You are being far too generous here. A word’s etymology or superficial original meaning without considering how the word is actually used in the relevant context is not its “accurate” meaning.
When people make a rigid claim that a tomato is a fruit, they often claim that they are being “pedantic”. No, a pedant is annoying but actually correct. They are simply wrong. They don’t understand how language works.
Similarly, @The_Other_Waldo_Pepper’s claims of “accuracy” are bogus. Usage defines meaning. When the word “illegal” or “invader” (in the context of immigrants) is widely used in a certain way, with a particular consensus connotation and subtext, it is not “accurate” to simply ignore that. All that semantic baggage is an integral part of the total semantic content. And we don’t just get to ignore that and pick our own idiosyncratic meanings for words. If you use the word, you communicate that connotation and dehumanizing subtext whether you like it or not.
It was a reductio ad absurdum, but what @The_Other_Waldo_Pepper is doing really is analogous to claiming that “wetback” in this context can just mean a person with a wet back, on the basis that he has looked in the dictionary and he knows the “accurate” meanings of “wet” and “back”.
When people claim that a tomato is a fruit, aren’t they simply right? Seems like the analogy here would be to a guy who correctly claims that a tomato is a fruit, but who of course doesn’t tell other people that they can’t also use other terms.
It’s hardly a surprise that you would think so, but no - the rigid unqualified claim that a tomato is a fruit is wrong. It depends on context. When the word “fruit” is used in a technical scientific sense, a tomato is a fruit. As a culinary ingredient in the everyday sense, it is not a fruit.
It’s a perfectly reasonable term to describe a person whose intent is to remain permanently in the United States when they do not have the legal right to do so under current immigration laws. Whether one feels those laws or the person’s intent are morally justified should not matter.
They are trying to immigrate. They are doing so illegally.
“Invasion” on the hand has nothing but stigmatizing. When one thinks of an “invasion”, images such as foreign barbarians hoards, military conquest, and / or insects or vermin infestations come to mind. That is not by accident.
I mean sure. There are also a substantial number of aliens that are not immigrants. Presumably this is why the term “alien” is qualified in some manner (whether it’s “illegal” or “unauthorized” or “unlawfully present”).
If we’re talking about someone using the unadorned term “alien” to refer exclusively to unlawfully present aliens, then that’s obviously imprecise and unhelpful. I’ve never heard it used that way (unlike “illegals” which I am familiar with). But if someone is discussing “aliens” in the context of immigration or naturalization (ranting or otherwise), they’re clearly using the “technical” definition.
Just the undocumented? There is no undocumented people or migrants etc? That’s seems on par with illegals, as it has no reference to an actual human being. Surely referring to people as documents is demeaning also.
That’s not how language works. You can’t just declare a harmful word reclaimed or “worth reclaiming.” You’re free to use it, and your various societies (of which the SDMB is but one) are free to react according to their nature and perspective.
True, but there is a difference from those crossing the border illegally to get work (mostly from Mexico) and those asking for asylum at the southern border (mostly central America)
Well, I have no issue with Central American getting asylum, but Ciudad de Guatemala is not being bombarded by Russian missiles on a daily basis.
Oh, I’m sorry. I thought your comment was a part of your defense of the use of “illegal” as a noun that can be pluralized and applied to human beings whilst simultaneously not being dehumanizing. Was I mistaken?
If so, my deepest apologies.
But if not, I entreat you to unpack how “Invader” is, too. can be construed as anything but a non-sequitur.
You were mistaken — search this thread, and you’ll see I’ve made no mention of using “illegal” as a noun rather than as an adjective — and your apology is, of course, accepted.
You stated, when replying to me with a copy-and-pasted quote from me, that “felon” is a noun; and, well, I didn’t know why you mentioned that. But since, as you say, I’ve been talking about characterizing them as “invaders”, I responded by noting that “invader,” too, is a noun.
I maybe should’ve asked you to unpack your comment, but I didn’t; I just figured that, if for some reason it made sense for you to mention that “felon” is a noun in your reply to me, then it’d presumably make just as much sense for me to reply that “invader” is a noun, too.
You did. But I thought you were asking me to unpack a comment I made before that “next post” of yours: talking about what I did, and why, before you’d so unpacked.
Riemann was discussing whether the term “invader” was dehumanizing; I asked whether, by the metric Riemann was using, the term “felon” would also be dehumanizing.
You can of course read the reply upthread; it’s the one that leads off with: “It can be, sure.”
Which — since we don’t ban the use of the term “felon” hereabouts — maybe shows how the term, uh, entered into it; Riemann seems to be arguing that we should ban one term because it’s dehumanizing, and so I asked whether another term is dehumanizing: figuring that, if the answer is ‘yes’, then folks can ask why there’s no push to ban it, too; and that, if the answer is ‘no’, then folks can ask why not.
(And, with that, this thread now seems to be devolving into discussions about discussions about discussions about what’s already been said; I’m not sure any new ground is being covered.)