Language is us applying words to some feature of life that we’d like to use a word to describe. Changing the word doesn’t change that feature. Therefore, over time, changing the word doesn’t in fact change the meaning being conveyed.
N-word to Negro to colored to African-American to Black to Person of Color is still a description of the melanin tinteness of the one being so described. Cretin to retard to disabled to differently abled to arrives on the Variety Club Fun Outing coach is still describing that same sad feature of some lives.
Members of the department’s Homeland Security Group, which leads work on Britain’s counter-terrorism response, attended a talk last week focused on “the right language” around LGBT issues.
On Monday, the Home Office moved to distance itself from its contents, which it said did not represent “departmental or government guidance”.
Across 12 slides on gender issues, first reported by Guido Fawkes, Whitehall staff were told: “Be aware a person’s sex, gender identity, and gender expression may not correspond.
“Genderqueer is a blanket term for those who don’t define their gender in binary terms … It is not a modern invention. Each identity is valid and deserves respect.”
A slide on language to avoid using included the terms homosexual and homosexuality, which it said is “generally considered a medical term now. People tend to use gay instead. Can reduce the person to purely sexual terms”. It also warned against the use of the word transsexual.
We can call it gay, homosexual, shirt-lifting or bum banditry. Genderqueer if we prefer. But it’s not going to change the connotations of the description because they are what exist and what is being described. Changing the word doesn’t change those connotations.
British society has long made distinctions here – Mrs. Patrick Campbell and not frightening the horses is different from going all John Gielgud at Praed St Gents for example. Thus cottaging is different from homosexual. But that’s very much the point being made here. We can call cottaging seeking love in a public manner if we wish, even a human right as some try to insist, but it’s still willy waving in the council privy. Changing the word doesn’t change the thing that is being described.
“ short-lifting ” some sort of perversion with midgets?
Ha, well spotted. But probably not, we’re not even allowed to throw them these days, are we?
Members of the department’s Homeland Security Group, which leads work on Britain’s counter-terrorism response, attended a talk last week focused on “the right language” around LGBT issues.
Never mind our citizens being at risk of getting blown up/beheaded in the street/generally killed by lunatics, we can’t have people using the “wrong” terms! Someone might get offended!
Don’t use the word ‘homosexual’, Home Office civil servants told
Sure thing, poofters.
So that’s what the Shakespeare rubbish about roses was about?
Each identity is valid and deserves respect.
I expect we all have a similar opinion on what the words valid, deserves & respect mean these days.
If poofery becomes any more valid, it’ll be mandatory!
“But it’s not going to change the connotations of the description because they are what exist and what is being described. Changing the word doesn’t change those connotations.”
You’ve got it the wrong way around. Connotations are ideas or feelings which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning. The aim of linguistic wokery is precisely to change the connotations – not the thing or the denotation.
Its hard not to admire the sheer chutzpah of this scam.
1. Assign yourself the right to decide what words mean.
2. Regularly change those meanings without telling everyone.
3. Berate people for not using the latest meanings.
4. Set up business charging people to tell them the latest words to use.
5. Goto 2.
What Theo says. Over time a word like “poofter” gets loaded with negative connotations, because of what it actually represents; so they decide to use a new word which has either neutral or positive connotations. Not that long ago, “gay” used to mean “happy”. The word “homosexual” was chosen because it sounded like a scientific or medical value-neutral term (in the days when scientists and doctors were respected).
I think they’ve missed the mark with “queer”, which still sounds bad to me; but perhaps I’m not the target audience.
Maybe homosexuality should be rebranded to something that sounds more positive, dignified and modern.
“Bum Spelunkers”
It’s about controlling what we say… it’s on the list.
Controlling what we lay eat
Controlling what energy we may use
Controlling our mobility ne where we may go
Controlling what we may hear and see
Controlling what we may say
Controlling what we may think
Controlling what words we may use
Controlling how long we may live
Control = power, beloved of psychopaths and sociopaths who have colonised our institutions… globally.
@Andrew M – January 17, 2023 at 11:19 am
Not that long ago, “gay” used to mean “happy”.
It’s a word that had quite a chequered career… In the 20s “gay young things” were the gilded generation, and before that, specifically in Victorian times, a “gay woman” was a street prostitute.
I’ll consider stopping using “homosexual” when other words derived from classical languages – e.g. “transphobic,” “homophobia” – are no longer flung at normal people.
“A slide on language to avoid using included the terms homosexual . . .
It also warned against the use of the word transsexual.”
“Homosexual” is homophobic. “Transexual” is transphobic.
Fuck off.
So these are the people who look after the safety and security of the country. And they’re bothered and concerned about some words. Terrorists will have a field day with them.
The difficulty with the language surrounding the pot-pourri of sexual deviations is that few people know what most of them mean and probably prefer to remain in ignorance, thus:
is unhelpful advice. If “genderqueer” is not a modern invention, what was the term previously?
By the same token, we get this:
which is doubtless due to doctors attributing a medical condition to the behaviour of patients while expressly avoiding normative language like “fresh sphincter for the poof in bed 8, nurse”.
I’m glad there’s no ban on “homosexualite”. I find it so handy.
Didn’t the Eye (before it went woke) used to describe people as “a well-known homosexualist”?
In the 70s, the mentally challenged were called “trainables.” Some of the most inhumane terminology I could imagine.
Here’s among the cringiest of inclusive propaganda from that time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3kngIqC1wg
I’ve always disliked the American “reeetard” but been amused by the American “goes to school on the short bus”.
When I was a boy the poor wee souls were “mental defectives”.
@dearieme
There’s also “not the brightest crayon in the box,” “not running on all cylinders,” “the lights are on but nobody’s home” and “this boy’s cheese slid off his cracker.”