At 2:43 PM +0700 2/18/08, paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>(summary of this post: correct use of the language should reflect the
>evolution of belief sysems and information systems should be able to
>capture/represent that, sort of)
>
>John
>
>thanks for reply.
>
>I knew when I wrote 'political correctness' that it might be a
>controversial expression (cant win apparently)
>
>I am aware of the trail behind it (which I am not going to dig in, as
>I agree that PC can get out of hand) however I think it conveyed the
>intended meaning: the point was understood (the word 'man' intended
>to point to humanity reflects a male-centric view of the world, and
>may show lack of consideration for women who feel they are a separate
>gender)
>
>There are plenty such examples and the trend is 'improving', we now
>prefer to use people-hours instead of men- hours, etc. (01)
But there are also new lapses. The popularity of
some English comedy movies has introduced the US
to a new range of English slang in a kind of
pre-euphemised context, so that US folk seem to
be unaware of their real meanings. I saw a
perfectly normal middle-aged wife walking last
week with a bag which said "I just got shagged at
the mall" in huge red lettering. I'm sure she had
no idea what it meant (for non-UK readers: 'shag'
is pretty much a synonym for 'f**k'). I guess
that in Florida it now means something different.
Another example is the loss of the original
meaning of "yahoo", which for my grandfather was
about the most insulting word in his vocabulary. (02)
> There is a lot
>in the language that reflects underlying social assumptions, not just
>gender discrimination but also social, racial discrimination etc which
>are deeply rooted in our beliefs systems and reflected in our
>languages. Often people are not aware of the true meaning of the
>words they use. (03)
You mean the true *origins*, not the true
meaning. I have no idea how 'nitty gritty'
originated, but I know what it means now, and
that is not the least offensive. (04)
>When I learned the possible origin of 'nitty gritty'
>, I stopped using it quite naturally, it felt like bad taste, given
>the doublt.
>quote/
>Dr Jonathan Lighter, in the Random House Historical Dictionary of
>American Slang, records the first example from 1956: "You'll find
>nobody comes down to the nitty-gritty when it calls for namin' things
>for what they are". As it is here fully formed, and has the now
>customary sense of the fundamental issues, the heart of the matter, or
>the most important aspects of some situation, it had by then probably
>already been in use for some while (I know of two people who claim to
>have come across it in the 1920s). But it is inconceivable that it
>should have been around since slave-ship days without somebody writing
>it down.
>
>http://www.worldwidewords.org/index.htm
>/quote
>
>
>Other choice of words may be cultural (oriental vs asian)
>
>this is fun read
>http://www.danwei.org/media_regulation/xinhuas_guidelines_for_politic.php
>
>I think when we design for the future we should try to embed
>'correctness' (05)
I think, au contraire, that we should ignore it.
It is impossible to predict what will become
politically correct in the future: the whims of
linguistic fashion are indeed truly chaotic. (06)
Pat (07)
>, and be able to gauge the correctess values according to
>our value system
>
>lots and lots to dig in there...
>
>
>PDM
>
>
>
>On 2/18/08, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Paola,
>>
>> I was going over some of the older messages that I had missed,
>> and I came across the following item:
>>
>> PDM> I am not going to say anything about the pain that lack
>> > of political correctness throughout history has brought upon
>> > humanity, however, I am sure an application can be built to
>> > parse all the politically incorrect statements that exist on
>> > the web and modify them accordingly to bring them up to current
>> > acceptable standards of ethics (else archived them under
>> > 'obsolete' label)
> >
>> That raises an important point that goes beyond words to the
>> underlying attitude that leads to those words. The term
>> "politically correct" was popular about twenty years ago,
>> but many people found it very artificial and stilted.
>>
>> The people who proposed that term wanted to avoid offending anyone,
>> but they created some fixed and frozen rules and lists of good
>> words and bad words. Yet any such list is arbitrary. People
>> with hatred in their hearts can use the best possible words,
>> but anything they say will sound insincere and offensive.
>>
>> Anybody who has good will and a sense of fairness and friendship
>> can say almost anything without offending anyone. A person who is
>> unfamiliar with a culture should get a brief summary of the local
>> customs, including taboo words. But an occasional lapse will be
>> excused. A person who is not friendly can offend just by walking
>> into a room without saying anything.
>>
>> And that raises a very serious question about language understanding.
>> Just having a list of good words and bad words isn't sufficient for
>> a computer (or a human) to express or understand intentions.
>>
>> Subtle patterns are very important, and they affect every aspect
>> of understanding -- both linguistic and nonlinguistic. People
>> (and even cats and dogs) recognize those patterns instinctively,
>> but programming a computer to recognize them is not easy.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>--
>Paola Di Maio
>School of IT
>www.mfu.ac.th
>*********************************************
>
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