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ELP is offensive to English people | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6125 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 33 of 46 02 December 2010 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Whatever terminology is used, someone is going to get offended. It would be nice if people would just give each other a break and assume that the "offensive" term was probably not meant to offend at all. But some people really enjoy being self-righteous (says she, smugly).
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| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 34 of 46 02 December 2010 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is ONE example, it's very old and quite specific. Do you really think this example refutes the statement that political correctness has a strong influence on modern media and discourse? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 35 of 46 02 December 2010 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I doubt whether "political correctness" stops racists from being racists, and its power seems to me exaggerated. Right-wing parties seem to reap huge numbers of votes by exploiting anti-immigrant feeling, anti-Muslim feeling, anti-Roma feeling, or whatever the favourite prejudice is. On the Internet Movie Database, a commentator noted that the Nazi film Jud Süss (1940) was very "politically incorrect". Indeed. It was a curtain-raiser to the Holocaust, in fact. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 36 of 46 02 December 2010 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This thread has turned into quite the caricature of an arm-chair linguist. The term "backward" has now been compared to no less than three separate racial slurs.
Good job, people. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 02 December 2010 at 2:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 37 of 46 02 December 2010 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's the whole point. People can't distinguish between racism and linguistics. If you don't like negroes, it doesn't matter if someone forces you to call them black, coloured, African-Americans or whatever, you'd still not like them. I'm saying that PC won't make people love each other, it's just a pointless restriction on speech. To it's proponents, it's also a way for them to feel good about themselves. "I say Beijing instead of Peking, so I atone for everything bad that Europeans have ever done to the Chinese (nevermind that they call England Yingguo)."
How is this even remotely relevant? Just because something can be un-PC and racist, do you think this proves that everything that is not PC is racism? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5524 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 38 of 46 02 December 2010 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think that this discussion is too much about "political correctness" and it ignores whether or not something is nice. I hate "political correctness", but I still don't really like to call people "backward".
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 39 of 46 02 December 2010 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
Then your English isn't as good as it seems (and it does usually seem very good). "Backwards" is an adverb of motion. It does not only imply that they're less developed, it implies regression and degeneration, that they are becoming less civilised. This is why it is not only offensive but also incorrect.
No, they are native speakers, but native speakers of Indian English. As they were mostly talked down to by the British invaders, they learned a lot of words as "normal" that would have been considered hugely offensive if they had been applied to a white man. As to the recurring question of "what is the benchmark against which some areas are deemed as backward", I don't see why this is so interesting but it seems reasonable to use either the country average or the most developed part of a country as baseline. I think the real problem here is that whereas I don't consider backwardness bad in itself, many people think that a man should be judge solely on his financial and educational merits. Being a traditional Christian, I don't necessarily think that education, wealth or civilisation (especially the modern kind) arer conducive to salvation. For this reason it does not upset me that some regions or people are called backward, since this is unrelated to a human being's real worth. [/QUOTE] 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 40 of 46 02 December 2010 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"Backwards" may be an adverb, but "backward" can certainly be used as an adjective, but even if you had been right about this, the meaning of the word would still not have to imply regression. Words do not always follow their etymology slavishly, and "backward" has actually been used to mean "behindhand with regard to progress" ever since the late 17th century. Take that, Mr Native Speaker.
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