Are those really an example of this pattern? Slurs typically combine a group signifier with an insult; it’s normally pretty easy to replace that a non-slur group signifier and a separate insult. It’s unlikely that someone using a slur will have difficulty coming up with different words that mean the same thing. They’ll just… not want to use those words, because they’re less deniable.
1) My model of people who use slurs as a significant part of their expressive vocabulary is that at least some of them use the slur to mean “member of group [X] I don’t like”, as explicitly opposed to “member of group [X] I feel indifferent-to-positive about”. A neutral group signifier plus optional insult alone fails to encode this distinction, perhaps making it a less-than-suitable replacement.
2) I read:
I think people are within their rights to reject a proposed replacement for not meaning the right thing, sounding ugly, being one syllable longer, being hard to spell, not rhyming in a poem they’re trying to write, and vague gut feeling that you’re just trying to control them.
...to be pretty clear about whether a more-verbose construction that requires the speaker to separate their personal insult can fail to be a suitable replacement.
None of this means that the general principle can’t or shouldn’t have a carve-out for slurs; My only intended argument is that, as expressed above, it seems plausible to me that finding suitable replacements requires significant effort (and basically is never done in practice by people attempting to remove slurs from others’ excessive vocabulary).
Some people are in fact responsive to “that’s a slur; the preferred term is X”, especially if X isn’t a barbarous use of language, if they were using the slur to encompass the whole group and got caught by a euphemism treadmill or just pick up their vocabulary from sources unsympathetic to Xes. And you don’t have to reject an offered word for being a syllable longer if you want to make that tradeoff. I think this is a case of Postel’s law, or should be.
Hmmm. I would be responsive to “that’s a slur,” but the follow-on “the preferred term is X” raises my hackles. The former is merely a request to be polite; the latter feels like someone is trying to dictate vocabulary to me.
Oh, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that there weren’t cases of suitable replacements for slurs (or that it wouldn’t be valuable to find such); rather, I only meant to claim that there existed a case where it isn’t obvious how to find a suitable replacement (contra jimrandomh above).
Are those really an example of this pattern? Slurs typically combine a group signifier with an insult; it’s normally pretty easy to replace that a non-slur group signifier and a separate insult. It’s unlikely that someone using a slur will have difficulty coming up with different words that mean the same thing. They’ll just… not want to use those words, because they’re less deniable.
1) My model of people who use slurs as a significant part of their expressive vocabulary is that at least some of them use the slur to mean “member of group [X] I don’t like”, as explicitly opposed to “member of group [X] I feel indifferent-to-positive about”. A neutral group signifier plus optional insult alone fails to encode this distinction, perhaps making it a less-than-suitable replacement.
2) I read:
...to be pretty clear about whether a more-verbose construction that requires the speaker to separate their personal insult can fail to be a suitable replacement.
None of this means that the general principle can’t or shouldn’t have a carve-out for slurs; My only intended argument is that, as expressed above, it seems plausible to me that finding suitable replacements requires significant effort (and basically is never done in practice by people attempting to remove slurs from others’ excessive vocabulary).
Some people are in fact responsive to “that’s a slur; the preferred term is X”, especially if X isn’t a barbarous use of language, if they were using the slur to encompass the whole group and got caught by a euphemism treadmill or just pick up their vocabulary from sources unsympathetic to Xes. And you don’t have to reject an offered word for being a syllable longer if you want to make that tradeoff. I think this is a case of Postel’s law, or should be.
Hmmm. I would be responsive to “that’s a slur,” but the follow-on “the preferred term is X” raises my hackles. The former is merely a request to be polite; the latter feels like someone is trying to dictate vocabulary to me.
I think it’s much better to offer a replacement than not.
Oh, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that there weren’t cases of suitable replacements for slurs (or that it wouldn’t be valuable to find such); rather, I only meant to claim that there existed a case where it isn’t obvious how to find a suitable replacement (contra jimrandomh above).