A certain amount of this is just necessary to treat other humans beings humanely.
But I'd hardly say it doesn't help: it means that today, you've not made someone wonder if you're insulting them on purpose.
We already constantly have to change so that our language doesn't sound dated. It's doubly important if it also avoids insult.
I have to wonder a bit about people who really don't want to stop using terms that have become insulting, but otherwise freely pick up new usages of words in other contexts. It seems to me like they just want to be insulting.
But that is not the question here, I am merely pointing out that it's very easy to understand why some people may object to ideologically invented words, without have any issues with words that appear organically, like "mousepad". Pretending to not understand the difference is just a bad faith argument.
The use of gender neutral language as a favored practice has been largely settled in English style guides everywhere since I was a small child, and I am old. To a pretty big portion of the population, "chairman" sounds dated.
It's worth noting excessive prescriptivism cuts both ways. Once upon a time the singular "they" was widely accepted and used; then it was deprecated in favor of just using "he"; now people want to tell us using "they" to describe a person of undetermined gender is just wrong. Language is how we use it, and it's better for it to not contain excessive constraints or connotations that are unhelpful.
Sure. The point is that reasonable people can believe that the zeitgeist is absurd, or that the use of terms doesn't actually reflect popular opinion (perhaps you've heard terms like "preference falsification" or "filter bubble").
> The use of gender neutral language as a favored practice has been largely settled in English style guides everywhere since I was a small child, and I am old. To a pretty big portion of the population, "chairman" sounds dated.
I don't understand how you reconcile your argument with the fact that many people insist that using terms like, say, "patriarchy" to describe all that is wrong with the world - or "toxic masculinity" to describe the supposedly harmful effects on men of behaving according to their social stereotypes, but "internalized misogyny" to describe the supposedly harmful effects for women doing the same - is not evidence of bias against men.
> Once upon a time the singular "they" was widely accepted and used... now people want to tell us using "they" to describe a person of undetermined gender...
There is a rhetorical sleight of hand here. Historically, singular "they" was used to describe an indefinite, hypothetical or otherwise vaguely described person (e.g. the perpetrator of a crime before being identified) - not a definite person whose gender was simply unknown (e.g. someone unseen, known by a gender-neutral name). Further, its use is quite restricted - it doesn't admit all the inflections and noun-verb agreements that "he" and "she" do.
> and it's better for it to not contain excessive constraints or connotations that are unhelpful.
It seems to me that you propose entirely unnecessary constraints.
For example, if someone mis-dialled and called our phone, the conversation after would always be something like "Who was that on the phone?" "Oh nobody, they got the wrong number."
When I was at university, whenever I talked to my mum on the phone about any of my friends, male or female, I'd pretty much always use "they" unless I'd already mentioned their name, because if I ever made the mistake of mentioning a female friend, it'd turn into an hour long interrogation.
(Of course, having the tools in your toolbox that one would use to avoid pronouns sometimes lets you increase clarity; it's not a bad skill to have).
I don't know how you ascribe some particular uses of language that are outside the mainstream with my descriptive note that language has moved towards mostly using gender-neutral terms. I'm not blaming a lot on patriarchy; so it's not really fair to point out that a small minority of people who share my viewpoint that neutral language is preferable do.
> Historically, singular "they" was used to describe an indefinite, hypothetical or otherwise vaguely described person (e.g. the perpetrator of a crime before being identified) - not a definite person whose gender was simply unknown (e.g. someone unseen, known by a gender-neutral name). Further, its use is quite restricted - it doesn't admit all the inflections and noun-verb agreements that "he" and "she" do.
You're right that most of this historical usage of singular they isn't the personal singular they, but you still find plenty of it-- e.g. the King James Bible has quite a bit (perhaps influenced by translating from languages that tend to use equivalent devices).
"vnto thy gates, euen that man, or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die."
> It seems to me that you propose entirely unnecessary constraints.
I think that if I talk about the "mailman" it could be misleading. Ditto for singular "he/his" for indeterminate gender. It seems more useful to use gender-neutral terms-- no need to edit it based on the actual gender that shows up.
The inclusiveness isn't even the primary reason why I feel this way. However, I have heard people say that they thought that it wasn't societally permissible for them to do something based on the way the nouns and pronouns used in sentences; avoiding that seems desirable, too.
I disagree that the standard use of established feminist terminology is "outside the mainstream". Anyway, the point is that they are obviously not gender-neutral terms. It is a blatant double standard to suppose that the term "chairman" disparages women by its construction (despite no such original intent), but that the term "patriarchy" doesn't disparage men by its construction (when it was specifically constructed to describe a construct, by academics who had free choice).
> e.g. the King James Bible has quite a bit
No, that's precisely "an indefinite, hypothetical or otherwise vaguely described person (e.g. the perpetrator of a crime before being identified)". Other examples I could find myself were not any more compelling.
> However, I have heard people say that they thought that it wasn't societally permissible for them to do something based on the way the nouns and pronouns used in sentences
Within the last quarter-century or so? Despite the readily available evidence of other people of the same gender doing that thing?
Using "patriarchy" to describe a specific male-headed familial structure is for the purpose of criticism is descriptive, just like "matriarchy" is. Of course, it can be misused, like in the cases you pillory.
> No, that's precisely "an indefinite, hypothetical or otherwise vaguely described person (e.g. the perpetrator of a crime before being identified)".
I thought you were drawing a different distinction; it's definitely the personal singular they. That exact type of usage is when I use "they" to refer to a person of indeterminate gender, e.g. someone to be hired.
> Within the last quarter-century or so? Despite the readily available evidence of other people of the same gender doing that thing?
Much less within the last quarter-century... in part because all of the style guides about this stuff changed about 40 years ago, when I was a small child.
No, obviously not. A "chairman" can just as well be a woman. What it does imply is just that _historically_, chairmen were mostly men. You might object to the word because its etymology reveals a past where men occupied these roles, but it is not true at all that the word today implies anything about the sex of the person.
> That exact type of usage is when I use "they" to refer to a person of indeterminate gender, e.g. someone to be hired.
Yes, if you are giving instructions to the guard at the front, telling him (sic) to "let them in", that is the traditional, organic usage. Which is distinct from the politicised usage where you either know that the candidate is a woman but still say "them", or its a person that considers herself "non-binary" and insists that you use gender neutral language. Those two situations are different from the traditional usage.
Actually, the he or she agreeing with "them/their" later in a sentence is old and widely accepted. So a fair deal of this usage is a linguistic oddity.
> or its a person that considers herself "non-binary" and insists that you use gender neutral language.
The preferred personal pronoun thing is different. It has its own discussion and justification.
I am purely talking about "they/them" to refer to people of unknown gender, instead of "he" or "he/she"-- the singular, personal "they".
It went from occasional use in the 1300s-1600s to "wrong" in the 1800s. Now it's emerging as a best practice. Even though style guides that otherwise moved to gender neutral language in the 80's rejected it, it grew organically for quite awhile before starting to become accepted.
I agree with all your arguments, but just want to point out that this is not actually true. "Indefinite they" does inflect just fine. "Who attacked you, did you see them? No, but they dropped their gun." etc.
Maybe instead of wanting to be insulting, people just don't want to be insulted (called ableist, racist, etc.) for failing to keep up with modern slang. Can you see why someone might be upset about being made a de facto bigot when they are only guilty of aging?
At the same time, there are a whole lot of people who want to staunchly defend using language that has become offensive, and even use it gleefully. I have much less sympathy for this position.
Yah-- using gender neutral terms when possible is nice, and someone has to coin those terms.
But what I'm talking about: there's a whole lot of these words that were initially offensive, or became offensive because they have been used derisively. If you insist on referring to people by terms they find offensive, even after correction, then you are being a jerk.
> using gender neutral terms when possible is nice
That's your opinion, and it tends to very strongly correlate with left-wing politics, it's not a consensus opinion.
It's been favored in pretty much every style guide for decades at this point. I am presently in the middle of the political spectrum, but I've spent the majority of my life pretty right-leaning. At the same time, I see no reason to choose words that might imply to a lot of people that I'm only talking about men, or to choose other words that might cause people offense.
It's funny how we can so clearly see this in so many domains -- referring to an unintelligent person as a "moron" would pretty clearly be not nice -- but are willing to defend doing it to other disfavored groups so strongly.
- but neither would it be an attempt to demean everyone who suffers from a learning disability. It would, instead, be an affirmation that low intelligence is an undesirable quality. And anyway, in practice, overwhelmingly such language is aimed at people of ordinary or even above average intelligence, with the intent of suggesting that the target is not meeting expectations.
No, but it might have that net effect, to whomever is in earshot.
> And anyway, in practice, overwhelmingly such language is aimed at people of ordinary or even above average intelligence
If you don't think the kid who is struggling in school is being called a "retard," I don't know what to tell you.
Another example-- the word "boy." There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the word "boy," but it was used by a lot of people to demean black men. I certainly wouldn't want to say it to a person who would think I'm doing the same thing to that point. And at that point, maybe it's time to prune the word "boy" as a word of address out of my language, and discourage my kids from the "booooiiiiii" that would be interpreted very poorly in the wrong situation.
You could start by giving me a reason to believe it.
36% of youth in 2009 reported having heard the word "retard" directed towards someone with an intellectual disability.
My wife's brother had a birth injury and endured it pretty constantly throughout his school years.
And given that there's people with that experience, perhaps it's time to heavily discourage use of the word in general. Calling your buddy it to be funny helps normalize it for the people who want to use it to be cruel, and gives them cover.
Haven't we been doing that in the US since 1990?
Our culture's imperfect, but there's a fair bit of evidence that it's a kinder, more courteous world-- especially for youth-- than 30 years ago. Taking some sharp edges off language may have helped with that.
I have plenty of sympathy for people who react to this needless cruelty with a total rejection of the concept and deliberate rebellion. Rationally, sure, they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But this is an emotional response and I can understand it and sympathize.
Admittedly, I have sympathy for everyone. I ultimately believe in determinism; I can no more fault a serial killer for a murder than a cloud for blocking the sun. There is a utility to behaving as though good and bad people exist, rather than just good and bad outcomes: you can improve those outcomes. But witholding sympathy does not improve outcomes.
>I have to wonder a bit about people who really don't want to stop using terms that have become insulting, but otherwise freely pick up new usages of words in other contexts. It seems to me like they just want to be insulting.
Natural evolution of language feels natural. You start hearing and using terms as you need them. The word "gamepad" was scarcely, if ever, used 50 years ago, some inventions came to be and people needed a term to refer to a specific object, so they naturally picked up the term.
Start a campaign today to demand people stop using the word "gamepad" and start using "funtroller" with the threat of moral condemnation and you will find the same resistance.
I disagree that words "become" slurs, in principle. Outside of a very few specific examples, where the term was constructed to insult, we know that words are insults because of the context in which they're used.
> It seems to me like they just want to be insulting.
It should be acceptable to insult people in certain contexts (not here, of course). But far more importantly, especially when it comes to terms like "idiot", "retard", "developmentally disabled" etc. etc.: when someone insults an idea, it's completely inappropriate to treat this as though some corresponding identity group had been insulted. Changing the words does nothing about it, anyway. When someone's purpose is to associate an idea with low intelligence, that will show through regardless of what word is used.
Aside from which, the treadmill isn't even remotely in sync universally. There are real discussion fora I've seen that take themselves completely seriously, where the word "stupid" is completely verboten and already has been for years - and not because of some general blanket policy against insults.
I disagree; perjoration is a well understood linguistic topic, and it tends to happen in particular with words associated with disadvantaged groups. Idiot, moron, mentally retarded, ghetto, gypsy, savage, spinster, etc.
> It should be acceptable to insult people in certain contexts
We might occasionally want to say negative things about people, but actual insult should be saved for playful contexts. I have a hard time defending deliberately being a jerk to someone else.
> it's completely inappropriate to treat this as though some corresponding identity group had been insulted
If we are describing another person with a word, in general, we should respect their desire to be called or not be called by that word. And when a word has taken on undesirable connotations, it's reasonable to pick a sane default that most people are not going to want to be called that.
> Aside from which, the treadmill isn't even remotely in sync universally. There are real discussion fora I've seen that take themselves completely seriously, where the word "stupid" is completely verboten and already has been for years - and not because of some general blanket policy against insults.
Sure, change is uneven and not all proposed change happens. I am fine with calling something "stupid"-- it's when the "stupid" is an idea belonging to a particular person or is being used to call someone a name that it's not so great. Of course, there's always context; if I was around someone that I knew was particularly sensitive about their intelligence, I would perhaps try harder to stay away from words like "stupid" or "dumb".
All of this, really, boils down to basic courtesy. If we're not told explicitly what is considered courteous, we need to make reasonable guesses based on the overall social context.
None of those meet my definition of "slur", except possibly "gypsy".