Tag: language

the problem with being immersed in the terminology of one group/profession is that nearly all acronyms/initialisms have more than one commonly-used meaning, but people often unthinkingly use them- or other jargon- without sufficient explanation or context, not realizing that those outside their field or social group may need further explanation

….in related news, I just had a really bizarre moment of cognitive dissonance as I tried to understand why ‘men loving men’ was being mentioned alongside pyramid schemes

I’m not sure if there’s a linguistic term for this, but I find it fascinating when the connotation of a word changes over time, without the meaning changing at all.

I’m currently (re)reading Pride and Prejudice and was struck by how “condescension” is used positively*, while still referring to the same behavior and attitude it does now. At some point between 1812 and 2018 ‘person of high status deigning to speak with those of lesser rank’ ceased to become a good thing; the word stood still while society changed around it.

*Admittedly, the person in question in this case is still being a dick about it, but the word itself clearly doesn’t carry a negative connotation.

fifthdayprairie:

Let’s talk about prairie, history, and language. For communities so focused on “native plants”/”native gardening”/etc there’s so little acknowledgement or engagement with indigenous Americans and their history. 

When we talk about science, there’s a baseline assumption of objectivity. Science is Truth, something apart from messy cultural ideas. The reality is, culture and all it’s messes bleed into science, like here in ecology. We gotta be conscious of the histories we inherit in science.

Source: chase-prairie

I get frustrated with people who don’t want to appreciate writing like Renault’s but to be fair my favorite books as a child were Gerald Durrell’s memoirs which are a) violently british and b) all written in the 50s and 60s and set then or in the interwar period, so I am aware that I am more…. primed…. for brit lit of that period than the average millennial but STILL.