Does anyone find "mandate" to be a sexist word?

Let's call it "persondate" or "humandate"

Which is to say not at all, because I'm not a blithering idiot.

reprimanded by my boss. I told someone they didn't have to niggardly put toppings on the pizzas, since the customers paid $15 for it. The boss took me aside, red in the face, saying "MATT! CUSTOMERS COULD'VE HEARD YOU!!!!"

After I told her the meaning of the word, she told me never to say it again, because customers might get offended. :eyes:

Yes I know what it means... but what does is its connotation? Negative and people can't separate it from the "bad" word. I wouldn't call it racist to use the word, but I would call it a very poor choice.

It is like saying "faggot" meaning a bundle of kindling (a true definition) and expecting people not to be offended because you didn't mean the "bad" word.

Mandate doesn't have that connotation, however. Just because it has "man" in it, doesn't make it sexist. Mandatory? Maneuver? Manure?

re "niggardly", other peoples' ignorance and stupidity is no reason NOT to use a perfectly good word. And "cheap", "stingy" and so on aren't "positive" words, either. The etymology is completely different, anyway; "niggardly" is Germanic, coming from Old Norse; the "n" word is from Latin niger, meaning black.

And "mandate" ALSO comes from the Latin, meaning "set one's hand to" (as in, for instance, a written order); "man" meaning "male" is Germanic and not Latin.

far more important than the etymology. Almost no one knows the etymology of any word, and while interesting, it does nearly nothing to advance the purpose of speaking or writing: to communicate a thought. People's ignorance IS a reason not to use a word if you expect them to undertand your meaning. If people don't understand why the word was chosen and assume it has a negative and racist definition, then the ancient etymology really doesn't matter much, does it? Take the example above where someone used it at work. The boss was very correct that it shouldn't be used in front of customers who may not understand its true meaning.

because it's a completely different word with a completely different meaning. If someone is a) too stupid to know this and b) too stupid to find out by using a dictionary, then it's not MY problem, it's theirs.

actual definitions or the reasons why. Do an informal on the street poll.... MOST people have no idea what niggardly means and they THINK it is something racist.

I just asked the other 3 people in the house. All thought niggardly was a racist word. They aren't stupid... just misinformed. But if you used that word to them, they would think you were being racist and it would blur everything else you said. Words are important for more than their history and more than their definitions. They are important for what they make people think--and that is why they have to be chosen so carefully.

I am still agreeing that in definition there is nothing wrong with the word. Its use, however, poses a problem in everyday language. Audience is always the most important aspect of any speech or writing...

I don't really see the fact that the average American has an impoverished vocabulary as a reason to dumb down my speech or writing.

Hurrah for our fine educational system...:eyes:

Yes it is sad that most people don't know the definitions of what would have been considered simple words 50 years ago. But it still goes back to knowing your audience and wanting to ensure they understand what you are saying. Lecturing a college class.... use the word. Writing an academic paper... use the word. Speaking to a group doctors or lawyers or other professionals you might expect to have a high volcabulary... use it. Standing in line at a crowded store.... you might get some dirty glances. Use it at work in front of customers... you might expect a little "chat" from the boss.

Know the audience...

I resemble that remark!

a manhole or a manual, or, mandoor, or management, manager, manage, or fireman, fisherman, policeman, mantle and many many more including many.

semite, semolina, and of course Semtex!

Oh...wait...that goes back to the boyfriend thread, doesn't it?

It has nothing to do with the word "man" except that those letters are in one of its syllables.

Some other words from that root:

remand
mandamus
mandatory

All of the women in a family had the same name. For example: if your family's surname was Julius, all of the women in the house would be called Julia.

It's a lost cause. The English language, like most if not all languages, is patriarchal in its essential structure.

Please tell me you're joking...because if that's not a joke, it's one of the most absurd and ignorant things I've seen anyone say in a while.

Think about it. Nearly every society is patriarchal, except for a few exceptions among North American Indian populations. There may be a few others. Language evolves in the context of a given culture. It thus reflects the values and norms of that culture. English is far older than our modern, more egalitarian society. Surely you know women's rights were extremely restricted for most of our history. It is natural that our language would reflect that social structure.

This is far from a novel or radical idea. People don't normally think about such things. They simply talk. But academics have for decades now deconstructed language to understand its embedded meanings. Gender is but one such area of analysis.
There is an endless amount of material on gender in language available online. This is a resource list: http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/lng/rsrc.html
It's all high brow academic stuff that most people, quite understandably, cannot bear.


The English language also reflects ideas of race. Blackness is associated with evil or other negative attributes: black as sin; the black sheep of the family: a black mark; blackmail, etc... Many scholars have analyzed such embedded meanings. Here is an excerpt from an online article I found by Jessica Brophy.

"The English language is a significant carrier of racism as its uses of "black" and "white" become to mean more than color. The uses of "black" and "white" in the English language are so embedded, so prone to seeming almost natural, so richly, stylistically, and freely intertwined within the system of words, that their unequal uses have become unconscious. Speakers of the English language do not consciously recognize how racially-charged words are, specifically how "black" has negative connotations and "white" positive connotations (and I would even go so far as to say denotations, for what is racism, but a belief in something that is more than a feeling, but a belief in something one believes is fact?) "Ignoring race is understood to be a graceful, liberal, even generous habit" (Morrison 257), but it does nothing to de-racialize a "race"-conscious language. It does nothing to eradicate "race" as real. It does nothing but advocates the use of a language that silences and excludes a people living on the margins of a dominant culture.

In order to prove his ideas that the English language is in fact his enemy, Davis lightly skimmed Roget's Thesaurus of the English Language and found the following. The word "whiteness" has 134 synonyms, 44 being favorable ("purity," "cleanness," "chaste," "innocent," "just," "unblemished," "fair") and only 10 seen as mildly negative ("gloss-over," "pale," "whitewash") (74). The word "blackness," on the other hand, had 120 synonyms, 60 of which were unfavorable ("wicked," "deadly," "unclean," "foul," "obscure") and none even mildly positive. Twenty of the words were directly related to "race," such as "Negro," "nigger," and "darkey" (74-75). Without figuring out percentages, it is obvious that a language (specifically American English here) built upon abstractions like justice, liberty, and equality did not intend to share equal terminology with a "race" "found" to be inferior.

Notions of "black" as negative and "white" as positive go back further than the first publication of Roget's Thesaurus, however. These notions became institutionalized in the language of the Bible and in the language of Shakespeare. Ali A. Mazrui in "Language and Race in the Black Experience: An African Perspective" finds the use of "black" as a metaphor for "evil," "void," and "death" within the English language worldwide (104). Since Christianity was a religion made victorious mostly through the efforts of white people, as Mazrui argues, then angels became "white" and the devil "black" (104). "Black" as "void" arises from the idea that blacks had no history, that their continent was living through a "dark age," one of barbarism and primitivism. Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper says, "There is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness . . . and darkness is not a subject of history" (qtd. in Mazrui 107). In both Julius Caesar and MacBeth, Shakespeare equates "black" with "death." In Julius Caesar, the "black sentence" (4.1) was a sentence of death against those associated with the assassination of Caesar. In Macbeth, Malcolm refers to Macbeth as "black Macbeth" (4.3), suggesting his soul is set on only murder and death."

http://euphrates.wpunj.edu/faculty/parrasj/BurningLeaf/burning_files/essay_writing/essay_pg01.html

Not exactly typical DU Lounge fare, but you did ask.

"human" and "person" are both Latinate in origin; "human" from Latin "humanus", "person" from "persona". "Son" and "man" are, on the other hand, Germanic and not Latinate; "son" is from Old English "sunu", and "man" comes from proto-Germanic. There are many English words which stem from different roots and have absolutely nothing in common save similarity of spelling with other words which LOOK related.

And positive vs negative connotations of white vs black have nothing to do with race and everything to do with light versus darkness (cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 147:" That I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright/Who art black as hell and dark as night").

Deconstruction is all well and good (I admire Derrida myself), but this is postulating a subtext that isn't there, and as such comes off more as parody than serious academic critique.

as would thousands of historians and literary and Cultural Studies scholars.

I don't see how the fact the words in the English language derive from German and Latin refute my argument in the slightest. Those were hardly matriarchies. To imagine lightness and darkness are unassociated with color prejudice (and here I deliberately avoid the word race because we are speaking of the pre-Enlightenment era) avoids the issue. Why did Europeans label Africans black in the first place? If you were to compare their varying skin tones against a color wheel, you would notice that none of them are truly black. Why were they not called brown? Why would you expect language to reflect egalitarian ideas of gender neutrality and color blindness when that is not the nature of our culture?

It's fine if this sort of thing isn't your cup of tea. There is no reason for most people to ever worry about it. I'm certainly not suggesting you police your speech to avoid such references. That would be impossible. But to argue it isn't there because you don't see it strikes me as a bit narrow minded. If you respect Derrida, I don't see your problem with looking at race and gender in language. It's not exactly cutting edge semiotics.

this, imho, is one of them

Your tax dollars hard at work. Actually very few of your tax dollars go to supporting research in the humanities. Your average liberal arts prof makes less than most state employees. Private institutions more seriously support liberal arts research.

"I don't see how the fact the words in the English language derive from German and Latin refute my argument in the slightest. Those were hardly matriarchies."

No, they weren't, but your original post used the words "person" and "human" with the final three letters highlighted as evidence of the patriarchal nature of the English language. Since the words have an utterly different origin than those you compare them to and share only orthographic similarities, that is patently ridiculous.


"To imagine lightness and darkness are unassociated with color prejudice (and here I deliberately avoid the word race because we are speaking of the pre-Enlightenment era) avoids the issue. Why did Europeans label Africans black in the first place?"

A better question is why you argue that there is some connection to skin colour in this, given that the connotations of white and black existed long before most Europeans had ANY contact with or real knowledge of Africans.

This sort of thing actually IS my cup of tea, but I find it useless to make distinctions that have no basis.

When is this language that you suggest was framed before Europeans had contact with Africans? Certainly not Shakespeare. Othello was a "dark Moor." Romans had contact with Africans before the English developed writing. The oldest surviving English text dates from the 8th century. Beowulf, the best known of early English works, dates from around 1000 AD. As I'm sure you know, the Romans conquered England in the first century, and I would be surprised if Africans did not accompany them during that conquest and occupation. The issue is not that simply that notions of black and white, evil and good, are intrinsically racist. But rather than when Europeans framed words to describe Africans, they relied on terms associated with goodness and evil as points of comparison. It would be incorrect to label this as racism as we understand it today, since biological categories of race were not invented until the 18th century.

Your point about Germanic and English roots does not address the point I made. I said nothing about the origins of the words. I simply commented on the fact that language reflects patriarchy (or gender if you prefer).

Let's just agree to disagree on this. You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

is that the connotations of "white" and "black" found in English and other European languages happen to be found in non-white, non-European languages and cultures as well (in fact, in MOST cultures, including African ones). See for instance the Old Testament of the Bible. In the Song of Solomon, the lover's skin is described as "like milk"; given the cultural context, this is surely metaphor.

And your point was made very poorly, because the words you chose to make it make no point at all; they only illustrate your evident ignorance of linguistics. Such ignorance largely invalidates anything you might have to say on the subject. There's a rather large difference between rigourous academic discussion and mere wanking...the former actually requires that you have some vague idea of what you're talking about.

There's no need to be rude. I made a general point in a lounge post of all places and you asked if I was serious. I pointed you to sources for you to investigate the issue yourself if you choose. My own area of research doesn't relate to any of this, and I wrote the response in the middle of the night. Now you feel a need to criticize me as "ignorant"? I have never claimed to be an expert on linguistics or any of this. My knowledge is only passing.

The argument about gender and language has been around since the 1970s. There is also a huge body of literature on race and language. Whether or not you choose to blame me personally for ideas you find threatening, they nonetheless exist. Unfortunately, universities have allowed women and people of color into their ranks. As a result, these annoying analyses have emerged. How inconvenient for you. If it makes you happy to believe racism and sexism have never existed and are reflected in no aspect of our language, go right ahead.

Rather than relying on transparent insults, do some reading for yourself. Being hostile does nothing to lend credibility to what is clearly an absurdly defensive position.

And I certainly don't find any of these ideas "threatening".

I never said that racism and sexism AREN'T a part of our culture, by the way, nor did I say that that fact is not reflected in language. The point is that those parts of our language you chose as illustrative unfortunately AREN'T reflective of anything except what you yourself happen to read into them.

Also, what I said is what I mean. Don't look for subtext in what I say; there is none. I am autistic, and therefore relentlessly literal. Anything you read into my words beyond the words themselves is the product of your own mind.

but the examples you've given, are agreeing with SJ, less than debunkproof.

it's would be the same if i would do german englisch

FRAU - FRAUdulent

or french

Man - MANsarde

Crosspicking syllables won't do.



giving you a example of sexism in german language

dämlich (dumb, idiotic, not smart) derives from Dame (Lady)
herrlich (marvelous, wonderful) derives from Herr (Mister)

Arguments about gender and language have been around since the 1970s. There is also a large body of literature on race and language. Since universities have been foolish enough to allow women and people of color to enter, academics have produced these annoying analyses on race and gender. How inconvenient for you. If it makes you feel more secure to imagine that sexism and racism have never existed and that our language reflects none of those associations, go right ahead.

I posted a statement in the lounge and you queried me on it, so I responded. In between discussions on Jon Stewart and other TV heartthrobs, I wrote, in the middle of the night, a casual response that pointed you to outside sources. You then are so rude that you feel compelled to call me ignorant? I have never claimed to be an expert in linguistics or any of this. My knowledge is only passing. My own research is in an entirely different field. I pointed you to a number of sources that you can read for yourself if you choose. A search of humanities databases will produce hundreds of scholarly articles. Blaming me personally for well-established arguments you find threatening does nothing to enhance your credibility. Nor do petty insults.

"Since universities have been foolish enough to allow women and people of color to enter, academics have produced these annoying analyses on race and gender. How inconvenient for you. If it makes you feel more secure to imagine that sexism and racism have never existed and that our language reflects none of those associations, go right ahead."

You seem to have some sort of reading-comprehension problem. I never said that racism and sexism don't exist. Nor that racist and sexist language doesn't exist. You've just called me a racist and a sexist, which is a bit more than a "petty insult"...that's a bit closer to libel.

And I said you were apparently ignorant (def.: possessed of little or no knowledge of a given subject) of linguistics, which you as much as admitted, yourself; which would seem to make what I said more of an accurate observation than an insult. (Please note that there's a difference between ignorance and stupidity; stupidity is negative, indicating inability or unwillingness to learn; ignorance is neutral, meaning simple lack of knowledge.)

NO

It was meant as a joke.

..."blindate" with density.

a comical pic of Clinton/Lewinsky, except this time it's the vulgar pigboy sitting in the oval office and Gannon under the desk! So no, I don't find it offensive, I've just learned to laugh at it.

A few indescretions among the ruling party members should go under the radar.

I guess things come down to what the definition of "out of touch with reality" is.

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