When I read su**de my brain read suicide, so you still put the word in my mind, what's your point doing that? In fact I spent more time thinking and parsing the word suicide because of the asterisks.
It’s more like putting a lipstick on a pig. You know some people will get triggered. But you say it anyway. And then pretend it’s not so bad because you put asterisk in there, so it’s totally not the same thing. Yet you’re talking about the same thing. But it’s totally not the same!!! Yeah, right.
How? You read it the same way in your brain? Like when you read you think of the words, so they are all there in the same way, with the only added extra parsing on top (ie an extra half second spent on the word you want to avoid). If you want to be careful to avoid this, avoid the subject or use different framing that doesn't require to use the word. Censoring it in text makes zero sense for the reader for your intended purpose.
This feels like a weird combo of "I know talking about this subject will put the thought in people's minds, but I still want to talk about it and say the same thing exactly while at the same time showing that I think it's problematic". But then why do it?
You say it all with so much certainty. Why do you think your approach is better than the other commenter? (Also, certainty is a tipoff, ime, of a lack of knowledge or wisdom.)
Obviously I speak in first person, makes zero sense, to me. I'm definitely not wise though, that's why I asked because for many of these things I often start really puzzled and after a few years of sharing some opinion someone finally says something that makes it click for me and I was hoping to see if there's something I'm missing. I'm not very "woke" by default and it requires plenty of talking and thinking for me to see the other side. And this is a discussion forum to share ideas! When you're wrong just post something online and wait, like xckd said.
I think there's validity in avoiding gratuitous mentions of some topics given some audiences, but what I'm puzzled by is the specific implementation that to me makes it worse than just not thinking about it and writing what you'd write anyway. It really makes no sense, to me.
> I'm definitely not wise though, that's why I asked because for many of these things I often start really puzzled and after a few years of sharing some opinion someone finally says something that makes it click for me and I was hoping to see if there's something I'm missing. I'm not very "woke" by default and it requires plenty of talking and thinking for me to see the other side. And this is a discussion forum to share ideas! When you're wrong just post something online and wait, like xckd said.
Well, I think that's pretty wise. Sorry to be so argumentative! :)
> I think there's validity in avoiding gratuitous mentions of some topics given some audiences, but what I'm puzzled by is the specific implementation that to me makes it worse than just not thinking about it and writing what you'd write anyway. It really makes no sense, to me.
I don't pretend to know enough about human psychology to have a certain answer, but here are my thoughts:
Words, specific words, have impacts beyond their meanings. For example, people use euphemisms all the time - gentle ways of saying something harsh - in many (all?) cultures, because they work. More generally, people say things politely rather than rudely or directly, even talking about happy things like sex, or natural things like excreting waste.
Perhaps it lessens the blow; it allows people to glance at something troubling without being retraumatized. It also signals care: Being polite communicates you care about and respect the other person; being rude conveys the opposite.
People have long made the logical point that the meaning is the same so why not say the rude thing, but clearly almost everyone feels otherwise and the words we choose have an impact beyond their meanings.
And in case it does help someone to obscure the word, why not do it?
> Obviously I speak in first person, makes zero sense, to me.
It's not obvious. People make assertions about the world all the time.
They activate different neural pathways? Might not apply to you but it probably applies to others. At least that's what GP believes, and I find it plausible too.
That may be true for people seeing the censored for the first time. But then it just becomes a double speak theater.
Sort of like illegal vs undocumented migrants. First time you hear, it may pass in different ways. But once you realize what’s the topic, people on both sides will read both words the same way. And both in their own ways. It just becomes a kind of virtue signaling after few uses.
> Sort of like illegal vs undocumented migrants. First time you hear, it may pass in different ways. But once you realize what’s the topic, people on both sides will read both words the same way. And both in their own ways. It just becomes a kind of virtue signaling after few uses.
People who study these things, including persuasive public communication, have a very different opinion. So do writers of every stripe, from technical writers to poets. The words we use matter.
For example, the sides in the abortion debate call themselves 'pro choice' and 'pro life', and call their opponents negative things. Goverments have long called targets who challenge the status quo, especially voilently, 'terrorists', even though their tactics may have nothing to do with terrorism. Political actors invest lots of money and work in finding the most effective words.
There's a difference between 'slaves' or 'colleteral damage', creatures or objects that play a role in someone else's actions, and 'enslaved people' or 'enslaved men and women' or 'people who were killed by the bomb', who are real humans caught up on something awful.
People use pejoritives for the same reason - for example, 'wetbacks' or 'illegals' for undocumented people, all sorts of names for enemies in warfare, etc.
I’m yet to see someone who switched camps because of pro life or undocumented wording. On the other hand, all sides seem to make lots of fun of the other side wording and make jokes out of that. Or use exact wording as pejorative.
Wording may make difference in marketing for on-the-spot decisions. But in the long run, when people take a deeper look, wording seems to not make a difference.
You see people in one camp making fun of it - the reactionary camp, whose purpose is to destroy 'liberalism' in any form. Of course they attack it.
Should everyone else just quit because someone is attacking? If someone attacks everything you do and say, does it mean anything substantively, or is it just a signal to their comrades?
I see people in various camps trying to use double speak as a weapon. And I don’t see people changing camps because of wording. And all camps are making fun of wording of the other side on any topic.
I’m not on US so here camps are slightly different and don’t exactly make two camps. With many topics crossing what you may call „reactionary“ and „progressive“ lines in strange ways. Here frequently people at the same time are in different camps on different topics with same people. And use same tactics both „with“ and „against“ same people based on topic.
You said that people using that language were ridiculed, as if that should be a factor in their behavior. So should they stop because their opponents use ridicule?
> I don’t see people changing camps because of wording
I still don't see what evidence you have. I've presented evidence that experts and practioners have long invested a lot of resources in using language in this way. Just look at Fox News - it's almost their entire reason and means.
I was saying that the language didn’t change the outlooks of the other side. The only impact was the other side making fun of them.
People have invested time in all sorts of useless ideas. And social sciences have a pretty bad track record in recent decades.
I’m not very familiar with Fox News. But isn’t it the example of what I’m saying? It does nothing to convert the other side and pretty much a circlejerk of believers?
How may Fox News watchers changed their minds because NYT started calling illegal migrants „undocumented“? My bet at best it’s feel-good virtue signaling for their crowd that was already deep in that camp.
I know what you're saying. I don't see evidence of it - that you perceive it, especially because you can't read people's minds, is not strong evidence.
Communication has different registers, that is, in different situations some words words or expressions are less or more appropriate. For example formal or casual talk.
I don't have a proof, but I think 'su**de' is a more appropriate form of 'suicide' here than 'suicide', just because it is.
