Post: #1

Thoughts? Personally I believe that Carlin has an extremely valid point on this. Society has sugarcoated so much. Feminism referring to fat people as obese or "curvy" instead of fat. Or how gay became "homosexual". Sugarcoating in order to let the masses feel safe. Changing the connotation to the point that it's "politically correct".

Post: #2

(02-08-2014 03:47 PM)hwuzhere Wrote:  Or how gay became "homosexual".

It's actually the other way around. The word 'gay' used to mean 'happy' for the longest time, but later is became a word used to describe homosexuality. And even later is became a word used to insult people.

I agree with the video though, but yeah, just pointing that out.

Post: #3

Oops my mistake meant queer/faggot. It was more like faggot->queer->gay->homosexual

Post: #4

I'm starting to believe that constantly changing the 'proper' name for something is what people do to alleviate their guilt about not actually doing anything to help anybody. Know somebody with down syndrome? Now you can feel self righteous everytime someone says 'retarded' without actually having to do anything for the guy with downs.

Post: #5

(02-08-2014 04:52 PM)Ensam Wrote:  I'm starting to believe that constantly changing the 'proper' name for something is what people do to alleviate their guilt about not actually doing anything to help anybody. Know somebody with down syndrome? Now you can feel self righteous everytime someone says 'retarded' without actually having to do anything for the guy with downs.

I'm off the mind that the person who decides to educate the ignorant masses about language does more damage in the long run. Retarded is a functional description willed into slurdom.

How many mentally-challenged people wouldn't have realised 'retard' was a bad, hurtful word used to attack them, if some helpful woman hadn't coached them how to react negatively to it first?

Post: #6

This is one of Carlin's best routines. Language is a tool, so it can reveal the truth as well as it can hide it. I think cisgender is a shining example of this. Before, the term used was normal, while transgender was transsexual or trannie. Everybody likes and agrees with normal, while transsexual sounds like a horrific affliction. Now, borrowing from the Roman provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul by analogy, crusaders have turned normal into cisgender. Transgender and cisgender form an equal pair, unlike normal and transsexual.

Cisgender also reveals no information at first glance because to 95% of the population that term is meaningless. By using this deliberately confusing term, the debate appears to change. That's why controlling the language is so important.

Post: #7

George Orwell quotes always pop into my head whenever I watch the news or listen to a political speech. Language is an extremely powerful tool. And I refer to a lot of it as "Newspeak". These are two of my favorites from Orwell.

Quote:“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by eactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for commiting thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”

Quote:The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

Post: #8

Meanings of words can change naturally over time. But nowadays it changes too fast, and people are quick to purposely take offense (moral oneupmanship in other words)

Stefan Molyneux has pointed out how iterations of certain words were changed to lessen offense.
"Retard(ed)" was supposed to replace the more offensive "moron."
"Negro" was supposed to replace other pejorative terms.
All this is from barely 50 years ago. Not long at all compared to most words that do change (usually takes centuries).

Using these terms now will get one in hot water.

What common, benign words of today will the Word Police have banned 50 years from now?

Post: #9

It's definitely a tactic of the left to say that a certain word is no longer acceptable in order to be able to show superiority over the less enlightened. A lot of these vocabulary changes come first from lobby groups and similar organisations, and then filter through into government and media usage. It's all about being in control of the conversation.

Post: #10

We should also factor in the fact that we live an age of information(be is worthwhile or worthless). The masses are influenced by celebrities and propaganda. They say words created by them(swag, YOLO, phat to name a few), act like them, and perpetuate their lifestyles(we at RvF do the same albeit towards men of high quality for the end of self-improvement). The age of information is just as responsible.