General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Brown Bagging" is now on Seattle's shitlist...
since it has racist connotations and will no longer be used in any Seattle gummint communications or around the offices.
Sexist sounding words like "Freshman" "Journeyman" and "penmanship" are out. Yeah, "penmanship" (No word on "manhole" but maybe that was already dealt with)
Even "citizen" has some unwholesome context and "resident" will be substituted.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/08/seattle-city-hall-considers-banning-offensive-words/
(Didja ever just want to scream...)
RudynJack
(1,044 posts)that's just dumb. I would say it's "retarded" but that not allowed.
Still, it's just freaking dumb.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)it's insulting to the speechless.
demwing
(16,916 posts)Not when referring to the stupid.
valerief
(53,235 posts)The word police ban all uses of the word.
demwing
(16,916 posts)But since you brought it - I think "retarded" is a poor choice of words when looking for a medical term, and when used as a pejorative it shows a lack of civility.
We should be civil. Being civil is what civilians do. It's what people do.
valerief
(53,235 posts)(whether you like it or not), using dumb shows a lack of civility.
Response to valerief (Reply #90)
demwing This message was self-deleted by its author.
maxsolomon
(33,400 posts)A comment from a thread on The Stranger, Seattle's Alt Weekly, by DJ Riz (a much-loved Gay African American long-time KEXP genius-level DJ):
'Some organizations used the "brown paper bag" principle as a test for entrance. People at many churches, fraternities and nightclubs would take a brown paper bag and hold it against a person's skin. If a person was lighter or the same color as the bag, he or she was admitted. People whose skin was not lighter than a brown paper bag were denied entry.'
So, if Sack Lunch can be used instead, who cares? It would be rather niggardly to insist on offending over such a small matter.
cliffordu
(30,994 posts)Common Sense Party
(14,139 posts)those whose skin was "too dark."
Kerr, A. E. (2006). The paper bag principle: Class, colorism, and rumor in the case of black Washington, DC. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Frank was offered membership in the Capital C Club (for Creoles with a "Capital C" . When he heard about the bag test (Shorty: "That's the only test I ever passed!" , he was livid: "Goddammit, I'm not going to be the first black member of a black club!"
hughee99
(16,113 posts)madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)Does that count?
valerief
(53,235 posts)Bake
(21,977 posts)Do you bring your lunch in a paper bag?
Is the bag brown?
Duh.
Bake
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)"brown bags"..those bags were lovingly folded and stored away to be re-used for trash (the large ones) and for lunches (the small ones)
I still remember those hearty #12s that were so perfect for packing lunches
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
Long time no see!
Remember this?
yep
I'm still here.
CC
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)I'm not here all that much lately .. (at DU) ..I'm still relatively sane
I do remember the license plate binge we all had
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
Just for that
Here's some more you will remember
Glad I bumped into you
Been off the web for quite a bit in the past few years - $$$
That changed for the better recently.
And yeah, that had to be close to 8 years ago methinks!
CC
ejpoeta
(8,933 posts)question everything
(47,534 posts)Reuse in the trash under the sink - later transferred to a plastic bag and put in the container.
Reuse to collect newspapers and other recyclables to then be put in the recycling container. Also put it in the shredder to collect the shreds.
Journeyman
(15,038 posts)Who knew a website handle would one day fix me for a schmuck, ex post facto as it were.
Wonder if Skinner will grant me dispensation for an emergency name-ectomy? . . .
kentauros
(29,414 posts)"qualified worker at a craft or trade who works for wages for another" (a position between apprentice and master), early 15c., from journey (n.), preserving the etymological sense of the word, + man (n.). Figurative depricatory sense of "hireling, drudge" is from 1540s. Its American English colloquial shortening jour (adj.) is attested from 1835.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)that would be totally jerkin'.
Journeyman
(15,038 posts)Spine-tingling railway sleepers ---
Sleepy houses lying four-square and firm
Orange beams divide the darkness
Rumbling fit to turn the waking worm.
Sliding through Victorian tunnels
where green moss oozes from the pores.
Dull echoes from the wet embankments
Battlefield allotments. Fresh open sores.
In late night commuter madness
Double-locked black briefcase on the floor
like a faithful dog with master
sleeping in the draught beside the carriage door.
To each Journeyman his own home-coming
Cold supper nearing with each station stop
Frosty flakes on empty platforms
Fireside slippers waiting. Flip. Flop.
Journeyman night-tripping on the late fantasic
Too late to stop for tea at Gerard's Cross
and hear the soft shoes on the footbridge shuffle
as the wheels turn biting on the midnight frost.
On the late commuter special
Carriage lights that flicker, fade and die
Howling into hollow blackness
Dusky diesel shudders in full cry.
Down redundant morning papers
Abandon crosswords with a cough
Stationmaster in his wisdom
told the guard to turn the heating off.
~ Jethro Tull, Heavy Horses
kentauros
(29,414 posts)That's an interesting song to take your username from, though I don't remember it from back when I used to listen.
I can't think of any songs that have to do with my username...
zeemike
(18,998 posts)To make liberals look like fools.
Why we fall for that is beyond me.
TM99
(8,352 posts)This political correctness has gotten damned ridiculous.
alp227
(32,052 posts)It keeps bigotry in check in a crazy idiocratic nation. But I do agree with you too.
Honesty, open communication, proper boundaries, and assertiveness is what affects change between people and groups.
Telling others exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say it sadly just doesn't work as well.
alp227
(32,052 posts)Remember, ignorant bigots often play the PC card to justify their own bigotry. As John Kenneth Galbraith said, "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." And Bob Herbert of the NY Times has called works like Charles Murray's Bell Curve (the book that argued that black people have lower IQs) part of a "genteel way of calling somebody a (N-word)." A lot of modern people don't like to hear anything that challenges their worldview, that is why they resort to playing the PC card.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Warpy
(111,339 posts)Civility demands we call people what they want to be called. Beyond that, the euphemisms become silly very quickly.
Brown bagging as a phrase meaning to bring your own lunch instead of going out as an economy measure is racist?
The weird things I learn on DU.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)the parts where they talked about yellow bagging, white onions, and possibly renaming the White House.
The anchors were cracking up over it.
Warpy
(111,339 posts)"Black coffee" needs to be put on the list, too.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,856 posts)skin color description. I've heard some offensive descriptions of certain skin colors, but "brown bag" doesn't sound ugly to me. I've often heard and read descriptions like "coffee-colored" or "cafe au lait," which aren't offensive either, in my opinion. They're just more descriptive terms for shades of brown, really.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)with brown and thought it was some racial insult. This sort of thing happens a lot-- The firestorm over the book "Nappy Hair" was one particularly horrific example a few years ago:
http://www.adversity.net/special/nappy_hair.htm
(It's worth the read)
LuvNewcastle
(16,856 posts)We can't discuss race for very long in this country without having a shouting match and threats. I think that's part of the reason some people go crazy with all this political correctness. Instead of getting to know each other and building respect, they play these silly word games. One side takes offense at things they shouldn't and the other side bans words so they can say they're doing something for race relations.
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)I never knew that until a year ago. I looked it up, and apparently it became offensive in the early to mid nineties, when an academic decided that Asian peoples needed a word to denote European colonization and it's negative effects. Interestingly, there is now backlash, because Russians, Turks, an Uzbeks are all Asian peoples, and there is no word to refer to the people you used to be able to refer to with the word Oriental.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)virgogal
(10,178 posts)trof
(54,256 posts)Can't remember the name of the book I read years ago about the Black upper class in the U.S.
According to the Black author, many valued light skin color, especially among black women.
You passed the 'brown bag test' if your skin was that light or lighter.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)That was the first and probably only use of it I ever came across. It was for a phony job ad where they encouraged applicants of color but they "must pass the paper bag test (and yes you know what we're talking about)."
trof
(54,256 posts)haele
(12,676 posts)- commented to me once that her grandmother told her was "never bring home a boy darker than a brown paper bag".
That might be where the "brown bag" might have been confused with a racial slur.
Haele
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Maybe they are preparing for the new reality.
branford
(4,462 posts)Much of one's interaction with city government concerns primaries and elections. Citizens are residents, capable of voting and holding office. However, residents, documented or not, need not be not citizens. This is not a matter of using a purportedly less offensive synonym. The words do not mean the same thing.
Republicans are already changing voting laws alleging (non-existent or de minimis) voter fraud. I cannot even begin to imagine the lawsuits by conservative groups if Seattle uses "resident" in their voting literature. Slick or deceptive election language that implies that it is acceptable for, or even encourages, non-citizens to attempt to vote in majority Democratic states and cities could also prove a definitive complication in lawsuits challenging Republican voter restrictions.
Oy vey . .
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)There's nothing in the piece that says it's about elections. Yes, residents, documented or not, need not be not citizens. And so if they have been saying that they provide this service or that for 'citizens', when in fact all residents are entitled to it, then they should be saying 'residents'.
branford
(4,462 posts)I just believe that policies concerning word choice are a solution looking for a problem, and fraught with peril. For instance, has Seattle suffered an unusually high number of hostile environment workplace harassment claims in recent years? The election issue, particularly in our current political climate, just jumped out at me.
I also question how such a policy will be enforced among city employees. Will they actually be subject to discipline if they say "brown bag" to another employee in the office or use "journeyman" (a term often used to denote union seniority or expertise) in a memo about city contracting? I would not want to be the city attorney defending that First Amendment lawsuit by the aggrieved employee.
The policy as described appears picayune, unnecessary, subject to legitimate ridicule, and if implemented poorly even occasionally (a certainty with local government), a legal liability. I can understand counseling employees against utilizing widely known terms with historically detrimental connotations to large groups, but micromanagement or a de facto word police just seems, well . . . illiberal.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)They don't give any context for what was actually said about changing terms - whether it was a suggestion, preference, order or so on. Most of it is just people in the street saying "I don't see anything wrong with the phrases". It could just be a TV station looking for a bit of filler on a slow news day and exaggerating some memo suggesting something, or it could actually be a serious policy change in the council.
branford
(4,462 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)And even then, Seattle passing a symbolic resolution against the phrase "brown bag" doesn't really bother me.... All in all, Seattle is a helluva lot better than a lot of places.
I'd rather be in a city with a symbolic resolution against "brown bagging" where pot smoking is legal, than be in one where people are encouraged to say whatever they want but a granny smoking a joint to ease her chemo nausea will get 5 years in prison.
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)I've known someone who got a year's probation for possession with intent to deliver of a half pound. I've known someone who had their bag dumped into a storm drain. I've known someone (OK, I WAS someone) who had their joint confiscated, no doubt to be smoked by the cop. I was related to someone who got two years probation for cultivation. The only person I knew who did time for cannabis was a loser with check fraud and domestic battery priors who was also driving on a suspended license when arrested.
I'm not saying it does not happen, but I doubt it happens a lot, that sick grannies do 5 years inside for simple possession.
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)It happens disproportionately to those who are black.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)There are places with absolutely ridiculous mandatory minimums- yes, for possession of amounts clearly of the personal use variety.
If the debate is really going to center on "when they dragged that granny off to prison for smoking a joint she only got 2 years, not 5" ... does that make the situation somehow more tolerable?
BeyondGeography
(39,379 posts)Or maybe just start using more French, like "brun bagging," which almost sounds the same...
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Now that we have been informed how shockingly politically incorrect it is, asterisks should be used.
Silent3
(15,265 posts)...than "brown bag" ever was.
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)At work they even have "Brown Bag" series during lunch time where there's a speaker and you bring your own lunch.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)It might simply be oblivious white privilege.
But the name needs to be changed.
Link Speed
(650 posts)Maybe it's some kind of wacko Seattle thing.
tridim
(45,358 posts)If my last name is banned, do I exist?
kentauros
(29,414 posts)Think of all the celebrities that only go by their first name
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Some of us would rather them get down to business and pass laws that actually help the people they are trying not to offend. Let's see should we vote on immigration reform, education, living wages, health care? No, let's vote on whether you can say the words brown bag instead.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Ridiculous.
cliffordu
(30,994 posts)Brown baggin' it is taking your lunch in a fucking paper bag.
Every goddamned phrase in the language might have horrible roots generations back if you look long enough.
Every time I see one of these things I want to puke my guts into a brown bag.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)cliffordu
(30,994 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)cliffordu
(30,994 posts)kentauros
(29,414 posts)until recently a difficult word to trace, in part because it was taboo to the editors of the original OED when the "F" volume was compiled, 1893-97. Written form only attested from early 16c. OED 2nd edition cites 1503, in the form fukkit; earliest appearance of current spelling is 1535 -- "Bischops ... may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit" (Sir David Lyndesay, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits" , but presumably it is a much more ancient word than that, simply one that wasn't written in the kind of texts that have survived from Old English and Middle English. Buck cites proper name John le Fucker from 1278, but the surname could have other explanations. The word apparently is hinted at in a scurrilous 15c. poem, titled "Flen flyys," written in bastard Latin and Middle English. The relevant line reads:
Non sunt in celi
quia fuccant uuiuys of heli
"They (the monks) are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of (the town of) Ely." Fuccant is pseudo-Latin, and in the original it is written in cipher. The earliest examples of the word otherwise are from Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to Norwegian dialectal fukka "copulate," or Swedish dialectal focka "copulate, strike, push," and fock "penis." Another theory traces it to Middle English fyke, fike "move restlessly, fidget," which also meant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general North Sea Germanic word; cf. Middle Dutch fokken, German ficken "fuck," earlier "make quick movements to and fro, flick," still earlier "itch, scratch;" the vulgar sense attested from 16c. This would parallel in sense the usual Middle English slang term for "have sexual intercourse," swive, from Old English swifan "to move lightly over, sweep" (see swivel). But OED remarks these "cannot be shown to be related" to the English word. Chronology and phonology rule out Shipley's attempt to derive it from Middle English firk "to press hard, beat."
Germanic words of similar form (f + vowel + consonant) and meaning 'copulate' are numerous. One of them is G. ficken. They often have additional senses, especially 'cheat,' but their basic meaning is 'move back and forth.' ... Most probably, fuck is a borrowing from Low German and has no cognates outside Germanic. (Liberman)
French foutre and Italian fottere look like the English word but are unrelated, derived rather from Latin futuere, which is perhaps from PIE root *bhau(t)- "knock, strike off," extended via a figurative use "from the sexual application of violent action" (Shipley; cf. the sexual slang use of bang, etc.). Popular and Internet derivations from acronyms (and the "pluck yew" fable) are merely ingenious trifling. The Old English word was hæman, from ham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit." Fuck was outlawed in print in England (by the Obscene Publications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act, 1873). As a noun, it dates from 1670s. The word may have been shunned in print, but it continued in conversation, especially among soldiers during World War I.
It became so common that an effective way for the soldier to express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if a sergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood as a matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there was an immediate implication of urgency and danger. (John Brophy, "Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918," pub. 1930)
The legal barriers broke down in the 20th century, with the "Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960). Johnson excluded the word, and fuck wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. "The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American Heritage Dictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition without the word, to assure itself access to the lucrative public high school market.
The abbreviation F (or eff) probably began as euphemistic, but by 1943 it was being used as a cuss word, too. In 1948, the publishers of "The Naked and the Dead" persuaded Norman Mailer to use the euphemism fug instead. When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, "So you're the man who can't spell 'fuck' " (The quip sometimes is attributed to Tallulah Bankhead). Hemingway used muck in "For whom the Bell Tolls" (1940). The major breakthrough in publication was James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" (1950), with 50 fucks (down from 258 in the original manuscript). Egyptian legal agreements from the 23rd Dynasty (749-21 B.C.E.) frequently include the phrase, "If you do not obey this decree, may a donkey copulate with you!" (Reinhold Aman, "Maledicta," Summer 1977). Fuck-all "nothing" first recorded 1960.
Verbal phrase fuck up "to ruin, spoil, destroy" first attested c.1916. A widespread group of Slavic words (cf. Polish pierdolić ) can mean both "fornicate" and "make a mistake." Fuck off attested from 1929; as a command to depart, by 1944. Flying fuck originally meant "have sex on horseback" and is first attested c.1800 in broadside ballad "New Feats of Horsemanship." For the unkillable urban legend that this word is an acronym of some sort (a fiction traceable on the Internet to 1995 but probably predating that) see here, and also here. Related: Fucked; fucking. Agent noun fucker attested from 1590s in literal sense; by 1893 as a term of abuse (or admiration).
DUCK F-CK-R. The man who has the care of the poultry on board a ſhip of war. ("Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1796)
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)cliffordu
(30,994 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Like the "person-hole cover" thing back in the 80's.
kentauros
(29,414 posts)"Round Road Hazard"
cliffordu
(30,994 posts)Personal insults work their way into the common language, devoid of their original poison and hatred all the time.
That is ONE of the absolutely beautiful things about the English language.
There are a bunch of words that will take many decades to lose the power to hurt, but they will, sooner or later.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)persecuted. And feeds their delusions of "taking their country back" - from whom, is never quite specified...
yellowcanine
(35,701 posts)I am assuming that is still ok, unless that is an insult to croakers (bullfrogs) which were carried in the sacks prior to being eaten?
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)since "flip" is a derogatory term for Filipinos.
It's a "paper chart".
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)That has nothing to do with race. When did the meaning change and when did the changed meaning take precedence?
Revanchist
(1,375 posts)then again, according to the urban dictionary, nearly every word in the English language is slang for a lewd sexual act.