As I read through this I did not
see exactly the point that was being made. I see nothing wrong with the word
girl being used for a woman, and how it is different for men. I don’t see her
point as being very valid. The book discusses the wide use of words and how one
word may have many meanings. One comment discusses how the woman uses the word
girl on her flicker to help others broaden their search. Words like girl and
boy are just used under keywords for categories meaning that there can be many connotative
meaning for the words some positive and some negative. Some commentators may
have been over exaggerating when they refer to have words like girl banned,
which I thought was outrageous. There are some people that may attach a
negative definition to the word girl or boy, but not only meanings for those
words can be taken negatively.
I heard an interesting discussion on NPR this week. The topic was race relations. One speaker said that she did not know why this was even a topic for discussion anymore, because weren't we past all that. I personally agree with this perspective...at least that we should be past all that pettiness.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I could also understand where the other interviewee was coming from. He felt that race is still a relevant topic as long as there is fear and ignorance in the world that there will be prejudice and racism.
My point here is that while it is true that the words 'girl' or 'boy' shouldn't have negative connotations, they still may depending on the audience. Which doesn't make it right, but just what currently is so.
Hopefully we will continue growing and evolving in our global understanding of one another, so that these things don't matter so much anymore.
P.S. You did very well delivering your information speech. I've been eating more eggs. Good energy food! :)