Monday, August 24, 2009

And you can't call it "English", because it implies that another ethnicity might fuck it up.

2 comments:

kr said...

Of course, since they are in Ireland, English isn't their native language anyhow so why are people all in knots about correcting its shortcomings?

I think all of those changes are very valid suggestions for governmental employees and organizational statements. They are minor changes that help to stop reinforcing outdated cultural patterns. The government has a reasonable responsibility to recognize the equality of all persons, and I didn't see even one phrase I disagreed with. (And yes I fully recognize that several of the phrases about "black" had nothing directly to do with race, but rather were sourced out of the general Indo-European light/dark value judgement ... but it is precisely that inherited set of values that caused and continues to drive paleskin-centric racism, so totally legitimate to include those as far as I am concerned.)

And, not to speak for my entire gender, but it would make a huge difference to me if those male = master, male = dependable type exclusionary phrases were dropped from our conceptual lexicon.

The English were an ugly, ugly people, culturally, with a(n admittedly thick) veneer of civility established with a heavy scepter by the bloodthirsty tyrant, Queen Elizabeth I. Just because we inherited the language, doesn't make it sacred.

(Your tagline was pretty funny, though.)

VLW said...

Welcome to Oceania:
http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-dict.html