Yeah, I recall way back in the 90s I think efforts to push terms like “differently abled” and “handi-capable”. Notably, most people still use “disabled”.
It was a period where activists had a bad habit of coming up with new euphemisms that were just amazingly patronizing. Very cringe, to use the modern slang.
They’re still doing it. Look at the terminology for homeless people: ‘people experiencing homelessness’, unhoused, unsheltered etc. Or people earnestly promoting ‘person first language’ as if it makes any difference.
The latest idiocy from Britain is replacing BAME with ‘global majority’ in the sort of job ads that discriminate against natives. Horrible in every conceivable way: lumps all non-white Brits together, implies they have more in common with people in other countries, tells white people we’re a minority in an environment where minorities are commonly seen as in need of protection and special help.
It’s annoying because using the latest ‘correct’ language is claimed as a virtue by those who do it, but the reality is that knowing this stuff is more like knowing professional jargon or teen slang: keeping up with it is a sign you have high verbal intelligence and/or know the right people, not that you are necessarily more moral. It doesn’t require any action that might cost you something.
You heard it here, folks - PoCs can’t be British natives.
I haven’t even heard any of those, despite years of hanging out online with people left wing enough to think Communism is a good idea. I think you are really digging to find the people who say that, or just listening to made-up accusations by rightists.
I don’t really keep abreast of homeless issues, but even I’ve seen unhoused used more frequently over the last few years. As I’m a member of the Holy Order of the Euphemism Treadmill, I attribute this change mostly due to homeless having a negative connotation, but others say unhoused stresses the failure of society rather than the individual and reminds everyone there’s really a housing problem. I’m not particularly upset because language changes. Is it a bit silly? Yeah, but human beings are absurd, so I just accept it.
nevermind; assumed DT was talking about a specific advert that went viral on RW media, but could be slight tangent going into it
I think the genesis of it is the issue for many. Why are some people switching from “homeless” to “unhoused”? What was wrong with “homeless”?
And the same thing for Black vs. African American, Handicapped vs. disabled vs. person-with-a-disability, or any of the others.
The issue as I see it, is that people who aren’t tuned into that side of the spectrum don’t really have any problem with say… homeless, Black, handicapped, or any other people. But they do feel like they’re being personally admonished as if they’d done something wrong when someone tells them not to call them that, and use some other term. They feel like they’re being criticized for someone else pulling the rug out from under them and not telling them.
There’s also a certain component of absurdity in changing words for the sake of trying to imply that “Homeless” vs. “Unhoused” implies some sort of societal vs. individual failure, because there’s an shifting of responsibility there, and not everyone’s comfortable with that or thinks it’s valid.
The euphemism treadmill, as said.
How many people get admonished for the first time they neglect to use a relatively new term? Zero? I mean, if you’re still using Oriental instead of Asian, after however many decades, I imagine some people will roll their eyes at you (the horror!), but if you use homeless instead of unhoused? I seriously doubt any admonishment is going to happen. Maybe “well, we try to use unhoused now, instead of homeless”.
And, if that happens, what difference does it make to you what term you use? I mean, I’m still annoyed about “literally” meaning “not literally”, but that has been happening for decades or centuries. I understand it’s a me problem.
If, in a few years, the term changes again, who cares? What difference does it possibly make?
Because they mean the same thing?
To far too many people the answer is simple: “Houseless” implies that the solution to the problem is to find housing, whereas “homeless” implies that the problem is people, and the solution is to make them go away.
This.
And that: the suspicion that it’s less about being unfeeling or rude, and more about the language reformers attempting to control the narrative, demanding that everyone hew to the approved terminology that pre-defines the issue. e.g., “undocumented immigrant” vs. “illegal alien”.
As opposed to the language un-reformers attempting to control the narrative, demanding that everyone hew to the approved terminology that pre-defines the issue. e.g., “undocumented immigrant” vs. “illegal alien”?
Language is rarely neutral.
Fair enough; but are the reformers looking for justice or for victory? Are they truly seeking fairness and impartiality, or like revolutionaries do they really want to just seize the palace and sit on the throne?
The parenthetical comment says it all. Some people are so absolutely terrified of having eyes rolled at them that they, what’s the expression, flip out at the mere possibility of eye-rolls. They call it “thuggish,” talk about being “canceled”, insist it’s a “moral panic.”
If I may offer some advice:
The former, clearly.
Not so clearly to me, and to many others. “My opponent is evil” ≠ “I am good”.
The people urging reform of the language for “woke” reasons have no power and in my observations, seek none.
As a general rule, I’m inclined to refer to people how they wish to be referred to. A few years back, when USian was trending online as a way to reference Americans, it annoyed the hell out of me. I don’t identify as a USian, I don’t call myself a USian, most of us don’t refer to one another as USians, so for someone else to call me that was annoying. Of course there are people in the western hemisphere who get annoyed that we call ourselves Americans. We all live in the Americas, right? And there are Americans who are likely just fine with USian and might use it themselves. So it gets complicated.
There have been times I’ve pushed back a bit. I had someone get on me for using the phrase “committed suicide” instead of saying died by suicide. The second time they corrected me, I was pretty close to telling them to piss off as politely as possible. And now that I think about it, what annoyed me is that I felt she was trying to control how I thought about suicide which is the case with some of the other changes in phrases. We went from illegal alien to undocumented worker, from homeless to unhoused, etc., etc., because people want us to change our attitudes about these things. Word choice is a way of changing our attitude. (See Obamacare versus Affordable Care Act.)
The rabbi who circumcised me, presided over my bar mitvah ceremony and my sister’s bat mitzvah ceremony was African American. He was born in South Africa and lived there for many years before coming to the US. He was not black. He appeared to be the same mix of countries as most Ashkenazic Jews.
OTOH Colon Powell was Black. As he often corrected people, he was not African American but Carribean American.