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Comment by stevage | Hacker News Reader

The only people experiencing offense here seem to be the ones who don't like the term child raiser for some reason.

For one, I have never heard the term "child raiser" in my life so I assume its even more confusing for those with english as a second language. It also just sounds so emotionless, like children are cattle. I'm really struggling to see what is gained by not using parent. For all intents and purposes, people use the term parent for those raising a child.

I am not taking sides in this discussion, but as a non-native English speaker I can assure you that the term was not confusing to me :-)

Agreed. I don’t mind the term, but it also sounds emotionless to me, like corporate speech. Something I’d expect in a press release.

I’m not a native speaker.

Yeah it's just internet people trying to coin terms then gaslighting those who don't adopt.

No one is gaslighting anyone, except maybe the folks who pretend language never changes. No one complained about the use of "parent". The folks who started the argument complained about "child raiser". The problem here are the "internet people" who pick pointless fights about the motives behind anyone who does anything differently than they would have done.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but if there's a pushback on a change, that's defense, not offence.

So, you are claiming they are "taking defense" not "taking offence"?

Is this a terrible dad joke?

Please, child-raiser joke.

It is, but it's also a point - if something is being changed, pushing back shouldn't be assumed to be being offended. In some cases, the people doing the change will be offended if you don't comply. And that will keep going when the change is changed again.

That's a weird distinction you've constructed to make it sound more okay to be offended if you feel you hold the more traditional position.

> take offense (idiom) : to become angry or upset by something that another person has said or done : to be offended by something - Merriam-Webster

That's all it means. If you're upset because someone says something different to what you consider the natural default you're still offended.

People take offence to changes to and transgression against cultural norms all the time - offence at public gay affection, offence at interracial relationships, offence at not respecting christianity and religious norms, offence at use of swears, offence at the normalisation of talking about sex etc etc.

Taking offence to certain changes to language isn't necessarily wrong, but it's still taking offence. "Taking offence" is what happens to you when something transgresses against your belief system, it's not just what the bad people do.

> you've constructed to make it sound more okay to be offended if you feel you hold the more traditional position

You're incorrect. I didn't construct it to do that.

> "Taking offence" is what happens to you when something transgresses against your belief system, it's not just what the bad people do.

All the rest of your comment isn't really to do with what I was saying, although it does illustrate it. I was saying it's silly to change something and then call any pushback "offence", rather than a wide range of things it might be (unnecessary; harder to understand; unfamiliar; yet another change of a bazillion and it'll change again soon).

the idiom is "take offense in sth"

> people experiencing offense

You mean, the "offended ones"?

Humans under effect of psychological duress.

That’s a poor attempt at gaslighting.

Nobody is offended. It’s just silly.

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