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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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 Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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| clandestine782 wrote: |
| And if you understood what I was telling you about my sister, then you'd know that a college degree does not necessarily mean that you are any more capable than the general population. |
But one would hope that a decent education would teach you to structure your writing in order to make your points clearly. That was what Woland was alluding to. |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| clandestine782 wrote: |
| Calm the f.uck down. |
You`ve got to love the irony here... |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:59 am Post subject: |
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| Don't conflate PC with liberal. Liberalism is much bigger than PC. I'm a liberal, but very anti PC. |
Yes, I think we are all becoming a little confused by the terminology. Liberals are not necessarily PC; a classical liberal would be very much against such top-down mind-patrolling. And I'm a Christian and a liberal, also not antithetical.
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| P.s. My opinon: PC is a good idea gone horribly out of control. |
No, to me it is, like the Edsel, "a bad idea poorly executed". It began as a sort of university intelligentsia movement and never had any real purpose other than fudging the issues. Like one poster said, we used to say retarded; then we said challenged, special, and differently abled. All words worked for a few years and then lost their euphemism when people figured out what they really mean. None dealt with the issue behind it all; why people need the euphemism.
Hopefully people will laugh at PC in a century like we laugh at Victorians putting slipcovers on table legs because a naked leg was indecent. But if our educational system and mass media continue to portray our culture as evil, in a century we might all be speaking a different language under different masters. No culture can deny itself for too long before someone else marches in who isn't so squeamish.
Ken:> |
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stevieg4ever
Joined: 11 Feb 2006
Location: London, England
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:01 am Post subject: |
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this is so true. depending on your perspective almost everyone is made to feel excluded or to hate themselves for some reason or other or feels their culture is marginalised juxtaposed with others.
| Paji eh Wong wrote: |
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| I find that white Christian males are the only group on Earth who are actually encouraged to hate themselves. |
Aww. Is diddums feeling bad about himself?
Do you spend a lot of time with other demographics Bill? Didn't you spend a couple of years in Korea? Bill, everyone is taught either guilt or shame. It just makes you easier to control.
The only people who don't hate themselves are the true believers, and that's not much to aspire to, is it? |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Don't conflate PC with liberal. Liberalism is much bigger than PC. I'm a liberal, but very anti PC. |
Yes, I think we are all becoming a little confused by the terminology. Liberals are not necessarily PC; a classical liberal would be very much against such top-down mind-patrolling. And I'm a Christian and a liberal, also not antithetical.
| Quote: |
| P.s. My opinon: PC is a good idea gone horribly out of control. |
No, to me it is, like the Edsel, "a bad idea poorly executed". It began as a sort of university intelligentsia movement and never had any real purpose other than fudging the issues. Like one poster said, we used to say retarded; then we said challenged, special, and differently abled. All words worked for a few years and then lost their euphemism when people figured out what they really mean. None dealt with the issue behind it all; why people need the euphemism.
Hopefully people will laugh at PC in a century like we laugh at Victorians putting slipcovers on table legs because a naked leg was indecent. But if our educational system and mass media continue to portray our culture as evil, in a century we might all be speaking a different language under different masters. No culture can deny itself for too long before someone else marches in who isn't so squeamish.
Ken:> |
Well, I'm in favour of the idea of inclusive language. For example, not using the male personal pronoun when talking about a theoretical general situation relating to humans. Just shows you are aware that there are two genders on the planet... |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, I'm in favour of the idea of inclusive language. For example, not using the male personal pronoun when talking about a theoretical general situation relating to humans. Just shows you are aware that there are two genders on the planet... |
Of course. I think there is a practical balance. Some of the old textbooks which use he for everything outside the home and she for everything mundane or homely can be painful. I think that when the balance is lost in ideology two things happen, one that the focus on the material itself is ignored in the effort to be PC. My old college used to make these horrible advertisements with one representative type of person sitting around on lawns with books or in a classroom-- it looked so artificial to see exactly one black woman, one chicano male, one Asian woman, one Inuit woman, and one token white male all grouped in the right way-- and probably no one noticed that the text of the advertisement was an afterthought.
Closer to the idea of textual inclusion, I also think there's a balance. Most people don't know that history (based on a Greek word) and mankind (Anglo-Saxon gender neutral word; a man was a wer, as in werewolf) are inclusive words, and I wonder if seeing those bloody bracket words s/he or he/she over and over is better.
Again, my preference is to be inclusive in the subject material, and to use he for pronouns because it's shorter, trusting that the reader has the intelligence to read in both genders. As I said, sometimes PC only dealt with the language rather than the problems beneath.
I guess nowadays we have both types of PC, though. We're not only obliged to use non-offensive words to describe things, we're not allowed to describe certain things at all. And this is far more cancerous.
Ken:> |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't see why, given that males have oppressed females since the beginning of time, and have only been starting to redress that very recently, that women should be asked to just "presume" that "he" means "he or she". If you write it this way "s/he" it's two extra key strokes, not too much of an effort, and worthwhile in my opinion. |
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jinks
Joined: 27 Oct 2004
Location: Formerly: Lower North Island
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| Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:30 am Post subject: |
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| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
Closer to the idea of textual inclusion, I also think there's a balance. Most people don't know that history (based on a Greek word) and mankind (Anglo-Saxon gender neutral word; a man was a wer, as in werewolf) are inclusive words, and I wonder if seeing those bloody bracket words s/he or he/she over and over is better.
Ken:> |
If I were the king of English, I would suggest using 'she' as the universal 3rd pers sing pronoun. However, I would also decree that the pronoun written s.h.e be pronounced he in speech. In the meantime I will continue writing s/he and saying he (with the note that 'he' means he or she).
I am a bit stumped by him/her and his/her though. |
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