We=people who use the language, people in this thread, etc.
I don't see that happening, what you describe about a "privileged majority" saying that to anyone else. What I see is asshats and non-asshats. But you don't have to be privileged to be an asshat, nor does privilege necessarily mean you'll be one either.
Re: numbers, how should I know? I'd wager no one would. But at the same time, some people are oversensitive. Should we just ban every word that anyone could possibly percieve as offensive on the off chance that they would? How far back do we go in word meanings? 1950? 1900? 1750? Middle ages? Earlier?
You keep seeming to veer away from the position of my stance. You're delving more into the social aspects while I've said several times that I'm talking about things from a linguistic standpoint. If the offensive definition isn't present at all in the modern usage, why should we keep reviving ancient definitions? We don't do that in any other case. Does anyone really bring up that a "secretary" used to mean the desk being written on rather than the person doing the writing? Does anyone use "saunter" to mean "dream" any more? Or "doom" to be a law or decree? If those meanings are gone, then what's keeping offense around?
Would we be offended by "addict" since it used to refer to slavery? Are we to find "gauche" or "sinister" offensive because they originally refered to left-handers? I really don't think people would, simply on account of them being so ancient in those meanings that they don't matter any more.
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Date: 2011-02-03 08:18 am (UTC)I don't see that happening, what you describe about a "privileged majority" saying that to anyone else. What I see is asshats and non-asshats. But you don't have to be privileged to be an asshat, nor does privilege necessarily mean you'll be one either.
Re: numbers, how should I know? I'd wager no one would. But at the same time, some people are oversensitive. Should we just ban every word that anyone could possibly percieve as offensive on the off chance that they would? How far back do we go in word meanings? 1950? 1900? 1750? Middle ages? Earlier?
You keep seeming to veer away from the position of my stance. You're delving more into the social aspects while I've said several times that I'm talking about things from a linguistic standpoint. If the offensive definition isn't present at all in the modern usage, why should we keep reviving ancient definitions? We don't do that in any other case. Does anyone really bring up that a "secretary" used to mean the desk being written on rather than the person doing the writing? Does anyone use "saunter" to mean "dream" any more? Or "doom" to be a law or decree? If those meanings are gone, then what's keeping offense around?
Would we be offended by "addict" since it used to refer to slavery? Are we to find "gauche" or "sinister" offensive because they originally refered to left-handers? I really don't think people would, simply on account of them being so ancient in those meanings that they don't matter any more.