[PD] [OT] Re: about sexism

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Wed Oct 10 08:18:00 CEST 2007


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.

> 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".

> whilst there is no similar widespread cliche for western invaders in our 
> culture is testament to this fact.

I believe that "colonialism" and "imperialism" are widespread words, 
concepts and clichés, that are loaded by several centuries of history.

> A little. The conflict is similar to that in Australia. There are many
> sides and they usually concern the ownership of traditional lands:

You could add:

  * passive-aggressive government wants to make programme initiated by
    previous government look bad

  * fear that it legitimises (or opens a can of worms on) some completely
    unreasonable claims, such as ownership of areas that are no longer
    usable for traditional purposes and that may have already been
    compensated for in a previous treaty, ...

that's what I can think about. I'm not taking any side, because I don't 
know about the issues, I only listed some forces that I would guess tend 
to have a lot of influence on policy.

  _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada


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