IV and cultural assimilation

[alice wellintown]

Sorry, Rich, I kinda messed that up ...I did not mean to say that
linguists or scientists or cultural studies profs or anyone else
pronounces anything . . .what I meant is that the academic linguists
(be they, cultural, social, dsescriptive)  have recognized that when
words and phrases change they often reflect a change in the way people
see things out in the street. So, for example, "Snail mail" and
"E-mail" reflect a major shift in how the street sees traditional
mail.  The use of new terms changes what the old terms mean. One could
reduce this to politics and semantics, but of the reasons why people
will argue over what "marriage" or "family" means is that the street
is changing and the old terms are at odds with the changes taking
place. Not merely a question of what is PC or politically Right or
Left, the street changed and the melting pot was called into question.
This article from 1998 sums up the issue:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/meltingpot/melt0222.htm

In any event, IV is not P's attempt to be inclusive or salad-bowl-ish.
Dave Monroe has attempted to address the use of steeotypes in P's
works, but it is not any easy thing to do in this forum. Maybe he will
re-post some stuff on this topic?




On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 3:26 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/13/09, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The melting pot, like the Glass Steagall Act, cracked and broke and
>> has been scattered like so many gnostic points of light streaming from
>> Neal Young's guitar.
>> No more Melting, no more Multi-Cultural ism, these terms are out and
>> reflect a shift in the way things are and the way things are
>> described; is social or descriptive linguistics, at least as far as
>> the population of academics goes, the terms are dead metaphor.
> ____________
> with all due respect, who the fuck cares what academics pronounce.
> its the street that counts, alice you gotta know that--whatever one
> calls it, there is a wonderful blending of people, races, genders,
> colors, cultures in the America I believe in
> maybe this is all moot--being on the same page and shit
> guess what I'm saying is I really don't care what people call it, as
> long as it continues
> (that is that melting)
>
> rich
>