Over 20 Jewish groups from US and Spanish-speaking countries call on Spain’s linguistic authority to drop two antisemitic definitions from its dictionary
It’s like in Polish - the word “żyd” (jew) has negative connotations, and maybe it becomes rare in usage these days, but the negative meaning sticks. It’s still an offense to call somebody that.
We have more words like this (cygan, rumun) that on its own are official words for etnicity or nationality, but carry some negative meaning. We also have dedicated words to call many different groups in offensive ways.
However languages happen organically and they reflect how people speak, not the other way that there’s some sort of entity that dictates how the entire population should speak (although reformations are possible).
Funny how people try to regulate that by law. We had such case in Polish when few years ago feminists tried to change how we call professions that are typically assigned with men, but some women are also performing them (police officer, firefigter, ministry etc). Some of those forms didn’t make sense completely due to semantics, some were dropped from the language decades ago and sound archaic or unnatural, the lobby lead to memes at the very most.
Fireman and policeman in English are also not offensive because they aren’t referring to gender or sex.
Human - Group
Humans - Collective Individuals
Man - Individual
Men - Collective Individuals (Non-sexed)
Not to be conflated with
Men - Collective (Sex Male)
Women - Collective (Sex Female) Wo - Female, men - collective individuals (non-sexed).
Keep in mind these are all traditional definitions and were constructed before sex and gender were determined to be separate and before intersex was a classification.
We now often conflate those in common English with human and man and person being interchangeable. As man (individual) with man (sex). And many others conflate sex and gender.
The arguments for removing gender from professions is based on the misapprehension that the professions were ever related to gender and as a result mass illiteracy has made it an “issue”.
It’s like in Polish - the word “żyd” (jew) has negative connotations, and maybe it becomes rare in usage these days, but the negative meaning sticks. It’s still an offense to call somebody that.
We have more words like this (cygan, rumun) that on its own are official words for etnicity or nationality, but carry some negative meaning. We also have dedicated words to call many different groups in offensive ways.
However languages happen organically and they reflect how people speak, not the other way that there’s some sort of entity that dictates how the entire population should speak (although reformations are possible).
Funny how people try to regulate that by law. We had such case in Polish when few years ago feminists tried to change how we call professions that are typically assigned with men, but some women are also performing them (police officer, firefigter, ministry etc). Some of those forms didn’t make sense completely due to semantics, some were dropped from the language decades ago and sound archaic or unnatural, the lobby lead to memes at the very most.
That movement worked though. You wrote police officer and firefighter instead of policeman and fireman.
Fireman and policeman in English are also not offensive because they aren’t referring to gender or sex.
Human - Group
Humans - Collective Individuals
Man - Individual
Men - Collective Individuals (Non-sexed)
Not to be conflated with
Men - Collective (Sex Male)
Women - Collective (Sex Female)
Wo - Female, men - collective individuals (non-sexed).
Keep in mind these are all traditional definitions and were constructed before sex and gender were determined to be separate and before intersex was a classification.
We now often conflate those in common English with human and man and person being interchangeable. As man (individual) with man (sex). And many others conflate sex and gender.
Firefighters - Group
Fireman - Firefighting Individual
Firemen - Firefighting Collective (Non-sexed)
Police - Group
Policeman - Policing Individual
Policemen - Policing Collective (Non-sexed)
The arguments for removing gender from professions is based on the misapprehension that the professions were ever related to gender and as a result mass illiteracy has made it an “issue”.