Trans rights activists pretend that the only people who oppose their views are radfems.

submitted by reluctant_commenter from (self.LGBDropTheT)

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[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Maybe, but since English has no authority, words and their definitions are determined by how we use them. If "TERF" is more often used as a slur agaisnt lesbians than anything else, then that's the definition. This is why gender has the woke definition in the dictionary, "literally" is defined as meaning the exact opposite of what it actaully should mean, and "irregardless" is being added to the dictionary because people can't say "regardless."

Language is ever changing, so we also have to be or else we'll use words that have been hijacked and altered for nafarious purposes

[–]mvmlego 2 insightful - 6 fun2 insightful - 5 fun3 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

The examples that you cite seem to refute your own account of meaning. If a word's meaning is based solely on the way that it's used, then it's a contradiction to say that a word has been defined as the opposite of what it should mean. EDIT: By your account of meaning, the word "literally" has no proper definition; it's definition is merely whatever the word most-often intended to mean.

Regardless, I'm not naive-enough to believe that the ways that speakers intend their words to be interpreted is completely irrelevant. If a word has been hopelessly co-opted, then I'll stop using it, but I'm not convinced that TERF is one of those. I've heard some feminists actually describe themselves as "TERF", for example.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well, if a word changes from being used to mean one thing to meaning the opposite, that's one thing, but when a word has simutaneous antonym definitions, that's another thing. Literally didn't change from meaning literally to meaning metaphorically, it adopted the second definition, so now when someone sees the word, the entire sentence's meaning may be up for debate.

"John literally died!" usually means that John is laughing at the moment, but if this message was sent after John was stabbed, then the sender's intent has been completely lost due to the adding of the second definition.

I haven't seen enough examples of TERF's use in recent years to make a decision on whether it still means one thing or another, but I do know that I do my best to avoid words such as literally because it is more often used to mean the exact opposite of what I would be using it for in my speech.