[Marxism] Af-Pak is Obama’s War

[Jeff]

At 18:12 18/05/09 -0400, you wrote:
>On Mon, 18 May 2009 16:52:45 -0400
>"S. Artesian" <sartesian at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Comrade Keyes is absolutely correct.  That word has no place on a Marxist 
>> list, has no place anywhere.

I absolutely agree with that. I hope Muneeb has learned exactly how English
speaking Americans hear that word, and therefore why it would never be used
by politically conscious people.

However the discussion displays a serious problem regarding cultural
insensitivity. There are many many words/expressions which originally have
a sexual or gender reference but are used routinely without conscious
thought toward that original meaning. The first 10 to come to my mind (but
there are many more!): motherfucker, asshole, son of a bitch, prick,
cocksucker, douche bag, bastard, sissy, a jerk-off, fuckhead. When people
use these words they almost always do so without consciousness of the
word's etymology, unless you point it out to them in which case it becomes
obvious!

I'm not advocating use of any of these coarse expressions. But I know that
Americans would not generally take the use of these very common expressions
as sexist for the very reason that the speaker had no such intention. When
judging a non-American's use of English, one should take the cultural
difference in acceptable language into account.

Muneeb should not be singled out by anyone (including myself) who has ever
used any of the above 10 expressions without regard to their literal
meaning. Now that he has been told that the one word he did use has a
sharper literal significance to anti-sexist Americans, I assume he will be
more careful when talking to Americans.

I myself have been taken to task for using "Rule of Thumb" because of the
expression's origin. It is an essential term in engineering and I continue
to use it regularly simply because there is no substitute in the English
language. And I'm sure an etymologist could tell us about the original
meanings of many common words that might bring disgrace upon an ordinary
tract in English. And of course what is acceptable (because the literal
meaning is lost) and what is unacceptable (because the literal meaning is
easily heard) changes over time, as well as with respect to geography/culture.
 
- Jeff