Banning Words

porlock said:

He just knew Obama's "goons" will soon be marching down the street collecting guns and putting all the white people in internment camps (seriously). Um, that almost sounds familiar.

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Speaking of which, I wonder how people terrified by Berkeley's experiment with Newspeak feel about the concentration camps detention centers within our borders.

AW Admin said:

It's the same cause as "lady doctor." The fact that the professional in question was female was highlighted as non-standard.

Most of this kind of usage and style guidance is basically good writing. It's usually not important that the doctor or actor in question wasn't/isn't male.

Now, when the U. S. Federal government, or, say China, issues directives about language like the recent directive to policy analysts at the CDC to stop using "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based" it's a deliberate attempt to create a chilling effect.

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All of this. The sub-text of "lady doctor" has always been "not a real doctor".

That last paragraph, though, does chill; the denial and regression in those directives should be terrifying to everyone.

There's an old riddle --

A boy and his father are riding along when their car is struck by a large truck. They're both gravely injured, and rushed to the hospital. The boy is wheeled into emergency surgery. As the team preps to try to save him, the surgeon looks over, stops, and says, "I can't operate on this boy; he's my son." How is that possible?














Hint: This is only a riddle because the default is/was an assumption that a surgeon/doctor is male.

Diana Hignutt said:

Ah, yes, the evil, slippery slope of courtesy, inclusion and the evolution of language. Fie!

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"When you're part of the top, courtesy offered for those below you feels like oppression against oneself."

cornflake said:

There's an old riddle --

A boy and his father are riding along when their car is struck by a large truck. They're both gravely injured, and rushed to the hospital. The boy is wheeled into emergency surgery. As the team preps to try to save him, the surgeon looks over, stops, and says, "I can't operate on this boy; he's my son." How is that possible?














Hint: This is only a riddle because the default is/was an assumption that a surgeon/doctor is male.

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I remember this one from All in the Family. Archie couldn't "get it," even after Edith explained it to him.

How far have we not come?

Roxxsmom said:

I remember this one from All in the Family. Archie couldn't "get it," even after Edith explained it to him.

How far have we not come?

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You realize how far we've come when you think that now, there are two possible solutions as you can't assume the parents are heterosexual.

CWatts said:

You realize how far we've come when you think that now, there are two possible solutions as you can't assume the parents are heterosexual.

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This too!

I found this article from a few years back, which encompasses some of the issues raised in this post re gendered language.

https://theconversation.com/mansplaining-the-word-of-the-year-and-why-it-matters-37091

I remember that riddle, and another one that’s similar. It goes something like this:

There are two rabbits: a big one and a little one. The little rabbit is the big rabbit’s son, but the big rabbit is not the little rabbit’s father. So, what’s the relation?

M.S. Wiggins said:

I remember that riddle, and another one that’s similar. It goes something like this:

There are two rabbits: a big one and a little one. The little rabbit is the big rabbit’s son, but the big rabbit is not the little rabbit’s father. So, what’s the relation?

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They're sharing the stew pot!

The big rabbit's the little rabbit's mother.

Next.

Haven't mixed-gender fraternities been increasing?

Ten (or 15?) years ago, the one I knew about actively worked against the frat house reputation, but the all-boy frat houses were horrifically bad. I still think "rape" and "alcohol poisoning" when I hear "fraternity". Having a gender-neutral name for the gender-neutral house might've made the nerdy students' lives easier or their activism easier to see.

aspirit said:

Haven't mixed-gender fraternities been increasing?

Ten (or 15?) years ago, the one I knew about actively worked against the frat house reputation, but the all-boy frat houses were horrifically bad. I still think "rape" and "alcohol poisoning" when I hear "fraternity". Having a gender-neutral name for the gender-neutral house might've made the nerdy students' lives easier or their activism easier to see.

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They've had mixed gender service fraternities since I was in college. Latin is a genderized language, and unfortunately the male form of a word in Latin typically applied to mixed gender situations. There doesn't seem to be a word that is the equivalent of the gender-neutral "sibling." Note, they also had/have black fraternities, which are traditionally dry.

But yes, the word "fraternity" conjured up nothing good in my mind back in the 80s, nor does it now. I can't get past the image of drunken, overprivileged white guys projectile vomiting, harassing Take Back the Night Marchers, and sniggering about the women they raped at their last keg bashes.

English, however, is not a genderized language in the sense that Latin is. It's also an evolving language with changes in usage that both reflect and reinforce our evolving sensibilities and social norms.

The authorities should change the names from 'fraternities' or 'sororities' to the generic 'clubs'. Then if they want to differentiate clubs, the members can add a word defining what they do.
If they want to hold dances, raise money for charity, support sports teams or craft activities, provide study resources, or support social/political action, they can name themselves appropriately.
And, if one club calls itself the 'Drunken Weekend Club', well, they've declared their true nature can expect to be watched carefully.
Accuracy and gender neutrality.
If you want. If the members decide to call themselves 'The Corps of Drunken Men', they are, at least, warning people.

frimble3 said:

The authorities should change the names from 'fraternities' or 'sororities' to the generic 'clubs'. Then if they want to differentiate clubs, the members can add a word defining what they do.
If they want to hold dances, raise money for charity, support sports teams or craft activities, provide study resources, or support social/political action, they can name themselves appropriately.
And, if one club calls itself the 'Drunken Weekend Club', well, they've declared their true nature can expect to be watched carefully.
Accuracy and gender neutrality.
If you want. If the members decide to call themselves 'The Corps of Drunken Men', they are, at least, warning people.

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Traditional fraternities and sororities could call themselves "Greek letter social clubs."

Service fraternities could call themselves "Greek letter service clubs."

The thing is, on many campuses, Greek organizations are actually off campus and not officially "sanctioned" by the school, even if they permit recruitment on campus and rent campus facilities to said organizations for publicity and some social events.

I think the reputation for campus-sanctioned organizations in general should be made readily available to prospective members, students, and the public in general. Official reports (for drunken parties that get out of hand, sexual assault , incidents of illegal hazing, alcohol poisoning, racist incidents, harassment etc) should be easily available in a database. This would provide information for everything from city zoning commissions (who grant permission for high-density Greek houses in residential neighborhoods) to potential pledges to women who want to know if it's safe to attend a social event (or date a member).

Yes, there are always rumors that some are "worse" than others, but having real information at one's disposal would be handy.

Good idea! Openness is a good thing, and just knowing that your activities will see the light of day will keep some on the straight and narrow.
As well as giving people an idea of what they will be getting into.

This whole fraternity thing looks really bizarre from this side of the pond. Always has done. In the UK we have wild parties at uni. They're run by the student union and all students of any demographic can go along. They don't involve hazing.

We also have societies. Most of them are for students of any demographic who are into a particular thing, e.g. tiddlywinks society, while others are specifically for students in potentially marginalised demographics or demographics that have to deal with specific difficulties, e.g. LGBT+ society, mature students society, dyslexic students society, BAME students society, etc. Generally, where there's a need for a society, students get together and speak to the student's union about forming it, then they form it and put posters up on the student's union noticeboard. There are also sports clubs and teams, e.g. men's rugby team, women's rugby team, etc.

Presumably USA universities have all these things too. I don't really get fraternities. I mean I saw "Revenge of the Nerds" back in the 80s when I was technically too young to watch that film (it was cert 18 and I saw it when I was about 14 or so) and thought the whole Frat thing was just a bizarre thing for a daft comedy film. Only later did I find out that fraternities were real and how they were portrayed in Revenge of the Nerds was accurate. Teenage me thought the whole concept too daft and bizarre to be real. So take my views on frats from that perspective.

That film wouldn't work in Britain. Because if a nerdy guy wanted to join in a student union party they'd be like "yeah, great, come along! The more the merrier!"

I remember my first student party/pub crawl in Fresher's week... they stamped the university address on all the Freshers' hands so we couldn't forget where to tell the taxi driver to take us home to at the end.

neandermagnon said:

I remember my first student party/pub crawl in Fresher's week... they stamped the university address on all the Freshers' hands so we couldn't forget where to tell the taxi driver to take us home to at the end.

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Now that speaks well of the organizers' organizational skills. Or, badly, of their prior experiences.

It's interesting they don't have anything akin to the Greek system, or to those Ivy League secret societies, in UK universities, given how class conscious UK culture has historically been.

The system evolved here in the 1800s here. I wonder if it is actually an attempt to introduce a form of class or aristocracy to the US. The US is sort of tradition starved, since we're a much younger country. Maybe some US college students fanatically pledge allegiance to their Greek houses for the same reason many Americans get fanatical about our flag. We don't have the same kind of shared social institutions and history that exist in the UK. So the traditions that have developed tend to be clung to rather fiercely by some people here.

Or maybe it's simply because US universities are organized rather differently from British universities? As I understand it, the older universities in the UK (at least) are broken into multiple small colleges, and one is as much an alum of, say, Merton college as they are of Oxford. My understanding is students at those universities attend classes with and live in dorms with other members of their college, as a rule.

In the US, most universities are broken into much larger colleges that are focused on academics. For instance, at my university, we had a college of letters and science, agriculture, engineering, medicine, veterinary medicine, law, business and so on. There are dorms (mostly for 1st-year students), but you live with people from all the different undergrad colleges, and classes tend to be huge (at smaller, private colleges not so much).

In the US, you think of yourself as a graduate of the university first and foremost (there are also stand-alone 4-year colleges in the US, most of which are undergraduate only or focused more on undergraduate studies) and two-year community colleges that focus on transfer, vocational training, and community service. Of course there are the diploma mill online schools and "career" colleges now too, which exist to make money for the most part.

So maybe the Greek system was (or has become) a way for students to have a smaller community within a larger institution. The Greek system still tends of have issues with segregation by race and socioeconomic status, however. It's rather expensive to be in a traditional fraternity or sorority, and while members at a chapter will have their own biases in terms of selecting from applicants, preference is still given to people (called legacies) who have family members or strong references from alumni of the same house.

Roxxsmom said:

It's interesting they don't have anything akin to the Greek system, or to those Ivy League secret societies, in UK universities, given how class conscious UK culture has historically been.

The system evolved here in the 1800s here. I wonder if it is actually an attempt to introduce a form of class or aristocracy to the US. The US is sort of tradition starved, since we're a much younger country. Maybe some US college students fanatically pledge allegiance to their Greek houses for the same reason many Americans get fanatical about our flag. We don't have the same kind of shared social institutions and history that exist in the UK. So the traditions that have developed tend to be clung to rather fiercely by some people here.

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The part about 'class and tradition' rings true, to my mind.
The USA was a country with no inborn aristocracy, and, a new country where birth was being eclipsed by wealth.
And people of all levels were striving for an education: it was no longer a way to keep young men occupied until they inherited. (Of course there were always a portion who went to learn, but, in general, it's a status thing.)
So, what better way to show that you were not there to be a striver, that you had money and time to waste, than by forming a club of like-minded people with no particular aim but to have a good time with your friends, or people who might become friends.
This would explain why service clubs are a different thing, and why 'fraternities' have such emphasis on selecting prospects, hazing, choosing the winning candidates, etc.
They are attempting to choose like-minded friends for life - as seen through the eyes of entitled young men.

frimble3 said:

They are attempting to choose like-minded friends for life - as seen through the eyes of entitled young men.

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The funny thing is how little the guys I knew who were in frats seemed to care about the traditions or even the nebulous concept of service enshrined in their house charters. And any concern about making future professional connections was very much on the back burner too. These things were only mentioned with sniggers and rolled eyes.

The primary purpose seemed to be getting as drunk as possible as often as possible, to the point of its being being a sort of male bulimia ritual (binge and purge episodes), plus the added bonus of engaging in sexually abusive rituals with other young men (like naked pledge wheelbarrow races, or squirting condiments over naked, drunk pledges and dragging them to the campus creek to dump them in and leave them to walk home) while engaging in vicious homophobia that ensured everyone knew they were the most macho, hetero, and manly of men.

Oh, and all the institutionalized rape that wasn't called rape back then. That was a fringe benefit.

Maybe there are "decent" chapters here and there. I know some colleges and national chapters attempted to force the Greek system to go dry back in the 90s and early 2000s, though that seems to have been mostly a failure. Colleges have cracked down more on hazing too.

I don't know what the sororities did to haze their members back then. It didn't seem to be as much of a thing. We didn't hear stories about sororities having drunken keggers or rape parties in their basements. In fact, most of the sorority houses didn't even allow guys to visit their rooms when I was in college, though they certainly weren't all little angels.

If you don't allow guys in the sorority house, then you can slut-shame any other woman you see with a guy. 'Cause, you know, public purity.

Ensured everyone knew they were the most macho, hetero, and manly of men.

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Which is the point of the whole exercise, to both prove their masculinity, the masculinity of their friends, and the non-masculinity of any pledges who can't 'take' the hazing.
I would think that the educational setting makes it worse, because of having to prove that they're not into girly stuff like grades and education. Except that youth sports teams can develop the same sort of culture, depending on their leaders.

frimble3 said:

If you don't allow guys in the sorority house, then you can slut-shame any other woman you see with a guy. 'Cause, you know, public purity.

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To be fair to the gals, most of them had boyfriends they slept with and so on. The "no men upstairs" rule was imposed by the national charters.

However, back in the 80s there was still a lot of slut shaming in and out of the Greek system. The "s" word was tossed around liberally, with little sense of irony, and it was mostly applied to women (with the occasional "male slut" joke). And the few of us who called out the double standard back then were roundly dismissed, even mocked, even if we weren't in the Greek system (and the overwhelming majority of undergrads were not at my campus). Not that sorority culture isn't especially messed up.

Meanwhile, some studies have found fraternity guys are 300% more likely to commit rape than the college male population as a whole, and women in sororities are 74% more likely to be raped. I'm sure not all frats are equal in that respect, and maybe some chapters are well behaved, but there are some that have especially bad reputations nationwide (like SAE)