I don’t believe this is feasible. My impression is that emotional connotations inhere in things, not in words.
Over the decades, society has, over the decades, gone through a whole string of synonyms for “limited intelligence”—none of which are emotionally neutral. Changing terms from “imbecile”, to “retarded”, “developmentally disabled” to “special needs”, has just resulted in a steady turnover of playground insults. You can’t make an insulting concept emotionally neutral, I think.
The two aren’t contradictory: emotional connotations can inhere in things and words.
The euphemism treadmill is what you get when the emotional connotation inheres in a thing. But what emotional connotation inheres in ‘sexual promiscuity’? Even if it is there (and its recommendation by someone sensitive enough to emotional connotations that inhere in words [from the perspective of a specific thede/tribe] seems to suggest that it isn’t), certainly there’s less negative connotation there than in ‘sluttiness’.
Similarly, it’s possible to find loaded equivalents, or at least approximations, for most (all?) of Mencius Moldbug’s caste terms. (UR is a good place to mine for these sorts of pairs, since he coins emotionally neutral terms to replace, or at least approximate, emotionally loaded terms. Of course, if you use them, you’re signaling that you’ve read Moldbug, but...)
I don’t believe this is feasible. My impression is that emotional connotations inhere in things, not in words.
Over the decades, society has, over the decades, gone through a whole string of synonyms for “limited intelligence”—none of which are emotionally neutral. Changing terms from “imbecile”, to “retarded”, “developmentally disabled” to “special needs”, has just resulted in a steady turnover of playground insults. You can’t make an insulting concept emotionally neutral, I think.
The two aren’t contradictory: emotional connotations can inhere in things and words.
The euphemism treadmill is what you get when the emotional connotation inheres in a thing. But what emotional connotation inheres in ‘sexual promiscuity’? Even if it is there (and its recommendation by someone sensitive enough to emotional connotations that inhere in words [from the perspective of a specific thede/tribe] seems to suggest that it isn’t), certainly there’s less negative connotation there than in ‘sluttiness’.
Similarly, it’s possible to find loaded equivalents, or at least approximations, for most (all?) of Mencius Moldbug’s caste terms. (UR is a good place to mine for these sorts of pairs, since he coins emotionally neutral terms to replace, or at least approximate, emotionally loaded terms. Of course, if you use them, you’re signaling that you’ve read Moldbug, but...)