GalacticCactus Forum

Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: pooka on March 14, 2017, 10:03:01 AM

Title: Descriptivism and cultural awareness
Post by: pooka on March 14, 2017, 10:03:01 AM

I wasn't sure about how to feel about this, if it was good or bad.  I guess it just was.
The other day at church a woman was reading a letter from her son who is on a mission,

Spoiler: frowned on reference to the Roma (click to show/hide)

and she specified that "he referred to the person as a gypsy" and Sputnik leaned over and asked me what a gypsy was.  I thought for a moment and said it is a word for nomadic people in that part of the world.

Part of me was glad, as a mother, that this word is critically endangered.  Another part of me worried a bit about the Orwellian aspect. 

Title: Re: Descriptivism and cultural awareness
Post by: Jonathon on March 14, 2017, 11:16:25 AM

I don't see that as Orwellian at all. Orwellian language is about thought control, while political correctness is (at least in part) about allowing people to decide what they're called.

I'm not quite sure how descriptivism comes in to play here, though.