this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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[Disclaimer] - I am not an American and I consider myself atheist, I am Caucasian and born in a pre-dominantly Christian country.

Based on my limited knowledge of Christianity, it is all about social justice, compassion and peace.

And I was always wondering how come Republicans are perceiving themselves as devout Christians while the political party they support is openly opposing those virtues and if this doesn't make them hypocrites?

For them the mortal enemy are the lefties who are all about social justice, helping the vulnerable and the not so fortunate and peace.

Christianity sounds to me a lot more like socialist utopia.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What happened to "show me one dictionary"?

Looks like your goalposts have grown legs.

So, the common usage in both the country with the greatest number of English speakers AND the country the language originated in is incorrect? Because crispy_kilt says so?

Language is a socially negotiated system, so what the word means to the people who use it is what the words mean.

That paper is about what terminology should be used in academic work, who gives a fuck for people talking on lemmy?

The scale of annoyingness:

Pedants -> incorrect pedants -> incorrect pedants who insist they're right, regardless of the evidence in front of them

----------------------------------------------------| you are here

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What happened to “show me one dictionary”?

I was honestly surprised with it listing the term with its common, but incorrect meaning, without as much as a hint to that end. You got me there!

Because crispy_kilt says so?

No. Please refer to the three academic sources I provided.

That paper is about what terminology should be used in academic work, who gives a fuck for people talking on lemmy?

That's like arguing "could of" to be correct English just because some people do it. Correctness is thankfully not what some believe, but something that has to be demonstrated with some rigour. If you discredit academic sources in favour of a popular misconception then I guess we will never agree.

Pedants -> incorrect pedants -> incorrect pedants who insist they’re right, regardless of the evidence in front of them

I mean, I provided several sources for my claim

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But your sources have multiple flaws:

  • firstly, they're all American, and so have no relevance to European English dialects
  • secondly, they did not say "Caucasian does not mean white European", they say variations on "it is not the best term to use in academic literature"

So my source - despite being a highly reputable entity whose entire reason to exist is to define words - is "incorrect"?

"Could of" is different, because the social consensus is that it's grammatically incorrect. Your argument is more like arguing that antisemitic refers to Arabs as well, just because Semitic includes Arabic peoples. Just because a term is derived from another doesn't mean that it permanently must only be understood by its etymological roots.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Of course they're all from the US, they're the only ones who use the word that way. They're also the only ones obsessed with the ethnic origin of the various parts of their population. In England, a person with UK citizenship whose ancestors came from Africa 300 years ago isn't an African-Englishman, or a Black English, or some other racist bullshit like that, he's simply an Englishman. That's because the British aren't unhealthily obsessed with ethnic origin.

This of course makes it difficult to find UK examples of the correct usage of the term, as this whole topic doesn't really exist in a civilised nation.

Earlier we talked about European languages. I speak some of them.

French: Caucasien: Qui appartient au Caucase, chaîne de montagnes d’Asie. (Who is from the Caucasus, a chain of mountains in Asia.) https://www.le-dictionnaire.com/definition/caucasien

German: Kaukasier: Einwohnerbezeichnung (term for describing inhabitant) https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Kaukasier

Russian: кавказец: Жители, уроженцы Кавказа. (Inhabitant or native of the Caucasus) https://kartaslov.ru/%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0/%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%86%D1%8B

See? One example from the most spoken language in Europe of each group, Latin, Germanic, Slavic.

They all agree.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do you think the concept of race doesn't exist in Britain?!

I'll tell you it most definitely does, hell we practically invented systemic racism. Come to London and tell a black Brit that they aren't black and we'll see how that one goes down.

Just because words that look like "Caucasian" mean the other thing in German and french doesn't change it's English meaning. Congratulations on your language knowledge, but are not the genius you think you are.

I speak English, as an Englishman. Caucasian means white in British English.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Right then, you Caribbean. What do you mean you're not from the Caribbean? What does that have to do with anything? That word is obviously referring to the population of the British Isles. Duh.

That's how this sounds. It's ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well yeah that would be a great metaphor, if everyone in Britain referred to Britain as the Carribbean. But they don't, so it's deeply dumb.

I don't understand what you're caught up on.

British people use the word caucasian to mean white, and that is documented in British dictionaries.

I appreciate you take personal issue with that usage, but that's life, you don't control the English language.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

A misconception being common does not make it correct.