From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/60441 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Marcin Borkowski Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: Grammar Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:14 +0200 Message-ID: <20100727225714.GG26009@atos.labs.wmid.amu.edu.pl> References: <20100727084715.GD26009@atos.labs.wmid.amu.edu.pl> Reply-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1280271448 5591 80.91.229.12 (27 Jul 2010 22:57:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:57:28 +0000 (UTC) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Wed Jul 28 00:57:27 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from balder.ntg.nl ([195.12.62.10]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Odt5Q-0005An-FT for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by balder.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id D8ABBC9D28; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:23 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at balder.ntg.nl Original-Received: from balder.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (balder.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id UWkGnffnhg9c; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:19 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from balder.ntg.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by balder.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id A3628C9D33; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:19 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by balder.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id EA54FC9D35 for ; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:17 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at balder.ntg.nl Original-Received: from balder.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (balder.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id l2a-nZdDCg0F for ; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:15 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl (atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl [150.254.78.2]) by balder.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0801FC9D28 for ; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:14 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BB101013A11 for ; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:14 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new (PLD-Linux) at wmid.amu.edu.pl Original-Received: from atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10023) with ESMTP id wIz-4MAvCty9 for ; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:14 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: by atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl (Postfix, from userid 3884) id 57BED1013A0D; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:57:14 +0200 (CEST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:60441 Archived-At: Dnia Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 01:06:27PM +0000, John Haltiwanger napisał(a= ): > On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Marcin Borkowski > wrote: > > Hi, > > > > what an interesting discussion! > > > > My personal point of view is that the so-called "political correctness" > > is something I actively fight against, by means of NOT using "they" or > > "Afroamericans" or other such strange inventions. =A0These new words > > somehow remind me of Orwell's 1984... > = > So what do you write instead? Negro? And what's wrong with "Negro"? AFAIK, it means "black", so it just describes the reality. This is what a word should do, right? And btw, the term "Afroamerican" doesn't really make much sense to me: what would you call a Negro, born in France, and living in Germany, when you wanted to distinguish him from a white man? (Please note that by "man", I mean "a human being of any sex";).) To be more serious: I accept that there might be a problem caused by the fact that I am not a native speaker of English. I suspect that somehow the neutral term "Negro" started being used in a derogatory fashion, and that it might be unpleasant to black people to be called Negroes. And that's why I usually say just "black people". > 'Political correctness' can be onerous, and often contradictory to my > anti-authoritarian nature, but in the end it is not "the Man" who > issues requests for language changes so much as the marginalized > groups that take issue with existing phrasing. Afroamericans, for > instance, was deprecated sometime around that year 1984.. It all boils > down to whether you care about what the people concerned are saying, > which is why I note the author's position when I encounter it. (Rather > than throwing their paper away, ala Khaled). Well, "onerous" might not be the best word. "Scary" might be better. You see, I am quite convinced that trying to manipulate language "by hand" is a very bad idea. Maybe this is partly because I live in a former Communist country (Poland); we have seen such things in the past. Another reason maybe that it seems to me that one of the first groups to talk about "political correctness" (maybe even coining the phrase, I don't know) were feminists, who did so much more harm to women in general than we usually imagine. > This is always a contentious issue when software/coder types are > involved, one of the serious reasons why female participation in IT > (in general) and FLoSS (in particular) are so low: many men in these > circles will not, or can not, give room to critical complaints. The > problem always originates in the person complaining---they need to be > less serious, no one around here cares so stfu, etc. This is a serious > issue, and this is probably one of the least contentious starting > points for encountering it. That theory would be thrown away because > it attempts to consciously address real gender inequalities is a > depressing thought. I am not sure that I understood your point, but I am quite convinced that the low percentage of women in mathematics or IT is caused primarily by the simple fact that an average female brain is not well fit for this particular purpose. (Of course, we all know notable exceptions. Also note that "better/worse fit for one particular purpose" is completely unrelated to "better/worse in general".) > I for one have always thought it would be interesting to develop a > Unicode character that provides a symbol representing a neutral gender > pronoun. Then, anyone reading can insert he/she or another option to > their own taste. Regards -- = Marcin Borkowski (http://mbork.pl) Emacs: Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift. ___________________________________________________________________________= ________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to t= he Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-cont= ext webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________= ________