They’re absolutely trying to change the language that staff use. They’re preventing people from opening their mouths and saying certain words in a certain order. Are you seriously going to try to nitpick about how that’s not changing language?
I’ve been on my school’s equity committee for years, so yes, I know what word I’m using. Thanks for checking tho. I’m in favor of this bit of, what did you call it, top-down Orwellianism?
I’m absolutely going to oppose this argument, and it’s not a nitpick. When we talk about “language change” in the context of this discussion, we’re talking about the lexicon of language – abolishing words deemed no longer appropriate, introducing new ones, or changing the meaning of existing ones. Changes to the lexicon are the things that, if successful, eventually gain widespread acceptance, get recorded in dictionaries, and with a bit of luck beneficially nudge our culture into a better place. Or sometimes backfire and do the opposite. But in any case, all that your board of governors is doing is ruling on hiring practices.
It’s top-down, and if I’m not mistaken the “equity” notion as defined by the NACE was injected into the lexicon only within the past decade or so. But I see it as potentially beneficial and, even more importantly, an attempt to create clarity rather than deception or obfuscation, so no, I wouldn’t call it Orwellian.
It comes from having read the document the first time it was in the news.
If you came away with a different impression, it’s because your sources were more interested in mocking “wokeness” than in an honest reading of the document.
He may say this but is it true? One way to attack a movement is to pretend to agree with the movement. And then to claim you’re trying to help the movement by exposing its flaws so they can be addressed and the movement will be strengthened.
Casual listeners will think, “Wow, even this guy who is part of the movement thinks this is wrong. And he must be telling the truth because he wouldn’t speak ill of the movement that he’s a part of unless the problem was real.”
And while he can say his lack of criticism of conservatives is due to his opposition to them, the reality is the conservatives benefit from not being criticized.
This is textbook concern trolling.
No we’re not. Maybe you are, but that’s a mightily constrained view of what it actually looks like when language is coercively changed, and there’s no reason I’d adopt such a constrained view. What it usually looks like isn’t specific words being added or subtracted, but words used in specific ways.
When a state legislature forbids teachers from discussing drag, they’re not forbidding me from telling a student to drag a chair over. It’s silly to limit the discussion in the way you want to.
Your argument is incoherent. It’s top-down all the time, but there’s nothing wrong with top-down, but if you don’t like the top-down, then it’s Orwellian, whether or not there’s violent coercion involved? That’s very silly.
And to be clear and to reiterate, there’s absolutely language changes out there that I think are silly. I was at a meeting earlier this week where I got a list of “deficit-based” words (to be avoided), and the “asset-based” words that I should use instead. For example, instead of saying “fix”, I should say “validate” or “honor.” Instead of saying “project”, I should say “design” or “model.”
Please don’t ask me to explain. I can’t.
I still have this list, but only because my recycling bin gets emptied on Friday. I find it to be bewildering and completely unhelpful, and a huge distraction from the crucial equity work we need to do. There’s no way that I’ll share it with other folks as a resource, because doing so would alienate them from that crucial work.
But here’s the thing: there’s no coercion involved here.
Meanwhile, when I teach kids a grammar lesson about pronouns, I spend about two minutes of a 45-minute lesson talking about the singular “they” and how some people use it for themselves. I worry that if the government finds out about my doing that, I could be fired.
Anyone who spends their time discussing the list in my recycling bin instead of calling legislators to rail against the anti-trans laws has their priorities completely backwards.
It’s not a constrained view, it’s a view that simply regards “language change” as meaning a change in language! A change in language, pretty much by definition, is a change in the lexicon that will eventually be reflected in the dictionary, whose job is to track such things, and may perhaps attract the interest of linguists.
When your board of governors directs that certain subjects should not be discussed during a job interview, that has nothing even remotely to do with “changing language” and is simply setting hiring policy. Not that I agree with it, of course, but recognize it for what it is.
It seems to me that muddling policy edicts and “coercion” with the linguistic discussion of language change is unhelpful to clarity of discussion.
Again, there is no “language change” going on here. They are not trying to redefine the word “drag”. They are setting policy regarding what you may or may not discuss in the classroom. In fact, I would guess it’s quite likely that the word “drag” never even appears in any legislation, as this sounds like it’s part of the recent blanket legislation banning any discussion of sexuality and gender identity in certain grades.
It’s in no way “incoherent” to express the view that some language changes are beneficial while others are not. I’ve said this before, and that’s all I’m saying here.
The reason, incidentally, that I’m OK with “equity” (McWhorter isn’t, but let’s not get sidetracked) is because it represents a distinct concept that can be decoupled from the politics and is important enough to have a word for. In that sense it’s no different than an invented word like “cyberbullying”. They add value to the language because they help us convey important concepts succinctly.
Oh my goodness, no it isn’t. Speaking of the dictionary, what definition are you using for “change”, “in”, or “language” that leads to this bizarre interpretation?
I’m perfectly aware of what you’re saying. Maybe “incoherent” is the wrong word, because it suggests I can’t understand. I mean that it doesn’t cohere to any reasonable metric. As near as I can tell, you’re using “Orwellianism” to refer to changes you don’t like, with no other criteria whatsoever. As if 1984 were all about people using words that Orwell personally didn’t care for.
It’s ridiculous.
Change (n): the act or instance of making or becoming different.
In (prep.): expressing a state or condition
Language (n): the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way
And speaking of words,
Dictionary (n): a book or electronic resource that lists the words of a language and gives their meaning
Case in point: We’ve discussed gender-neutral terminology, like the transition of “chairman” to the gender-neutral “chair” or “chairperson”. This became widespread towards the second half of the twentieth century. So today, when one looks up “chair” in the dictionary, it’s not only a thing that you sit in, but now also “the person in charge of a meeting or of an organization (used as a neutral alternative to chairman or chairwoman)”. A similar definition exists for “chairperson”. This is legitimate language change, and so the dictionary follows.
No, this pertains to what I’ve repeatedly referred to as the continuum of beneficial and non-beneficial language change. Over on the non-beneficial side, we have the Brandeis type of situation in which common English words like “picnic” become candidates for “oppressive language”. We also have proposals like “differently-abled” – not sure if this effort to pretend that a disabled person is not actually disabled ever caught on.
But then we have words and expressions that are intentionally deceptive, something that the right particularly specializes in – things like “pro-life” for an anti-abortionist, “family values” for anti-LGBT, “death taxes” for estate taxes, “entitlement programs” for Medicare and Social Security, “elites” for progressives, “socialized medicine” for any kind of productive government intervention in health care, etc. etc. This is when non-beneficial engineered language change becomes downright evil. That’s when I consider “Orwellian” to be an appropriate descriptor. If that bothers you excessively, I could substitute “deceptive” or “dishonest”. But “Orwellian” conveys the connotation of a particularly insidious kind of dishonesty designed to achieve political ends.
The level of doubling down --quintupling down?–on inaccurate pedantry has finally become too much for me. I think you’ve demonstrated the strength of your position adequately, and I don’t plan to engage with this absurdity any longer.
Fine with me, glad to have addressed your concerns. Incidentally, if you have a look at the Google Ngram for “chairperson” you see that it really started to take off around the late 1960s. It was then picked up by dictionaries around the 1970-75 timeframe. It’s not “pedantry” to point out that this is how language change works, and that organizational policy edicts about what may or may not be discussed in certain venues is not “language change” in any meaningful sense of the term. The fact that you don’t like such edicts (and neither do I) and consider them “coercion” doesn’t make them fit the definition of language change.
Wow. Okay.
FWIW, I also consider such edicts from right-wing nuts to be flat-out coercion, just in case you misinterpreted my meaning there. I just reject the idea that it has any bearing on the linguistics topic under discussion.
Ditto. I started to write a response and then… The Brandeis thing was the most harmless and least coercive “list of words some people think might be problematic” that i can imagine. To keep bringing up Orwell in response to this benign and opt-in exercise is just bizarre. But i give up.
There seems to be some confusion here. I brought up the Brandeis thing for the first time in Post #59. There is nothing there about “Orwellian”. I brought up the concept of “Orwellian” a number of times, but in different contexts. I explained in Post #149 the contexts in which I believe the term might be appropriate (and that Brandies is NOT one of them). I can’t find anywhere where I used it in reference to Brandeis, even when I was under the impression that it was a stronger initiative than it actually turned out to be.
Can you find where I “keep bringing up Orwell” in reference to Brandeis?
The confusion may be because I first raised the Orwell term when mentioning McWhorter’s appearance on the Maher show. But the McWhorter/Maher discussion was about driving top-down language change in general, and nothing about Brandeis. That it was also McWhorter who wrote the Atlantic article about Brandeis was purely coincidental.
ETA: I also think that this overreaction to a hyperbolic descriptor like “Orwellian” is distracting from the actual substantive discussion of the positives and negatives of language change.
Reading this is making me want a drink. Perhaps I’ll have a Negroni.
What’s the recipe for a negroni?
I dunno, i find your use of “Orwellian” much more upsetting than any of the examples of “attempts to influence language” that have come up in this thread.
Equal parts (or to taste) gin, red vermouth and Campari. Served on the rocks. Garnish with an orange slice. It also makes a nice spritzer on a hot day.
That’s a valid point. My take-away is that I have an argumentative style that can rub some people the wrong way, especially on subjects I feel strongly about. With which I can’t really disagree. I do tend to use loaded terms. Those who know me well are used to it. Those who don’t know me well may form an unflattering impression.
However, the fact that my arguments may sometimes have a strident or even hostile tone isn’t really a substantive refutation of my sincere beliefs in important aspects of social justice. I’m just impatient with those who go overboard on it.
Again, can you find where I actually “keep bringing up Orwell” in reference to Brandeis, or is it just frustration with my style of argumentation?
ETA: Hmmm… I suddenly have additional insight into why I like Bill Maher: smug, assertive, and prone to hyberbole! 