Why do people insist on changing the definition of existing words instead of just creating new ones?

If by 'the definition' you mean your idiosyncratic interpretation of a word then people are lazy idiots.

All language is coercion. No point drawing lines

Noam Chomsky is a hack

Why cant we just call people thier biological sex as there are only two common (non-aberration) biological sexes?

If gender is a social construct, everyone is allowed to be whatever gender they choose?
But of race is also a social construct why do progressivesa get mad when people pick whatever race they want to choose?

A person can say they are a man, woman, he or she, or anything else regardless of actual genetic chromosomes but they cant say they are this it that race because ????

There's no such thing as a 'race role'

If you post a countersignal meme you should probably just kill yourself

Don't be purposefully obtuse. It's plain and clear that OP means the commonly accepted and universally endorsed precise definitions of words which cause extremely volatile emotional responses.
Playing stupid does not further the argument.

He's not being obtuse, this is common sense. Think of insufferable autists getting mad over "literally" becoming a intensity signifier.

>commonly accepted and universally endorsed precise definitions
There are no words that fall into this category

You've just touched on why he should be upset - because they are changing language to benefit themselves at the expense of those outside of their intersectional coalition.

It's also not an "honest" redefinition - in the instance of "racism", the redefinition is basically all about using the visceral reaction inspired by the common and relatively historic understanding of "racism" (e.g. Hitler, gas chambers, pure evil) in the service of a new and self-serving formulation (e.g. prejudice + power) - which is then used to assert control over discourse by invoking and threatening taboo status.

The whole issue itself is a little out of date though, much as the phenomenon hasn't exactly stopped.

>she'', even after having explained to them that this is making your life a real Hell?
Now thats what I call suffering

There are contradictions and mental gymnastics throughout the whole book of "Whats okay and not okay" by tumblr. Don't try to give it any thought. You are man or woman, your race is yours, you are what you are, anything else is mental illness tier.

Racist used to mean someone who believed that humanity is split into different races and sub-races, shocking huh

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>Would you sue your university if your professors suddenly started calling you a ''she'', even after having explained to them that this is making your life a real Hell?

Uh did you just assume my gender shitlord? I happen to identify as a demi-neutrois-angelgender so using the "she" pronoun would be very offensive.

Just kidding, gender is innate and fixed at birth.

>Words don't have fixed definitions
>Now let me write a 20 page explanation which requires accuracy and sophisticated terms to get my point accross

> white tears, the post
Is it hurting your poor feels that mmarginalised people are getting an advantage you've always enjoyed?
Nothing will be more freeing for you than giving up your whiteness. Can't you even try?

Because they are doing it on purpose. They want to abuse the emotions that you have already attached to a concept in your head for their ideological agenda. Changing the definitions of extremely negative words like racism/sexism/-phobia/bigoted to include basically only your ideological enemies and not you is the way to paint yourself as the good guy while being actually the bad guy if you would go by the classic defintions.

I guess semantics is just junk science then

baito desu

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What motivates you alt-right guys?
Like do you get up in the morning and think 'today I will defend whiteness on the internet'?
You have so much power and privilege, so why do you use it to hurt Black folks?

1. I am not alt-right
2. White people deserve the same rights and decency that black people deserve
3. Racism and Sexism are bad on principle, two wrongs don't make a right

Gender and sex have always been distinct concepts and the words have had different meanings since forever.

Look closely at their etymologies, and look at antique dictionaries.

>Now thats what I call suffering

Being an obvious man or woman and being called the opposite pronoun by someone repeatedly is always going to be deliberate and purposeful bullying.

Examples of this happening?

Your understanding of the word is biased by your obvious racism desu

They're trying to monopolize the most powerful words in our language in order to maintain dominance in the discourse.

go and read one, ye fag

>1. I am not alt-right
>2. White people deserve the same rights and decency that black people deserve
Pick one

good joke

>Examples of this happening?

Why? I wasn't saying it's a widespread issue. I was just responding to the idea that being repeatedly called a gendered pronoun that obviously doesn't apply to you is some trivial matter.

It's no less a trivial matter than being forced to recognize an illegitimate state of existence.

>It's no less a trivial matter than being forced to recognize an illegitimate state of existence.

If you don't feel connected to what a pronoun represents, then being called that pronoun is going to be annoying. If someone asks you not to call them something, it's really just politeness to not do it. You don't have to like it. You can think it's silly. You don't have to like them. You don't have to call them some alternative (you can just use their name when referring to them in third person), but it is polite to try.

No one's going to force you to do anything.

Polite not to call them what they've requested to not be called I meant to say.

>No one's going to force you to do anything.

That's exactly what they've been trying to do in Canada, though.

Hell, in the UK it's worse. Once someone even announces their intention to transition, you are legally obliged to address them by their chosen pronouns. It's a hate crime not to do so. Whether or not the police will take action in some hypothetical instance where you choose *not* to address someone by their chosen pronouns, does not change the fact that they are legally permitted to do so - and chances are, they will.

>No one's going to force you to do anything.
Wrong. They are doing that right now in Canada with bill C-16.

By referring to them by whatever pronoun they prefer I am acknowledging the legitimacy of some form of existence I do not consider legitimate, and this is very disturbing to me. You say should do this out of politeness, but have you ever considered the etiquette is just one of the many ways in which society enforces itself, and that by making it a factor of politeness, I am being encouraged by the weight of society to do such a thing. Sure I'm not being forced, but it's pretty damn close. I'd go as far to say that people with nonstandard conceptions of gender and those who defend or intellectualize them are not deserving of politeness.

>I happen to identify as a demi-neutrois-angelgender so using the "she" pronoun would be very offensive.

Your reading comprehension needs work.

>I'd go as far to say that people with nonstandard conceptions of gender and those who defend or intellectualize them are not deserving of politeness.

Why is gender a moral issue for you? Why would you care this much about gender and wanting to dress up as a woman or man?

>ut have you ever considered the etiquette is just one of the many ways in which society enforces itself, and that by making it a factor of politeness, I am being encouraged by the weight of society to do such a thing

Well if you're some sort of authoritarian moralist, I suppose you shouldn't be polite. But I personally think, for minor trivial manners, you should be considerate to minor things others ask of you. Not calling them a particular pronoun doesn't seem like a big deal.

I agree, though, that making it illegal to call someone a pronoun is wrong, but from my very limited understand, the bills that are being introduced are more about it being illegal to purposefully bully and harass someone, not about single uses of words or moral objections to their preferred pronouns.

As in, if you follow someone around calling them "he" just to belittle them and discriminate, then you can be charged, but if you just refuse to call someone something and it isn't purposeful harassment, it's okay. I haven't looked at the bill's though, as it doesn't really apply in my country.

In my country we just have all-encompassing anti-harassment laws.

>You don't have to like it. You can think it's silly. You don't have to like them. You don't have to call them some alternative (you can just use their name when referring to them in third person), but it is polite to try.

Well I'm just going to have to be impolite, sorry eh? You can't please everyone.

>Well I'm just going to have to be impolite, sorry eh? You can't please everyone.

And people will think you're an ill-socialised arsehole

Oh well, that's too bad. I'm sure the German men who refused to perform the Hitler salute were considered ill-socialized aresholes.

Not really man. The feels are intact. Also not a liberal, so the idea of being liberated from my ethnic/cultural/historical baggage doesn't really appeal much to me.

You say that like a the word "racism" is the outward signifier of some higher, fixed truth rather than something that will inevitably be fought over for political advantage, given its context and power.

>Why do people insist on changing the definition of existing words
Any examples that are actually relevant?

Great. Then don't be surprised when people are impolite back and don't whine on a kentucky fried anime forum about it.

>A: no
You would be fine with a guy calling you a "she" in front of all of your peers? You're dense.

>B: that isn't happening. People are not experiencing mortal anguish because they were referred to incorrectly or rather, not as they'd prefer to be. They are using this invented issue as casus belli to seek preferential treatment and self-agrandizement.
Okay, you're just detatched from this controversy, and you clearly never even tried to aknowledge what the LGBTQ+ community is actually fighting for.
But isn't this the requirement to make an informed decision? To know the reasons of both parts in a debate, before taking a stance, especially when none of them are arguing for something unethical per-se?

>Then that law shouldn't exist. It's not a criminal matter, nor should it be, and as a civil matter it would not require due process and as such there would be no burden of proof to determine reparations.

These laws should be enforced only inside certain institutions, to avoid systematic oppression.
I don't think you should go to jail cause you've misgemdered someone, but at the same time I don't think a uni professor or a policeman should have the right to just trump your identity in front of all of your peers only because he is a crumudgeon.

>It would become a vehicle of abuse immediately, as it already has.
Are you referring to the JP crusade? Because that's manifactured: those laws have been in place for 10 years now and no systemic abuse of them has arised, to the point where JP is actualy still tenured, 2 years after that controversy. There was an interview in whoch he showed he actually knew nothing about these laws themselves, I'll link it in 10 minutes from now.

>No it shouldn't, or rather that definition of "human dignity" should not be frivolously expanded to include unenforceable, unquantifiable nonsense like gender pronouns.
Can a professor call a autistic student "retarded"? Can he call you "fuckface" aggressively? Can he call black students "niggers" and asian students "ching chongs"? Give me a break, this sort of legislative defence of minorities, at the very least in the istitutions necessary to society, is extremely common.

>Being referred to as you please is not a right as recognized by the American government and has no basis for such claim
It's a Republic after all: the system contains the tools for these changes. Appealing to the status quo is moot if the status quo can be changed through legislation. You should instead discuss it by taking either a moral or ethical stance in this matter. Or at the very oeast educate yourself on ths matter, about both sides, since you're clearly just going with the hanno hivemind flow.

> it's a /pol/ gets btfo by smart people thread

>I don't think a uni professor or a policeman should have the right to just trump your identity in front of all of your peers only because he is a crumudgeon.

I don't give a fuck what you think.

>that poster using the >to smart memes unironically

If you want to actually be progressive, then there should be no such thing as a "gender role" either. It's just another word for stereotype. What, you cry a lot and you drive like shit so all of a sudden you want to be identified as a woman? I'm not on that train.

Too bad that you're living in a democracy, bitch.

>6 paragraph response
>LOL I DONT CARE

fucking /pol/tards: will they ever learn how to argue their points?

Luckily I don't.

I responded to the only part of your spiel that mattered.

Quality over quantity.

>Think of insufferable autists getting mad over "literally" becoming a intensity signifier.
I'd rather worry about prescriptivist austists failing to see the hyperbole for what it is, assigning two opposite signifieds in the dictionary to 'literally', and then of all foreigners struggling with trying to make sense of this idiocy, given they had the misfortune of looking for a definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, thinking it was an authoritative source.

Saged

I think you're guilty of several microaggresions in this post OP

Bait, but:
The social realities of human beings are always shifting so we, desperately and quite naturally, adjust our language to try and match this. Definitions have been changing since words existed. Very many of the words you take for a given meaning are completely different from their original forms. The word "nice" for example.

There's nothing wrong with this. There is something wrong with having a fit about it, though.

Language, for all of its assumed rigidity, is actually very liquid. Read this to start.

Literally has been listed for its figurative use in dictionaries for over at least one hundred years, both American and English.

A+

>Why cant we just call people thier biological sex as there are only two common (non-aberration) biological sexes?

Sex isn't the big issue, it's gender. You have physically what you have, but then how you present yourself is less obvious, your gender. You have your genes that develop your gender but then there is culture which should play some role.

>If gender is a social construct, everyone is allowed to be whatever gender they choose?

Only partially, genes do determine gender to a large degree. But yes, people are free to act as they want if they arent hurting others. If there are two genders, and then some middle ground, breaking up the middle ground into new genders wont ever stop and it isnt helpful in creating identity. It's only helpful to understand you share qualities of both genders.

>But of race is also a social construct why do progressivesa get mad when people pick whatever race they want to choose?

What?

>Why is gender a moral issue for you?

I think what user is saying is that it is an issue to saying something false, even if it is polite to do so

If someone asks me if they look fat in a dress and I say yes, I am being impolite to most. But if I have a principle of not lying, maybe if I see it as a duty, then not lying will have priority over being polite.

I think this topic of identity politics should be discussed, but asking someone simply to accept your position because it is polite seems incredibly suspect.

I would be just as much suspect of say my girlfriend asking me to pretend to be a fascist nazi at dinner with her parents because they are nazis, and to chant with them that the brown man (im brown) must die.

Yes, it would be polite to oblige the Nazi and say things I don't believe to be true so that they feel comfortable.

So what?

dude, just walk away

>Yes, it would be polite to oblige the Nazi and say things I don't believe to be true so that they feel comfortable.

Sure. That's why I said, if you are seriously morally against people claiming to be another gender, then it is only sensible for you to forego that politeness.

But I don't think the argument for gender deviancy being the same as nazism is convincing.

Not addressing someone in the manner they don't want to be addressed in is fairly harmless, and you should make a moral case otherwise if you want to repeatedly call them something they hate, otherwise you're just being impolite.

Again, you can just abstain from calling them the term they want to be called. But calling them something they don't want to be called is an entirely different matter. You're defining them in a way they dislike, causing irritation, when you could abstain from defining them at all, if you really oppose their ideas of gender.

I hope this makes sense. I'm very tired.

I dont have legs

>But I don't think the argument for gender deviancy being the same as nazism is convincing.

That's not what I'm pointing out. The comparison is to form common ground where you agree that you dont just agree to be polite and get walk away ethically free.

>you should make a moral case otherwise if you want to repeatedly call them something they hate

I'm not so sure the burden of proof is on me. If someone said they would have a panic attack if you didnt call them Mr. Big daddy dick, should you oblige? What if the name takes 30 seconds to say? Or is very difficult to pronounce?

However these are proper names, or given names, so the comparison isnt perfect. The problem with pronouns is that they are what is called a close class of grammar, and dont take on new members easily. Other examples that arent pronouns are and, but, this, that, the, a, etc. If someone demanded that I use a new form of conjunction or else they would have a panic attack, it would seem absurd.

The problem is that pronouns are being seen emotionally as proper names. "You would call me Christopher if I asked, why not refer to me also as my preferred pronoun?"

Proper names are an open class, the most open class, and pronouns are not. That's a problem that lies deep in human language faculties.

>Again, you can just abstain from calling them the term they want to be called.

Yes but then we are forced to use they, which is awkward and hard to use. Again, its a closed case.

I think the main problem is that the minority wants to not be treated like a minority in a way which is difficult for anyone to do, and so no one should be surprised that problems arise, and the best way to deal with this problem rhetorically is take on the problem rather than putting it on others. The case you are making is doing that. It is considerate to the majority that the situation is awkward, and makes it seem more casual. However everyone reading that immediately thinks of all the other situations they have seen when it is not like this, and wonder how this game of rhetoric is being played.

For example, if a man has a very feminine sounding voice, if they go through a drive through and are referred to as a she, I personally am arguing that it should be on him to take up the situation of being an exception.

This stranger wrongly referring to him as a she is not a fault. Giving the benefit of doubt to the stranger is good. You are doing that, but others on your side cleary dont and it is strange.

then roll, faggot.