One can be uncomfortable with one’s body without being fat. Body image issues more or less means that they don’t like the way they look.
As for the gender/sex divide, sex is biologically determined and gender is a bit more nebulous. It’s a cultural thing in addition to being a fluid thing; one can be biologically male while being culturally/mentally/etc. female. The meaning of this divide is clearer now because society as a whole is dealing with the idea of sexuality and gender identity being more fluid than binary. This may be tough to comprehend if one is not in a position where their gender or sexuality is not one that defies the binary concept.
I wouldn’t say any of these euphemisms are new, though. They’ve been around for at least the past ten years, and the politically correct ones can be problematic as they obfuscate the intentions of the original word or completely corrupt its original meaning for the sake of a bunch of ninnies. Personally, most of the people I know who could be described with a politically correct term tend to self-identify with the older, more politically incorrect term and encourage others to use the same term as them. This doesn’t mean that I’ve got black friends who use the “n” word, but it means that they prefer not to be called African American (and some, like me, prefer not to be described by their skin color at all).
I think that term was coined to make the communities that hold these facilities feel a little better about it. People who say they were “incarcerated” or “on vacation” instead of “in da joint” are more irritating to me.
:dubious: “Homeless” is not a euphemism. It applies precisely to anyone who has no home, which includes anybody who has to stay at a Salvation Army shelter, and I’ve never heard it applied otherwise. All bums, beggars and vagrants are homeless, but not all homeless people are bums; many are “working poor.” That’s how it is.
Gah, I’ll be happy if I never have to hear the phrase “politically correct” again! I don’t know how widespread this is, but in New Zealand that phrase has been watered down by the right to mean “anything that the left does”.
“The Labour party suggests that we should stop being racist insensitive jerks. They’re just being politically correct.”
“The Labour party wants to use taxpayer money to feed the homeless(;)). They’re just being politically correct.”
“The Labour party wants us to vote for them! This is PC gone mad, I tells ya!”
A while ago, the opposition National party appointed a “shadow minister for the eradication of political correctness” (you may have heard about it–I believe it made the funny pages worldwide). His sole job seemed to be making random pointless snipes at Labour that didn’t quite fall under the portfolio of any real ministers.
I don’t know, maybe I’d give National a second look if they actually discussed policy rather than trotting out that tired catchphrase.
Sex: boys have weenies. Gender: boys wear blue and have short hair and shouldn’t cry. Somewhere in a complicated spot in between: boys hit each other over the head with Tonka trucks and use stuffed unicorns as guns.
If you read the article you linked to, you’ll note that terms often change because people use a term as a slur or otherwise give it negative baggage. “Retarded” used to be a perfectly accepted scientific term, not a schoolyard insult. “Concentration camp” once didn’t have the emotional impact that it does now.
That’s not how it is. A beggar could live in the Four Seasons, begging is just how he pays the bill. A vagrant roams around. Someone residing in a homeless shelter long term is not a vagrant, but is homeless. A hobo is a vagrant that utilizes rail transportation, but the bindle is probably optional these days.
Rubanesque I guess is the old way of saying what no one wants to say. Well, not to anyone rubanesque anyway. Of all the issues I think extreme bodybuilders might have, “body image issues” doesn’t spring to mind.
Passed=Grandpa passed 6 years ago. Not passed away, not died, not kicked the bucket, croaked, etc. Passed. How is that even a correct sentence? I have a friend that won’t say dead to save his life. It’s kinda fun sometimes…
Another issue is that folks have shortened “sexual intercourse” to just “sex”. So now the primary meaning for the word “sex” is “intercourse”. (or other related, still-prurient things.)
Since polite people or Corporate America can’t be talking about intercourse (or fucking, porn, etc.), other meanings of the word “sex” are no longer socially acceptable & other words for those meanings must be found.
So we need to pick another word for the biological XX vs XY concept and yet another word for the cultural blue/pink concept, not to mention the grammatical male/female concept not much used in English. Each deserves their own term and if I was the King of English they’d each have one. But I’m not and they don’t.
“Gender” is an available more-or-less relevant term originally used for the grammatical concept. Over the last 30-ish years it’s been stretched to cover the social concept. Now it’s being stretched again to cover the biological concept as well.
I’m not advocating for this change, I’m just asserting it’s happening.
One answer I’ve heard; the increase in the number of women on the street. People tend to feel freer to sneer at or mistreat the unfortunate who are men; the increase in women made people feel like they had to act nicer, verbally at least.
“Differently abled” is one I’d never use; to quote a quadriplegic I saw interviewed, “I’d rather be called a worthless cripple.” It’s incredibly, smirkingly patronizing to my ears.“Challenged” is almost as bad.
As other posts in this thread demonstrate, it has changed since 1980, when a randy professor at my college explained the difference between the concepts by declaring that “Words have gender, people have sex.” Of course, fewer and fewer gendered words are “politically correct” – witness the decline of actress, policewoman, etc. I’ve heard men called “masseuses” and “seamstresses” by people unaware of the feminine gender of those terms. And don’t get me started on the confusion between fiancé and fiancée – especially on a board to which so many non-heterosexuals subscribe, it’s disconcerting for me to read a woman’s rant about her “fiancée”, assume she’s a lesbian (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), and not realize until the fifth paragraph that the poster is engaged to a guy. Here’s a page devoted to the distinction.
