Job Discussion Forums

[Gregor]

Alex42,
I was never given a guide to what I could or could not say at University. But then again, I'm 40 years old. I did the ten-year program, and I still finished about twelve years ago.
Man oh man. Your uni told you how to TALK?? PLEASE tell me that American universities do not do this! PLEASE!

Anyway, yes, I know that other languages are more gender-biased than ours, but saying that someone or something is worse than us does not excuse our own lapses, at least so long as we are aware of them. If we know that we have room for improvement, even if Spanish is far worse in this regard, we should still improve, don't you agree?

Also, I would suggest that, though your translations are true enough as far as that goes, most native speakers of Spanish do not consciously think "male doctor" when addressing a female one. And "ni�os" (children") only means "boys" in that it ends with an "o" and there is no other way to express that. I'm not arguing with you; you are right. But I'm re-emphasizing the fact that grammatical gender doesn't have anything to do with human sex.
I think it's a good thing that our language is slowly eliminating gender, but that's just for us. I would also like to point out that I would be happier if we could just leave language gender alone and forget any connection to human sex. As I said before, the use of the male pronoun in ambiguous usage bugs me, but I wish that it didn't. I think that it's stupid to have to make such an effort to change the way we speak. In other words, I'd be much happier if we could all just agree, once again, that "Every student will receive his books..." is perfectly appropriate.
We're not going to, though, so let's fix the problem and move on.

[merlin]

Back to the OP - it's impossible to answer this really. Every politically correct term has its own history. For example, I wouldn't give Bush and co credit for coining "climate change" nor is it really politically correct - it's just more accurate reflection of how it affects us personally on a daily basis.
Some term are coined by one group but rejected by another - Negro and Chicano, for example. At one time terms of pride for the members but now replaced by something else. I remeber in the early '90's "black" was a term of pride - absolutely forbidden a decade before.

Some terms created by outsiders are rejected by the population that is being labelled - Native Americans didn't like the sound of "Native" given to them by white UC Berkley professors and still prefer to be called Cherokee or Apache and so on. Or if you must, "original peoples" but try explaining that one to a class of kindergardeners.

I shared a room for two years with an AJA who would laugh himself silly if anyone said "American of Japanese Ancestry". He would say I'm half Okinawan, half French-German-Dutch. Identifying the large 3rd- and 4th- generation Okinawan population as Americans of Japanese Ancestry shows a gerat deal of ignorance. But White Liberals continue to see themselves as more educated for not using Japanese-American when most Japanese Americans could care less really.

A lot of business terms are used to keep away lawsuits. I was explaining to a student the other day that we might say "That company plays hardball" rather than saying "Company X is being dishonest." Stating publicly that a company is "dishonest" can lead to lawsuits while claiming they want to play "hardball" expresses a similar idea plus hints that you're willing to do the same.

[koldijk]

the thing i hate the most is opening my "american" books and there is a bunch of garbage with hispanic politically correct stuff... i mean for americans, whatever....but it involves another layer of explanation for korean kids... i am not trying to start a flame war....

CANADA IS THE MOST PC COUNTRY ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH!!!

ARGH!

[matttheboy]

My brother wrote a couple of books about various topics, including Mad Cow Disease and AIDS, for an American publishing house and aimed at the 6-10 age bracket. The publishers changed every single 'English' name he used when illustrating examples and changed them to 'black' or 'latino' names. John became DeRoy and Ellie became Milena for example. They didn't leave any English names in, surely a case of reverse racism...?

The previous poster used the word 'hispanic' which has now fallen out of use as it's been shortened to 'spic', a racist term. 'Latino' is now the accepted term and it can only be a matter of time before that becomes 'Spanish-American'. Funnily enough, Argentines and Chileans hate the word 'Latino' as they see it as lumping them in with the 'less evolved' peoples of lesser-developed Latin-American countries. In England, we've always used the term 'Latin' to describe people from Italy, Spain and Portugal and 'South Americans' to describe people from Latin America, be they from Central or South America...

[scot47]

Quıte clearly the whole thıng ıs satanıc ın orıgın. End of dıscussıon !

[merlin]

Hey! Scott47!
You want a complimentary copy of "Satanic Digest?" I can also give you a second copy for the office.

[moonraven]

"Hispanic" has not fallen out of use in the US--especially in states such as New Mexico which have large Hispanic populations.

And "Spic" is not an abbreviated form of "Hispanic"--it is a racist/insulting term derived from the phrase "No speak (spic) English"!

[Hector_Lector]

Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela is an African American leader who fought for the rights of his people.

http://www.oppapers.com/term-papers/49852.html

[EnglishBrian]

That's a classic!

[Henry_Cowell]

[Henry_Cowell]

The "war on terror" is no longer to be known as such. Instead, the new PC term is the "struggle against violent extremism". In its political and strategic messages, the Bush Administration will henceforth never again use "war on terror".

Here's linguist George Lakoff's interpretation (from http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html):

... As UC-Berkeley linguist and political strategist George Lakoff told War Room in a phone interview today, "The primary meaning has to do with extreme fear," and that's what the Bush administration wanted to promote.

[By using the term "war on terror"] ...they wanted people to be afraid," Lakoff said. "And when people are afraid, they want a strong president to protect them."

George W. Bush put America on a "war footing," and used that stance to justify a host of policies rooted in his increased executive power, from the invasion of Iraq to the PATRIOT Act to the recess appointment of John Bolton. The demise of the propaganda underlying those decisions is something to celebrate.

But what was the point of switching from "war on terror" to its replacement, "global struggle against violent extremism"? In an article published Monday on AlterNet, Lakoff argues that, while the new term is deliberately confusing, the goal is simple -- "that the public will no longer associate the Iraq war with terrorism and see the failure in Iraq as a failure to curb terrorism."

The "war on terror" simply outlived its political usefulness, according to Lakoff. The public had grown tired of the prospect of unending war. Then the bombings in London discredited the administration's position that fighting insurgents in Iraq would prevent terrorist attacks at home. As for the timing of the decision, Lakoff said he has no doubt that the White House coordinated its semantic switcharoo with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad, where the top U.S. military official in Iraq floated the idea of beginning to remove U.S. troops by next spring -- just in time, coincidentally, for the 2006 midterm elections back in the USA.

There's no denying that the "war on terror," as Lakoff told us, was a "very, very successful" piece of propaganda. The media adopted it to describe the campaign against international terrorists almost without exception, while Democrats made no effort to frame the issue differently -- a failure Lakoff calls a "major mistake" of the John Kerry campaign.

[merlin]

[Henry_Cowell]

[Cdaniels]

[ls650]