Le mercredi 10 octobre 2007 à 02:18 -0400, Mathieu Bouchard a écrit :
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007, Chris McCormick wrote:
implying that the phrase "Mongolian hordes" represents a historically valid viewpoint is perpetuating a western-biased (racist) falsehood.
"horde" is not a viewpoint. It's a noun. It means "political subdivision of a (central asian) nomadic people". It comes for Turkic "orda" meaning a Khan's residence.
The mere fact that everyone knows what we're talking about when we say "mongolian hordes"
If you use political correctness to get a word loaded with connotations to be replaced by a brand new word, the old connotations tend to be carried over to the new word. Thus those are not so much properties of a specific word, than a topic of public opinion. This is something that is best fixed by education and not by "dictionary engineering".
whilst there is no similar widespread cliche for western invaders in our culture is testament to this fact.
Fair use of political correctness: I read an article about US Restaurants renaming "French fries" into "Liberty fries" (although most French think fries originate from Belgium ;-), I suggest we rewrite "Mongolian hordes" into "Liberty hordes".
bye.
O.