General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStop using the word "discover" as it's colonizing language
Link to tweet
"Hey, instead of saying you "discovered" something, like a genre of music or a culinary delight, you could say you were "introduced to" it.
This avoids colonizing language AND lets you practice some good citational politics by saying who taught you about the thing."
There's a lot of discussion in the replies on this (from the original tweeter as well).
My view is that this is policing language way too much and putting meaning into words that isn't there in order to further an agenda.
But what do I know.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Feh!
beaglelover
(3,489 posts)Blue_Adept
(6,402 posts)I want to chalk this up to "youthfulness" but we're seeing it in a lot of areas.
Squinch
(51,004 posts)ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)But I detest the way they use it in advertising. "Discover Palm Springs Resort Spa..." How can it be "discovered" if there is already an ad for it?
kcr
(15,320 posts)That would be the agenda.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)The Tweeter is using only a fractional definition of that word and is applying it to all meanings. It is a stupid, stupid statement, by someone who does not understand language.
dəˈskəvər/Submit
verb
1.
find (something or someone) unexpectedly or in the course of a search.
"firemen discovered a body in the debris"
synonyms: find, locate, come across/upon, stumble on, chance on, light on, bring to light, uncover, unearth, turn up; track down
"firemen discovered a body in the debris"
2.
archaic
divulge (a secret).
"they contain some secrets which Time will discover"
TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts)lapucelle
(18,319 posts)It's a Dutch word for a body of water. Maybe we should change the name of the Catskill mountains as well. Think of the kitties!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_(body_of_water)
TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts)In college, when continuing my education, I was told never to use Wiki.
kill2
kil/
noun
noun: kill; plural noun: kills
(in place names, especially in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) a stream, creek, or tributary.
"Kill Van Kull"
lapucelle
(18,319 posts)and to use it, at most, as a resource for possible links to reliable data and resources.
The etymology of the word:
kill
"stream, creek," 1630s, American English, from Dutch kil "a channel," from Middle Dutch kille "riverbed, inlet." The word is preserved in place names in the Mid-Atlantic American states (such as Schuylkill, Catskill, Fresh Kills, etc.). A common Germanic word, the Old Norse form, kill, meant "bay, gulf" and gave its name to Kiel Fjord on the Baltic coast and thence to Kiel, the German port city founded there in 1240.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/kill
TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts)Silly people abound, looking for causes to define and give meaning to their lives.
With regards to that PETA thing, they didn't realize that a kill is another name for a stream, ie. Fish Stream, NY.
MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)People think this is what liberals spend their time and resources thinking about.
They then assume (probably correctly in at least some cases) that things like this will be the priority of elected liberals.
If you already think elected officials dont care about your priorities, and then you find out theyre spending time on things like this?
Less time policing others thoughts and words that dont affect us would do us a lot of good, politically and personally.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,431 posts)dhill926
(16,355 posts)Another stupid argument...
Blue_Adept
(6,402 posts)dhill926
(16,355 posts)Paladin
(28,272 posts)milestogo
(16,829 posts)In a recent review of Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex I read that Renaldus Columbus discovered the clitoris in 1559. I can't make sense of this. Wasn't it right under his nose the whole time, so to speak? Who discovered the penis? And who was Renaldus Columbus, anyway? Any relation to Chris?
Mark Lutton, Malden, Massachusetts
https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/912/did-renaldus-columbus-discover-the-clitoris-in-1559/
JDC
(10,133 posts)left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)jalan48
(13,883 posts)Sneederbunk
(14,300 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)They're not interchangeable. If you discover something, you are the agent of the act; if you are introduced to something, someone else is the agent and you are the recipient.
A scientist who has just found a new cure for the Zika virus, for example, can't say "I was introduced to a cure for Zika!" (or as a poster above noted, you can't be introduced to blood in your urine). You also can't be introduced to your husband having an affair. "I discovered my husband in bed with another woman!" (Not, "I was introduced to my husband in bed with another woman."
This is the most inane thing I've ever heard. Words have many contexts and usages. Just because Columbus is said (wrongly) to have "discovered" America, it doesn't mean real discoveries can't occur.
Epic fail on this one.
Kilgore
(1,733 posts)And I'm heading to the bar to discover how many beers I feel like drinking.
lpbk2713
(42,766 posts)Life is too short to accommodate BS such as this.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Like taking an undergrad course on twitter.
DavidDvorkin
(19,485 posts)Nevernose
(13,081 posts)Or at least its one of my job duties.
1. Twitter has to be the worst platform for a truly meaningful, online conversation like this. Cant be done justice in 140 or even 280 characters, and cannot possibly be meaningfully dialogue or didactic.
2. I can see a valid argument for before you use the word discover, think of the history, ramifications, and meaning of the word. Consider the speaker, the audience, and the context, whether youre the wrong person saying it or just listening to it.
3. Columbus didnt discover shit. He did from his perspective and Europes perspective, but the ensuing five centuries of genocide and degradation negates the word discovery. Because of what happened afterwards, its far from an appropriate word to use. That doesnt make the entire word/concept a pariah.
4.Teaching through analogy and parable: I was introduced to rap music in the 80s. I didnt like most of it (still dont like the majority of current rap). But I discovered it when my friend and I borrowed a car when we were teenagers and Ice Cubes second album was in the cassette player. Totally changed my entire perspective on what the genre was and could be. Ice Cube & Co invented it; my friend was actually from a loosely affiliated set, so that knowledge kind of music was mostly all he possessed. But me? That was the day I discovered rap music.
5. Not everything is cultural appropriation or intellectual colonization. Its like porn and art: most of us know ithe difference when we see it, and even then the line is sometimes blurry. Its context.
6. We still face the mindset of colonizers and the colonized. Many of us, even those seemingly on top of the social order, are in some ways both colonized and colonizer. Freire taught us that oppression is just as bad for the oppressor as the oppressed, just in different ways.
Calculating
(2,957 posts)This kinda of stuff literally gives progressives a bad name and distracts from REAL socioeconomic and environmental issues. Never mind the fact that we're destroying our world and have income inequality worsening every year, let's argue about whether it's more socially correct to say discover or introduced.
Stinky The Clown
(67,818 posts)Response to Blue_Adept (Original post)
fescuerescue This message was self-deleted by its author.
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)Now instead of using Discovery in a trial, they will have practice Introducery.