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Terms, their meanings history and implications. (The Semantics thread)

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BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#26: Jun 10th 2015 at 4:33:39 AM

[up][up]My English is good enough now that these sort of things don't tend to bother me personally; but I get a sort of annoyance-by-association for everyone else learning English as a second language because they'll stumble on those through no fault of their own. So I'm sort of annoyed but not for myself.

edited 10th Jun '15 4:34:29 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#27: Jul 2nd 2015 at 4:02:30 PM

Oh, we have a Semantics thread! This shoud be fun!

Okay, here's my favourite resource here: Oxford's Online Etymology Dictionray. It's light, lightning-fast, no-frills, and chock-full of amazingly useful information regarding the history of words.

semantics (n.) Look up semantics at Dictionary.com
"science of meaning in language," 1893, from French sémantique (1883); see semantic (also see -ics). Replaced semasiology (1847), from German Semasiologie (1829), from Greek semasia "signification, meaning."

But why does this need to be its own thread? Isn't agreeing on a mutual definition of terms essential to the development of meaningful debate?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#28: Jul 2nd 2015 at 4:06:30 PM

It would be nice, but not everyone likes playing the game of arriving at a common consensus on what certain words mean.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#29: Jul 2nd 2015 at 4:39:11 PM

Personally, I'm sort of semi-hoping that this thread can at some point arrive at definitions that everyone could accept, so that when the relevant debates start in other threads someone could just link to a given post here and show how that particular subject was resolved here.

It's not a given that everyone will just agree that this thread should be the authority but I'm sure plenty of people will take it, especially if they can track back a couple of posts and see how the argument went. After, all, chances are that they'll realise everything they meant to say about it was said here already.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#30: Jul 2nd 2015 at 4:46:55 PM

The OED's lack of frills means that it is wonderful at definition but terrible at connotation. It tells you what words mean, but it doesn't tell you how they're used.

This thread exists because threads have a tendency to go for pages just pondering over word choice instead of talking about a topic.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
AnotherDuck No, the other one. from Stockholm Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Mu
No, the other one.
#31: Jul 3rd 2015 at 12:03:33 AM

[up]That's true for just about all dictionaries. Online ones do have an advantage in vastly increased space potential for word usage, but most don't make use of it anyway, and are still just as dry as book versions.

Which is also part of why just stating a dictionary definition of a word very rarely helps in a debate. Most words are technically wider or narrower than how they're used, and going on the off-shoots based on those definitions contrary to actual use does more harm than good in a discussion not actually about the words.

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Nettacki Since: Jan, 2010
#32: Jul 27th 2015 at 7:51:30 PM

One of the gender issues threads brought this up and I'd figure it be worth asking: What's the difference between objectification and idealization, if any? Is using the former to refer to the way men are portrayed more or less accurate than the latter? Same question goes for the way women are portrayed. Why is this so?

AnotherDuck No, the other one. from Stockholm Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Mu
No, the other one.
#33: Jul 27th 2015 at 10:18:52 PM

Basically the former is what you should want, and the latter is what you should want to be.

I usually hear the difference brought up as an attempt at derailing or marginalising a problem.

edited 27th Jul '15 10:19:33 PM by AnotherDuck

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FluffyMcChicken My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare from where the floating lights gleam Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: In another castle
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
#34: Jul 28th 2015 at 3:22:15 PM

Cross-posting from the Languages thread on Yack Fest:

Kudos to the authors at Haaretz who clearly have Shown Their Work. tongue

The Israeli newspaper is technically paywalled, but they allow one to view up to six articles per month with a simple registered non-purchased account. I highly recommend it.

Why Hebrew has so many words for 'penis'

Ancient scribes in biblical times squirming at saying That Word begat euphemism creep. Thus were born dozens of terms for penis in Hebrew, an otherwise rather sparse language.

_______________________________

Hebrew has a great abundance of words for the penis, though it's usually a rather sparse language. This is because in Jewish culture, as in many others, the male organ is the subject of taboo and like other unmentionable subjects, it is prone to a process called ‘euphemism creep.’ Speakers shy at calling the taboo subject by name, and use a euphemism instead. Eventually this euphemism itself becomes tainted through use, and a new euphemism replaces it. Thus, creep generates a richness of synonyms not shared by non-taboo words.

Euphemism creep didn't start yesterday. The Bible is replete with circumlocutions for penis, to the extent that it isn’t clear what the actual word for penis was in ancient Israel.

Biblical allusions include basar (“flesh”, Exodus 28:42), erva (“nakedness”, Leviticus 18:6), mevoshim (“private parts”, Deuteronomy 25:11), regel (“leg”, 2 Kings 18:27), shofkha (“spout”, Deuteronomy 23:1), yad (“Hand”, Isaiah 57:8), and me’or (“Nakedness”, Habakkuk 2:15).

Later, during the times of the Mishnah and the Talmud (the first six centuries of the Common Era), the rabbis added some more euphemisms to those of eld: panim shel mata (“lower face”, Shabbat 41a), ama (“middle finger”, Shabbat 108b), etzba (“finger”, Pesachim 112b), shamash (“helper”, Nidah 60b), gevia (“corpse”, Negaim 6:7), parmashtaq (probably a Persian word for “penis”, Mo’ed Katan 18a), and evar (“organ”, Bava Mezia 84a).

In the Middle Ages, even though Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language, rabbis kept up the pace. New names of the era included: brit (“covenant” - referring to circumcision), gevura (“manliness”), geed (“tendon”), zakhrut (“maleness”), zanav (“tail”) and kama (“ripe sheaf”).

The rise of the zayin

With such an abundance of suggestions at their disposal, and these lists are not exhaustive, you would think that when Hebrew was reborn as a spoken language starting in the late 19th century, the new Hebrew speakers – preoccupied with finding words for the modern world - would settle for the rich pickings from previous generations of Jews over millennia. Not so. New words had to be found.

An early “modern” word for penis, zereg, was first noticed among giggling children at Tel Aviv’s Gymnasia Herzliya school in the early 20th century. It may have been a corruption of gezer (“carrot”) or zerek (“hose” - defunct).

Another word springing from the classrooms of early Tel-Aviv is zayin, which is by far the most common used word for penis in contemporary Hebrew, though – you stand warned - it is considered vulgar.

Etymologists have proposed many theories for the origin of this word. One is early Hebrew speakers referred to their organs as weapons, and zayin in fact simply meant “weapon” before its association became too dirty for that use.

Zayin is also the seventh letter of Hebrew. Some suggest the organ was named for the letter because of its phallic shape (ז) or because the letter itself was used as a euphemism for a dirty word starting with zayin (much as English uses “The F-Word”), perhaps zereg, zachrut or zanav mentioned above or - less likely - the vulgar Arabic term for “penis” - zubb/zubr/zubby, the last of which is still used by Israelis today.

Jewels and dragons

Two Yiddishisms adopted by Hebrew that became popular colloquialisms for penis are shmock and shtrungool.

Shtrungool is apparently a Hebrew corruption of strunckel - “little (tree) trunk.” As for shmock, Hebrew embraced it as it was in Yiddish - a vulgar word for penis (unlike English, in which the variant "schmuck" means “idiot”).

Some Yiddishists think shmock originated in the German for “jewels,” Schmock, or from an ancient Polish word for “snake, dragon” – smok; or from a corruption of the diminutive of Yiddish for “stick” - shtekl.

Other fairly common euphemisms for penis include katan, which simply means “little,” and bulbul, a children's word for penis.

How bulbul could become a word for penis is unclear. There's a common bird named bulbul, of the Pycnonotidae family (not so weird - think of "cock"). Or maybe the word originated in the name of a stick, weirdly called bulbul, which Israeli kids used when playing doodes (a local version of cricket). Or maybe it came from an Arabic word for “spout,” bulbula.

The polite, “official” word for penis is peen, and it comes from an ancient typographical error.

The Mishnah, a treatise on Jewish law written in roughly 200 CE, has a passage that reads “A key of metal with pins of wood is pure” (Kelim 13:6). The word for pins here is khapeen.

But sometime over the generations, a scribe made a mistake, replacing the first letter, khet (ח), with the nearly identical looking hei (ה). From "khapeen" – pins, plural, the word was mistakenly rendered as "hapeen," the pin.

In modern Hebrew too, pin came to be peen. And when Hebrew revivers were looking for a word for penis, they decided peen would do for that too. It was reminiscent of penis and pins sort of look like tiny penises.

This actually caught on. But in the 1950s, the Hebrew Language Academy chose not peen but evar ("organ") as the official word for penis, or evar meen – "sex organ".

People did indeed take to saying evar meen, which was used for both male and female naughty parts, but in writing the word remained peen. Then in 2009, the academy caved in to the public and made peen the official word. But although it was the will of the people and it's official to boot –it's rarely used when speaking any more. It's considered too prissy.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#35: Jul 29th 2015 at 2:02:30 AM

The peen is EVIL.

God, taboos are so ridiculous.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#36: Jul 29th 2015 at 8:32:33 AM

[up] Zardoz speaks to you?

It's like some weird form of Streisand Effect, where the more squicked they get about genitalia, the more their language(s) sound like they love to talk about it. tongue

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Victin Since: Dec, 2011
#37: Jul 29th 2015 at 9:57:24 AM

[up]Do you mean an Euphemism Treadmill effect?

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#38: Jul 29th 2015 at 10:05:48 AM

Something like that, although complicated by the time gaps involved in usage of Hebrew and such languages.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
SaintDeltora The Mistress from The Land Of Corruption and Debauchery Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
The Mistress
#39: Aug 18th 2015 at 11:39:16 AM

Maybe this will start some discussion.

Some people on the University of New Hampshire tried to create a heavily controversial "bias-free language guide" that was meant to eliminate bias in our language and avoid stereotyping.

While the idea is nothing unusual, several people had complaints with the words they considered problematic and their replacements. This included "disabled people" turning into "wheelchair user" as well as "rich person" into "person with material wealth".

It didn't take long before the UNH President disavowed the guide..

So, do any of you have any thoughts about it? Is this Political Correctness Gone Mad? Was it well-intentioned but dissapointing? Or was it actually a pretty good idea?

Thoughts?

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#40: Aug 18th 2015 at 11:51:08 AM

They discovered

Adjectives

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
SaintDeltora The Mistress from The Land Of Corruption and Debauchery Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
The Mistress
#41: Aug 18th 2015 at 11:58:21 AM

[up]Well, one could say that this could be used as a thought experiment on how languages would be, and the people who communicate through it, if you removed most adjectives and replaced them with just stating the definitions.

I imagine it would get very tiring, very fast.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#42: Aug 18th 2015 at 12:03:37 PM

Words arent everything anyways. Words are important but listen. Just say things in a snarky tone, add air quotes around it, or simply use it in a negative context and the thing is, once again, offensive with intention.

It is not as simple as just giving it another name.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
SaintDeltora The Mistress from The Land Of Corruption and Debauchery Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
The Mistress
#43: Aug 18th 2015 at 12:07:57 PM

Plus, while the language may change. The bias in the people who use it aren't necessarily gonna do so as well.

For example, yeah, you can take "Person of material wealth" as a way to combat the implicit bias of those who hate rich people. But let's be honest, if more people start using it, then it won't take too long before people start hating the persons of material wealth just as much as they hated "rich" people.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!
Morgikit Mikon :3 from War Drobe, Spare Oom Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Mikon :3
#44: Aug 18th 2015 at 2:16:44 PM

What if you're disabled, but don't use a wheelchair?

Also, "person of material wealth" just seems like a way to feed some rich people's persecution complex. And if there's one thing I dislike about the wealthy, it's a refusal to acknowledge they enjoy privleges the rest of us do not.

AnotherDuck No, the other one. from Stockholm Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Mu
No, the other one.
#45: Aug 18th 2015 at 4:09:04 PM

[up][up]Yeah, that's my thinking. It doesn't matter what the words actually are and what they technically mean. They will gain "bias" connotations anyway. So Political Correctness Gone Mad. Or a fun experiment, depending on how seriously they take themselves.

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BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#46: Aug 18th 2015 at 4:26:00 PM

I'm not at all convinced that this was meant to be taken as a serious suggestion. At least from what I've seen of it it looks more like a very preliminary look into something that could be worked on later. Some of the terms suggested are simply stupid, but you can see where they'd come from and that's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a rough draft or an outline for a further discussion.

Note also that it's not made or endorsed by any official authority within the university.

Also, since we're on the subject, I'll just mention that I think political correctness in general is a very good thing and definitely something everyone should take into consideration. The stories about "political correctness gone mad" are almost always ill-informed or cherry-picked, or downright malicious.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
AnotherDuck No, the other one. from Stockholm Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Mu
No, the other one.
#47: Aug 18th 2015 at 4:58:52 PM

I believe that if you want to talk about respecting other people, that's the word to use. In terms of that project, "politically correct" would be a good expression to deem problematic. What it should mean is just respecting other people. How it's normally used is something artificial that's tacked on to hide what you're really thinking, whether you're thinking it or not, because you're totally not thinking it.

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Morgikit Mikon :3 from War Drobe, Spare Oom Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Mikon :3
#48: Aug 18th 2015 at 5:13:35 PM

There should be another term for political correctness. The name kind of sounds like you're out to score political points, which is what detractors seem to believe. When it's more about trying not to be deliberately offensive. It bothers me when people pride themselves on being politically incorrect. Basically, they're being an asshole and bragging about it.

Antiteilchen In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good. Since: Sep, 2013
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
#49: Aug 18th 2015 at 6:44:54 PM

There should be another term for political correctness.
There is: Decency.

AnotherDuck No, the other one. from Stockholm Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Mu
No, the other one.
#50: Aug 18th 2015 at 6:47:25 PM

There's a large amount of room between "politically correct" and "politically incorrect". I tend to see the latter used in terms of deliberately using terms that offends other people, often for that purpose under the veil of freedom of speech. The former I tend to see as avoiding any words that could offend anyone at all, which often comes off as stilted.

[up]"Decency" is far wider, though, so it's not a particularly precise synonym.

edited 18th Aug '15 6:48:51 PM by AnotherDuck

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