@Wolfs said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
Do you also go around trying to tell people "gay" really ought to mean someone's just happy?
No but I have asked for clarification on which usage someone was using before.
And to your first question I have never seen stubborn as a bad thing when I am also factually correct.
@ThatGuyThere Well, you can be factually correct all you like on this one. It doesn't change what the primary usage of "American" is accepted as today in relation to racial descriptors.
@ThatGuyThere Uhhh no, the language is not being misused, you just legitimately have no clue how language actually works. You're setting an arbitrary standard for what is proper English based on what is essentially an entirely subjective opinion of how it should work. You're using broken ass American English like everyone else, you're not even using British English, and British English isn't even properly standardized.
Like, you do realize that we aren't French, correct? Because French is a language with government set standards, with banned words or banned usages of words, and crazy shit like that (correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been told this about French multiple times). So how exactly is someone who's speaking broken as hell modern English going to single out one minor thing that irks them about the modern form of the language that they themselves are speaking, to decide that's their hill to die on?
You're making an entirely irrational argument. We've all evolved with the language, you didn't learn proper English anymore than anyone else has. You just chose one aspect of English to decide "You know what, my language is being misused". Literally using colloquial language in every single post you're writing about people misusing the language.
Like, damn, dude. At least think about these things a little bit before you start debating people about them. Or at least stop using filthy low-born slang in every single post about people misusing English.
edit: Saying you're factually correct is also a misuse of the language, because you're not actually factually correct, due to pretty much wholesale ignoring the science of languages.
edit 2: You must really fucking hate Shakespeare.
...can the semantics argument move to a new thread? Please? Maybe a thread just for semantic arguments? (We have plenty of them on the regular, it'd doubtless be a busy thread! 
)
Oh fucking well.
@surreality Probably for the best, and you don't have to worry about me wasting any more time on that part here.
I'm gonna wash my hands of it because it's dumb as shit.
@Wolfs No worries! Not mad or anything, it's an interesting discussion, just one we have a lot, and it probably deserves its own topic since language use comes up a lot (and in like... 2-3 threads just this week alone) so it's worth collecting them.
...also I kinda want a home for bad typos to live, because sometimes, they're golden. Let the taunt abdomen thread commence! <cymbals>
@HelloProject
Dude, cut it out. One oversized animation is what it is, but this is the constructive thread about people we might not like.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain I will control my natural millennial instincts to communicate with images, and use my words instead.
@HelloProject said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
@ThatGuyThere Except that you're entirely marrying yourself to the technicalities of how the words should work rather than how the words are actually used, which is pretty much a gross misunderstanding of language.
I no doubt agree that "America" is not technically the name of the country, and yet I'm going to continue to refer to the US as "America", because it's a commonly accepted way to refer to the country, to the point that "America" is a commonly accepted word for the US in multiple languages. Getting bogged down by such a technicality to the point that it "irks" you would be like me being irked by the fact that you're colloquially using the word "hell" in a way that technically makes no sense, which would be a real argument I could make if I decided to entirely ignore how language works too.
This is wrong. If you had read my earlier post about this very same thing, you'd know a lot of other languages use a completely different term for people who live in the United States. In fact, most of the languages that use 'American' to refer to people from the U.S. are used predominantly in countries that 1) have no cultural interest in America as a continent, and 2) primarily do business with the United States, and not the rest of America, and thus have absolutely no need to respect any sort of linguistics that would take into account those appropriative boundaries.
You know what does irk me?
When people who have no clue how language works talk about technicalities that don't actually apply to everyday dialogue all the time, as if suddenly having complete and utter cultural blindness to their own language, for reasons that could only be described as "no goddamned reason", or "I like to think I'm a really smart dude, surely no one can deconstruct what's wrong with my argument, it's not like languages are a science or anything".
You know damned well how the term African-American is commonly used, just like you know damned well how the terms "America" and "American" are commonly used. You can be irked all you want, and I'll just be irked by the fact that you don't seem to understand the fundamentals of what I assume is your native language.
What I know damn well is that the term 'African-American' is commonly used to refer to black people in the United States by people from the United States. This sort of thing you just posted just goes to show that you're still thinking that 'common use' applies only based on your country's, not, you know, the rest of the world. So while I understand your point, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out it's based entirely on an imperialistic mindset foisted on you by your own society.
You constantly talk about how you're reevaluating your life, exploring your roots, trying to open up to other experiences--okay, this is a good opportunity for you to stop, back up a bit, and try to see this particular issue from someone else's point of view.
@Wolfs said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
"American" has always applied to the United States by default, not the North/South American continents themselves. This dates back to the American colonies when the English crossed the Atlantic.
If you use "African-American," the vast majority of people out there know and understand this to be talking about a US Citizen.
If you really want to differentiate it that much, you need to be using "Americas" or "the Americas." By itself, "America" is understood to mean the USA.
Again, this is essentially just based on your own perspective. People in other countries--especially South American countries that have actually clashed or been the victim of the U.S.'s imperialistic and interventionist policies, will disagree. Your version of history isn't right just because it occurred around you.
@Wolfs said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
@ThatGuyThere Okay, maybe not always, but at this point you're pissing into the wind (and apparently content to do it) because you know exactly what the meaning is now to the majority, yet you insist on trying to tell people it really doesn't mean that. Sometimes, the usage of words and their meanings does change.
There's trying to argue a point, and there's being willfully stubborn. Guess which one you fall under?
Do you also go around trying to tell people "gay" really ought to mean someone's just happy?
Again, what majority? Your majority. Not my majority.
Languages, especially living languages that are used, grow and expand and change. This is natural, this is linguistics. But there is a very big difference between "gay" having two definitions (happy, homosexual) than the appropriative and exclusionary nature of one country, who's had political and military dominance over a continent for a century or more, using a demonym that should be inclusive to dozens of countries around it.
P.S. @HelloProject, I am an English teacher, and in fact, I am an English as a Foreign Language teacher, which means I was trained in Received Pronunciation, which is the internationally accepted proper English accent and semantic, syntactic, and grammatical form of the language (and by this, I mean by every country that isn't the U.S., which, I am sure will shock you, is a lot of people, I might dare say, a 'majority'). So when I tell you @ThatGuyThere has better talking points, linguistically speaking, than you do in this sense, I would hope (but not expect) that this carries some weight.
Please stop tossing around accusations that people don't know how language works. You don't have a monopoly on it yourself and in fact, haven't shown you know anything about linguistics beyond being able to type without glaring errors (which isn't very difficult at all). Stop. Backtrack. Reassess. Please. Especially when you're resorting to ad-hominem attacks. You were doing so well compared to other times you've popped up on this board (or WORA). I was rooting for you.
P.P.S. This conversation is not just about how language works, but how politics and imperialism affect language use, so your constant harping on linguistics seems like a simple and, in my case, ineffectual attempt at side-lining the political aspects of the discussion that you don't have any solid knowledge in. Especially since, being African-American (and I am using this term the way you do, to denote the specific culture of black people in the U.S.) you should be well-aware of how language and politics intersect to create borders, prejudice, descrimination, and segregation.
P.P.P.S. God fucking damn you guys for making me agree with @ThatGuyThere. Assholes. -_-
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
@Coin I respect your perspective as a linguist, but as a linguist I assume that you also know that textbook language learning only gets you so far, until you learn how people actually talk (which, as a presumably good language teacher, is something that I imagine you cover).
Native speakers of any language take certain things for granted because they already know how to communicate, to the point that they're not so much using "proper" language, but "common" language that most people around them who speaks the language understands. When I say that someone has no idea how language works, I'm saying that if someone is using colloquial language while not being self-aware about it, in the same post that they're railing against commonly accepted colloquial language, then no, I don't accept that they have any idea what they're talking about. It's picking and choosing what to rail against while doing exactly the same thing.
I feel like the argument is at best mild ignorance, and at worst hypocritical. I admit that I was an asshole about it, because to me it just seemed ridiculous, but I don't know how I'm supposed to respond to someone who arbitrarily draws the line between colloquial language they like, and colloquial language they don't like.
I will, however, say that your argument re: America is a hell of a lot better than that, and I don't inherently disagree with the idea that the nature of the way that we use the word "America" is imperialistic, especially in the context of other countries on the continent. It's also hard to argue that countries that don't give a shit about the continent beyond the United States have no reason to refer to it as anything other than America (Like for example, Japan). So, on the basis of this, I would say that your argument is significantly more valid than the argument ThatGuyThere was making, and I don't really disagree with what you on these points.
I don't know if I'm gonna suddenly start using different language or not, I guess that's something that'll take some thought. But this is certainly probably the only valid argument I've ever heard for not using the word America to refer to the U.S.
That said, we were asked to take this discussion out of this thread.
@HelloProject said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
@Coin I respect your perspective as a linguist, but as a linguist I assume that you also know that textbook language learning only gets you so far, until you learn how people actually talk (which, as a presumably good language teacher, is something that I imagine you cover).
Native speakers of any language take certain things for granted because they already know how to communicate, to the point that they're not so much using "proper" language, but "common" language that most people around them who speaks the language understands. When I say that someone has no idea how language works, I'm saying that if someone is using colloquial language while not being self-aware about it, in the same post that they're railing against commonly accepted colloquial language, then no, I don't accept that they have any idea what they're talking about. It's picking and choosing what to rail against while doing exactly the same thing.
I feel like the argument is at best mild ignorance, and at worst hypocritical. I admit that I was an asshole about it, because to me it just seemed ridiculous, but I don't know how I'm supposed to respond to someone who arbitrarily draws the line between colloquial language they like, and colloquial language they don't like.
I will, however, say that your argument re: America is a hell of a lot better than that, and I don't inherently disagree with the idea that the nature of the way that we use the word "America" is imperialistic, especially in the context of other countries on the continent. It's also hard to argue that countries that don't give a shit about the continent beyond the United States have no reason to refer to it as anything other than America (Like for example, Japan). So, on the basis of this, I would say that your argument is significantly more valid than the argument ThatGuyThere was making, and I don't really disagree with what you on these points.
I don't know if I'm gonna suddenly start using different language or not, I guess that's something that'll take some thought. But this is certainly probably the only valid argument I've ever heard for not using the word America to refer to the U.S.
That said, we were asked to take this discussion out of this thread.
One salient point I need to make:
I'm not just a textbook learned EFL teacher. I lived ages 6-12 and 17-21 in the Bay Area. I am as much a native speaker of U.S. English as I am anything else, and I've kept up with it by communicating both vocally and textually with people from all sorts of English-speaking countries. This is perhaps a bit of information you did not have before when assessing my points, that you do now.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
@Coin said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
I'm not just a textbook learned EFL teacher. I lived ages 6-12 and 17-21 in the Bay Area. I am as much a native speaker of U.S. English as I am anything else, and I've kept up with it by communicating both vocally and textually with people from all sorts of English-speaking countries. This is perhaps a bit of information you did not have before when assessing my points, that you do now.
Oh no, I wasn't suggesting that you learned textbook English or anything, just that the notion of "proper" English and communication is very complicated, and that I think people tend to jump the gun about what is or isn't proper English without really understanding that.
@HelloProject I have like, zero authority to do anything more than suggest. (Though I strongly encourage the use of 'Pedantic Semantics' for a thread title if anybody actually does it, because... yes.)
For the record, I call United Statesians 'Lower Canadians'.
He/Him
@Coin said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
This is wrong. If you had read my earlier post about this very same thing, you'd know a lot of other languages use a completely different term for people who live in the United States. In fact, most of the languages that use 'American' to refer to people from the U.S. are used predominantly in countries that 1) have no cultural interest in America as a continent, and 2) primarily do business with the United States, and not the rest of America, and thus have absolutely no need to respect any sort of linguistics that would take into account those appropriative.
I haven't spent a ton of time in Mexico, but I lived on the border for a bit and worked there off and on, and the attitude I encountered toward the term 'American' as a thing only referring to people from the United States could be best described as "Lolsigh." It makes me rather agree with @ThatGuyThere about it on a basic level, though I can't sign on to the pedantry.
As a Native American myself, I can't help but want to get stabby about 'American' ideology of what it is to /be/ American.
@Thenomain said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
WORA had a wiki. The WoraWiki. It was, I admit, hilarious. It was damaging, and full of rumors, and as far as I can tell had no lies in it that anyone came forward about (and when they did we deleted the lies, but not the rumors, I realize the irony and that was the point). Almost no anonymity.
Oh believe you me, it sure as shit did. The WORA wiki was basically a festering hole of bitchery and assumptions that any attempt at correcting would only result in more bullying and abuse.
"If you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?"
-- Hamilton: An American Musical
@Cupcake I have admittedly thought about doing something like this, kinda like what @Roz and I talked about like... a year or more ago at this point? Kinda like a general database of games (current and previous) and with people having the ability to list who they've played and where if they want, similar to the way the A Shout in the Dark threads do, just without the snark/bitchy rumor factor, and with better indexing/cross-referencing, which wiki tends to be good at. If people want to be asshats and edit war things, smacking can occur.
I may actually look into this a bit more now since I need a project and the game project is temporarily on hold, pending... things.
Oh fucking well.
@surreality Yeah. Although that project was never about, like. Marking problem players. Not for YOUR record, since you remember, but for everyone else's edification. The idea was to have players opt-in to listing whatever alts they wanted to. Basically like a database of MSB playlists in a way. But -- better.
