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[–]Richard_Parker 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thought I would offer a digest of my comments on the thread on unpopular opinion. Feel free to join me there, if you want. ...

"Juneteenth" is not a proper word. It reinforces negative stereotypes about blacks not speaking proper English, and infused yet further non standard black "English, "ebonics," jive talk into the vernacular.. Also it should not be conflated with Independence Day. Independence occurs when a nation secedes from another nation or otherwise gains INDEPENDENCE from a colonial mother nation, conqueror, etc. If anything, it should be called Emancipation Day.

All in all, I am against it. Know it will be used to double down and ramp up rhetoric about white guilt and all that bullshit. Also, Cori Bush and BLm sorts did not flinch an eye, going to straight to increased calls for reparations, and son on. Apox on all their houses. Down with black victimization ideology. No to reparations. And no to "Juneteenth." ... If an entire culture is aware of the meaning of a term, it’s a word.

Only after time. "Alright" still is not a word, but given how powerful the descriptivist contagion is at the moment, I fear it soon will be.

No black person calls it “Independence Day”.

Oh well they are the ones who really count, not the majority, and not the plain, basic meaning of the words at issue. ... [In response to further exhortations that "Nineteenth" is a proper word]

User avatar level 5 Tiki-Tiger · 36m · edited 26m

I once believed it was a small group of elites who decided what term was truly a word, and wrote it down in the dictionary, and made everyone else follow the rules. That’s not how it works though. What they have done is send a team out to the streets and gather information about what the public believes is a word and the meaning of such - like a census of vocabulary. The populous decides what terms mean

I firmly reject this descriptivist plague that is destroying language and culture. “Alright” is not a word, and “literally” does not mean figuratively or as an intensifier to add broad, general emphasis. This bullshit has interfered with the ability of the educated to lead, to control and regulate a language, which is necessary to hamper its devolition. And without this prescriptivist regime, the language has devolved indeed. This anything does—anything but what old school English teachers and grammarians say—is interfering in our collective ability to write and speak clearly and, yes, correctly. Read David Foster Wallace’s tract on this if you care to. ... [re why blacks are the ones who count and we should care about black issues] Why should I celebrate or “interested in ending the.. issues that contine to affect them.” Right on the heels of this, Cori Blush and Black Lives Matter did not even flinch before demanding reparations, replete with bullshit talk about police brutality and violence. You want to talk about brutality and violence, let’s talk 13/50. Or let’s not talk at all. That is what whites need to do because it is never fucking enough. Black victimization ideology will never end its demands, never end in its grievances until whites wake up and say no, fuck you, we have enough. I am saying that now.