On Wed, Oct 10, 2007 at 02:18:00AM -0400, Mathieu Bouchard wrote: > On Wed, 10 Oct 2007, Chris McCormick wrote: > >implying that the phrase "Mongolian hordes" represents a historically > >valid viewpoint is perpetuating a western-biased (racist) falsehood. > > "horde" is not a viewpoint. It's a noun. It means "political subdivision > of a (central asian) nomadic people". It comes for Turkic "orda" meaning a > Khan's residence.
I stand corrected. > >The mere fact that everyone knows what we're talking about when we say > >"mongolian hordes" > > If you use political correctness to get a word loaded with connotations to > be replaced by a brand new word, the old connotations tend to be carried > over to the new word. Thus those are not so much properties of a specific > word, than a topic of public opinion. This is something that is best fixed > by education and not by "dictionary engineering". I did not advocate "dictionary engineering". Best, Chris. ------------------- http://mccormick.cx _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
