true that you refer to your spouse as Baby. But were I to take this as license to do the same, you would most likely protest. Right names depend on right relationships, a fact so basic to human speech that without it, human language might well collapse...
OK, I'll bite. In what linguistic context can a white person call a black person "nigger" in the country that once put free-speech at the center of its propaganda?
When the speaker isn't intending a racial insult, and the tone, circumstances, and relationship between the speaker, the subject, and any third-party listeners make that clear to all involved.
Which are pretty much the exact same circumstances where a black person can do the same thing.
You mean, the yesterday's value-neutral racial descriptors that became today's racial slurs when used in the mouth of people with racial hate are no longer acceptable to people who don't share that hate -- but, of course, as has happened many times in the past, that just means that today's value-neutral descriptors will get used as slurs and become tomorrow's verbotten terms, and nothing will have changed.
Making words taboo that are used along with an unwelcome attitude is a particularly ineffective manner of eradicating the unwelcome attitude.
I think a better comparison would be changing an aspect of the mathematical notation you're using to work on the problem space because it's impeding progress for whatever reason.
This simile is utter nonsense from the outset. Pi doesn't change. It's the same regardless of who you are, whether you're a human, a dragonfly, or a rock; it's the same whether you're measuring in planck lengths or astromical units.
Language is the utter opposite - it constantly evolves and changes, with new words entering every year and grammatical patterns changing over time as well. The only way to stop a language changing is basically to stop using it.
Changing the value of Pi specifically to solve the Square the Circle problem actually nearly happened, which would be he context of grandparents post, I'd wager.
Same here. Our school has a club called "Spread the Word to End the Word" which aims to remove 'derogatory' language from our diction. Removing words isn't going to help, removing prejudice and bigotry in itself is.
That's like trying to solve a math problem by changing the value of pi.
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