Xoriff

I wanna know why nobody is standing up for the bears. Just because some bears attack people in the woods doesn’t mean they all will.

Most bears aren’t aggressive and wouldn’t actually attack anybody unless provoked. I mean, I get it. Maybe only 10% of bears would get agro for no reason. But how am I supposed to know if this one is one of those 10%?

We need to have a discussion about how the good bears are becoming disenfranchised by being lumped in with a very small minority of bears that would go out of their way to harm you for no reason. #NotAllBears

edit: a typo

It’s not that the word “literally” is worse now. It’s that it used to represent an idea (the idea of a thing being non-figurative) which it’s slowly coming to not mean anymore.

Words map to meanings. Those mappings can shift and change over time. But if that happening leaves a particular meaning orphaned then I’d think of that as unfortunate, no?

Maybe instead of changes being “good” or “bad” it’s more like “this shift in language increases (or decreases) the total expressiveness of the language”. Would you be less up in arms at that way of putting it?

Two things.

1. I agree with you 100%. Language shifts and changes over time. Sometimes in beautiful / useful ways and sometimes in ugly / detrimental ways (losing a word that was the only word that meant the thing that it meant for instance)
2. If it changes based on how people use it, then why not use it in the way that you want to see it evolve. Maybe even advocate for it to evolve in the way that you see as beautiful / useful if it’s that meaningful to you.

For example, I love that we verbify stuff more these days. That’s super cool. I do it all the time because I love that active voice. On the other hand flammable and inflammable slowly becoming the same thing kinda sucks because now what word do you use when you want to say what “inflammable” used to mean? You can do it. Just not as nicely. If people evolve the language that way then fine, I’ll go along. But if language naturally changes based on usage, what’s wrong with using it the way that you want to see it become (or remain)?

(as perceived by men)

I think this is the point. It’s that both men and women are drawn in a way that attempts to appeal to men and less so what appeals to women (this is what men think ideal-woman looks like. This is what men think ideal-man looks like). This causes side-effects, galore.