h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Personally, manally, anally. Heh.

I was going to contribute my view on GNPs (which is that seeing as the whole problem (the problem being gender bias, not being uncertain about your own sex) can be avoided in so many cases, and just ignored by most people in the other, GNPs are unlikely to catch on) (Good entry by the way)(I like parenthesiseses, in case you couldn't tell. ) but then I was offended by a statement by the originator of the thread (I shouldn't care about the opinion of fundamentalist merks, and I don't, I just take offence anyway ) and now I'm wondering. Is there a PC term for us wacky, rampantly socialist Nordics?

Oh, by the way, researcher 201516, the lack of gender in Finnish has nothing to do with PC or socialism. Us other Nordics, who speak Germanic languages, have gender a plenty. And I only pay between 30 and 40% taxes and get to live in a country with very few annoying americans. Rampant socialism rocks!

Christ alive people - get a life and enjoy yourselves. In the end of the day, gender-free pronouns matters not a jot to anyone but those who want to make an issue of it. As for the rest of the world, we don't associate gender with pronouns and don't care either way.

> "Us other Nordics have gender a plenty"

Of course. Swedish girls in particular are famed for their.... 'gender'.

-Lucinda

I was wondering why the Finns missed out on he/she. I thought all the nordic languages were germanic in origin...?

Tsk, tsk. Finnish isn't Germanic, or even Indo-European. It's one of the Finno-Ugric languages, which include Finnish, Sami, Hungarian, Estonian and some isolated languages in Russia.

*stumbled over this, not really having an idea how*

As to political correctness - out of politeness to my trusted computer, I'm hesitant to call it PC - I guess I'm somewhere between Lucinda and R201516. But possibly nearer to the latter.

Why? Because there are things about political correctness in general and in relation to wording in particular that I just cannot get into my head:

1) When did we stop listening to what is being said and in what tone rather than start focusing on single words in it to see if anything in there could maybe irritate us? To me it is obvious that when someone says chairman, they are referring to the position - so why start down the avenue of whether or not someone can possibly feel irritated by it? Here, "get a life" is quite a reasonable viewpoint IMHO (even if I actually think that firefighter is a better word than fireman - firefighter very clearly describes what the job is all about...)

2) When did we forget about common decency and politeness and reflecting over how the things we say affect the recipient - and start feeling that it was necessary putting in place "rules" about what you can/can't/should/shouldn't say? To me, all these rules increases the distance between people rather than decreasing it - which is what I thought communication is all about.

3) Who defines what is politically correct? Who gave "them" the mandate? To my knowledge, noone has ever asked anyone if this was really what was needed. This actually worries me - because if there is no way to know what is "official", personal variants of politically correctness can easily be (mis)used to differentiate as much between those you want to side with and those you don't as plain language could be (mis)used earlier.

I could rant on a wee bit more - but this'll have to di for a start...

This is true the problem with "personal" political correctness is that it can actually be more offensive than "non-pc", i.e the more you tip toe around a subject (rather than either ingnoring or accepting it) can actually lead to more offence.

1) Firefighter is a good word, isn't it?

I'm somewhat undecided, to be honest.

What I would say is that it's helpful to know and be at least vaguelly comfortable with the alternatives. So it's helpful to have "chair", "chairman", "chairwoman", as part of your vocab so that when some stranger tells you that sie is chair of some association you don't get a blank look on your face or make some unfunny joke about four legs being good.

There's also the feminist issue that if people wander around calling all chairs chairmen, then people may get the wrong impression that all chairs are male, and that doesn't help to get more women in high-ranking business jobs. That doesn't make the word "chairman" offensive or irritating - it just makes it unhelpful - and arguably a hindrance to clear communication.

2) I do agree about rules - in communication, they're frequently inaccurate. That said, sometimes they're a necessary simplification - it's easier to teach kids "never say nxxxxr", than to try and explain those circumstances where using the word is acceptable. The same applies in the workplace - if a company has a policy on racist language, it'll probably just straight out ban the word, rather than bothering with complex exceptions.

3) In the end, society as a whole does, though some individuals have more influence than others (I'm sure Teresa May deciding she was going to be the chairMAN of the Conservatives will have had more influence than I ever will - likewise Betty Boothroyd being MADAME speaker).

It sure is easier to teach kids by using simple rules. Teaching them to use common sense & decency and to listen is a lot harder. Yet, I try as hard as I can with mine...!

My problem with society as a whole deciding is that it means that there will never be any agreement, any "current status" - it'll all be depending on where you are, who you're with, which point in time. All of which makes the political correct rule set dead in the water before you even start using it. What good is a rule set if you don't know what tweak of it to use...?

Even more, that to me emphasizes the need to be polite, use common sense, listen to reactions - and forget all about what "rules" tell you.

Lastly, a real life example parallel to the "dwarf" one further up: On Danish TV this discussion was up way back with people phoning in - and a wheelchair user phoned in to say that until people would call her by the first term in their minds (whether wheelchair user, handicapped, disabled) and thus be at ease while talking to her AND until people around her made as many jokes about people in her condition as they did about anything else, she would not feel a normal part of society...!

A strong statement - but to me an indication that all these "what not to call people" rules can be counter-productive and actually further isolate people...

If you could work out the whys and wherefores of communication from common sense and decency alone then that'd be great! But you can't. To work out when and why 'nxxxxr' is unacceptable, you'd need a basic knowledge of the history of race relations in the West, the concept of 'reclaiming' words, some exposure to black comedy and/or music, and an intuition as to which situations are formal and which are informal. A six year old kid has none of that - so sie can be as sensible and decent as you like and sie's still not going to get it right.

That's why we teach kids simple rules - and not just for language. We say "don't eat with your mouth open", which is just as much a simplification as "don't say nxxxxr". And all such rules will err on the side of safety...

-Martin

You can tell from the spelling. If a non-black person says it to a black person, it is spelt "n****r". If a black person says it to another black person, it is spelt "nigga" or "niggah".

It is pronounced similarly too; the difference is that the -a or -ah suffix sounds more laid back and as such, emphasises the notions of brotherhood (or sisterhood) that that word entails. An -er suffix, on the other hand, is pronounced and deliberate, thus containing within it mockingly insensitive tones.