Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

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Madner Kami
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Madner Kami »

BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:22 pm In French, feminization of words I was told is a form of distinction from the generic tense, which kinda makes "masculine" somewhat a misnomer if you were to ascribe it to a male/female dichotomy. I guess it makes sense that man can be more indicative of a human distinction that actually distinguishes a male homosapien from a male animal of another type.
Oh god, if you really want to open that can of worms, I can bring a good example from the german language. In English, there is the word "the". In German, we translate it with either "der", "die" or "das", depending on the *allegedly* percieved sex/gender of the following object (male/female/genderless). "Der Mann" (the man), "die Frau" (the woman), "das Kind" (the child). But the fact of the matter is, that der, die and das do not at all denote the sex of the object. What these words actually denote, from an ethymological point of view is, where the word actually comes from or, to some degree, when these words came into the german language.
To keep it simple (it's always more complex, but we really don't need to get into every little detail here), "der" denotes a "native" german word that has been part of the language for time immemorial. "Die" refers to words that come from another language (or are relatively recent combinations of "native" german words), but have been "naturalized" to the german language and "das" refers to a relatively newly adopted, usually foreign word. In other words, if we wait just long enough, "die Frau" will became "der Frau" at some point and "das Kind" will become "die Kind" at some point in the distant future.

And just as an example, there are the words "Mädel" (similarly used to "lass" or "gal") and "Mädchen" (girl). We say "das Mädel" and "das Mädchen". A "Mädel" or "Mädchen" is clearly female, yet we use "das". So the words must come from a different language or are a really really really recent addition to the german language? And yes, that is actually the case. Both words came into the german language at about the 15th to 16th century and they developed from the word "die Magd" or rather, more specifically, the word that developed into the "Magd", namely "Meged", the maid or maidservant.
Or, to really make things go wild. In German, the CPU is "die CPU", but we also say "der Zentralprozessor" and also "die zentrale Recheneinheit". It all refers to the exact same thing, yet these words get a different "sexed" article. Oh and humankind? It's "die Menschheit", but "der Mensch".

A bit complicating for that matter is, though, that those three words can not just be used as the english language uses the word "the", but can also be used like the english language uses "he, she and it". This lead the relatively recent perception that those articles denote the sex/gender of the object, which actually, technically, is not the case, as pointed out above.

And I feel that I need to point it out: I really, reeeeeaaaaaally hate language-policing or language-sanitizing. People who try to do that usually completely miss the point and focus on one aspect of their language, without actually knowing or even remotely understanding what is actually going on in their own damn language and this infuriates me, because it feels like the equivalent of a four year old trying tell me how the world works, after being home-schooled by someone who never had any education.
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Yukaphile »

Perhaps, but in the modern era, we hear "man," we think "male." Most people are not intelligent or learned enough to understand the long history behind it, so changing the language is quite important to get a social revolution going that could do some good.
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Madner Kami »

Man, you really shouldn't pretend it's lack of education, when it's always a question of context and either lacking or willfully ignoring it.
Maybe you should start looking at your language in a different way? Context is everything in every language and leaving context out means you remove the meaning. Like your name. Yukaphile, Yuka-lover. I abbreviate it to Yuka, a female first name in japanese. Someone who comes here and reads me calling you Yuka, might come to the conclusion that you are female. That person lacks context. Or when you write "Mander Kami". Someone who is not aware of my existence will think you are refering to an actual poster here, instead of you just either being incapable of reading my name properly or being incapable of typing it properly. Words are meaningless without context, no matter how much language-policers pretend otherwise.
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Yukaphile »

This is not about policing language, it's just about trying to get other people to think in new directions, and I'm using myself as a baseline because I gotta be honest, I think I'm representative of most people in that I don't consider myself very smart, and I don't think most people are either. It's not even lack of education that a lot of people don't tend to think things over that much, or that they don't care, or that they take it for granted, or absorb the groupthink so it becomes what they feel and believe.
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by BridgeConsoleMasher »

Riedquat wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:31 pm
BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2019 5:20 am
Color Blindness as is in general is considered passively racist, but not for treating people equally as is put.
Who by? The people who scream "look at me, I'm DIFFERENT!" in the face of people who couldn't care less? Usually by people who then go on to claim on one hand that everyone is equal and try to insist that the differences that make the world an interesting place don't exist on the other.
I am familiar.

I wouldn't say that that really describes Madner or clearspira though.

The people you're talking about, I'll go ahead and call it a significant problem. Who wouldn't? But I'm not going to flip it and say that anybody not speaking with exclusive consideration to such social systems on a broad level are purely enablers of that sort.

And I'll go ahead and affirm that there's plenty you can say about people that aren't educated on all the social issues, and that that's a topic in itself.
..What mirror universe?
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by BridgeConsoleMasher »

Madner Kami wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:35 pm
BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:22 pm In French, feminization of words I was told is a form of distinction from the generic tense, which kinda makes "masculine" somewhat a misnomer if you were to ascribe it to a male/female dichotomy. I guess it makes sense that man can be more indicative of a human distinction that actually distinguishes a male homosapien from a male animal of another type.
Oh god, if you really want to open that can of worms, I can bring a good example from the german language. In English, there is the word "the". In German, we translate it with either "der", "die" or "das", depending on the *allegedly* percieved sex/gender of the following object (male/female/genderless). "Der Mann" (the man), "die Frau" (the woman), "das Kind" (the child). But the fact of the matter is, that der, die and das do not at all denote the sex of the object. What these words actually denote, from an ethymological point of view is, where the word actually comes from or, to some degree, when these words came into the german language.
To keep it simple (it's always more complex, but we really don't need to get into every little detail here), "der" denotes a "native" german word that has been part of the language for time immemorial. "Die" refers to words that come from another language (or are relatively recent combinations of "native" german words), but have been "naturalized" to the german language and "das" refers to a relatively newly adopted, usually foreign word. In other words, if we wait just long enough, "die Frau" will became "der Frau" at some point and "das Kind" will become "die Kind" at some point in the distant future.

And just as an example, there are the words "Mädel" (similarly used to "lass" or "gal") and "Mädchen" (girl). We say "das Mädel" and "das Mädchen". A "Mädel" or "Mädchen" is clearly female, yet we use "das". So the words must come from a different language or are a really really really recent addition to the german language? And yes, that is actually the case. Both words came into the german language at about the 15th to 16th century and they developed from the word "die Magd" or rather, more specifically, the word that developed into the "Magd", namely "Meged", the maid or maidservant.
Or, to really make things go wild. In German, the CPU is "die CPU", but we also say "der Zentralprozessor" and also "die zentrale Recheneinheit". It all refers to the exact same thing, yet these words get a different "sexed" article. Oh and humankind? It's "die Menschheit", but "der Mensch".

A bit complicating for that matter is, though, that those three words can not just be used as the english language uses the word "the", but can also be used like the english language uses "he, she and it". This lead the relatively recent perception that those articles denote the sex/gender of the object, which actually, technically, is not the case, as pointed out above.

And I feel that I need to point it out: I really, reeeeeaaaaaally hate language-policing or language-sanitizing. People who try to do that usually completely miss the point and focus on one aspect of their language, without actually knowing or even remotely understanding what is actually going on in their own damn language and this infuriates me, because it feels like the equivalent of a four year old trying tell me how the world works, after being home-schooled by someone who never had any education.
That part about the CPU is weird, as you make it sound like virtually nobody knows why you all do that.

The historical context that you denoted before that is interesting, but yeah sounds kind of jumbled when it overlaps with gender distinction and I don't really see the consistency there lol.

I've been told that even English has a lack of consistency compared to the romantics, but all I'll really say is that it's weird how we did adopt a subset of words from the French language. One word that is distinctly American that french adopted: dinosaur. Not even spelled different at all, though the phonetics are francophone consistent (apparently Google translate adds an e at the end of it, but I thought I remember the vocabulary book specifically lacking the e).

Funny thing I feel about my language is that when you learn about the English roots, you start to learn about how indistinguishable it gets when you go back a thousand years. Not sure if that was just a language protocol thing or if it had more to do with dialect and specific terminology.
..What mirror universe?
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Madner Kami
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Madner Kami »

Thing is, native speakers never really think about why they do what they do. You develop a "feeling" for the language, due to all your experience with it. No German thinks about why it's "die CPU" but "der Prozessor", we just say it or why nearly all english words imported into the german language get "die" as an article (it's due to how our languages are related). Same for English. Nobody thinks about the sex, when you talk about a co-worker or a senator or a writer, unless the sex is revealed in context.
The sad thing is then, that "feelings" are very subjective. Someone who sees the world through a lens of sexism and racism, will take loads of issues with things like a chairman, even though there is absolutely nothing to see there in the first place. Chasing shadows, while failing to understand the basics of what they try to police.
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Yukaphile »

Well, I can safely say I'm probably pretty much the average joe in America on this topic, lol. And yeah, people don't care to research it themselves even in the age of information. One thing you gotta understand, my friend, is that Germany is part of what I think of as the properly advanced Western culture. You graduate more scientists than us, for example, and so and so forth. And even if there's a few idiot people I've met over there, like everywhere else in the world, on the whole I think many more Western nations are more intelligent and learned than Americans. We're too self-indulgent in Earthly pleasures like streaming services, fast food, and other, um... more base pleasures, to really care about that boring (tch!) learning stuff.
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Madner Kami »

If you think that Germans are literally a people of poets and thinkers, you only display your terrible understanding of the world. People are the same. Everywhere. Almost nobody will know things outside of their immediate daily life and zone of interest, but will not let that get into the way of having an opinion about everything and assuming that they are right, because nobody thinks of himself as uneducated or flat out stupid, including myself.
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Re: Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

Post by Yukaphile »

True, that is stereotyping a bit. But I meant on the average, I think there's a lot smarter people in other Western nations than here. Then again, I tend to feel very ashamed of my country. It's why I don't give a damn about national borders, lol, past the pragmatic "it's just a line, with good and bad."
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
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