• azvasKvklenko@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    It’s like in Polish - the word “żyd” (jew) has negative connotations, and maybe it becomes rare in usage these days, but the negative meaning sticks. It’s still an offense to call somebody that.

    We have more words like this (cygan, rumun) that on its own are official words for etnicity or nationality, but carry some negative meaning. We also have dedicated words to call many different groups in offensive ways.

    However languages happen organically and they reflect how people speak, not the other way that there’s some sort of entity that dictates how the entire population should speak (although reformations are possible).

    Funny how people try to regulate that by law. We had such case in Polish when few years ago feminists tried to change how we call professions that are typically assigned with men, but some women are also performing them (police officer, firefigter, ministry etc). Some of those forms didn’t make sense completely due to semantics, some were dropped from the language decades ago and sound archaic or unnatural, the lobby lead to memes at the very most.

    • AstridWipenaugh@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      That movement worked though. You wrote police officer and firefighter instead of policeman and fireman.