College Campaigns Against Offensive Language Such As 'Derp,' 'Wuss,' and 'you guys'

Well, you are lucky it's starting this late. In Spainsh, we have had the "Hi boys and girls", "all male workers and female workers", "hello female supporters and male supporters" movement going on for decades, and many people will get angry at you if you don't specify both genders when you talk and rage if you reply that it's just a pointless waste of time because we all know that we mean everybody and not just the males.

Welcome to language correctness up to eleven thousand.

I think this is well-intentioned but overboard except for the word retarded which I have used seen as a slur and have seen mentally impaired people get really offended by it.

Are you sure this isn't a hoax or a joke? I can't believe people are this stupid.

It would be kind of funny if this was all a joke, but by looking at the article it seems that it is in fact a genuine campaign. This does seem similar to something that The Onion would do, but I've found that truth is a lot stranger (and stupider) than fiction.

... Oh no! I said the word stupid! I'm being oppressive now! Everybody run!

Moogles said:

I think this is well-intentioned but overboard except for the word retarded which I have used seen as a slur and have seen mentally impaired people get really offended by it.

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I'm sort of doubling down on this point. There are some words in this list that are genuinely unpleasant, but many which... well,

"Retarded" is actually worth removing, but from just that first wave, I'm really kind of uncertain about the way this is done overall. As it's being reported on, there are no specific restrictions on when you shouldn't use these words (I'm imagining the intent is "don't say these things when you're being rude" -- which means that they don't mind you being a hateful piece of crap as long as you use gentle words.)... and they don't want you to use the word "gay." To be certain, not using it as an insult is a perfectly acceptable stance, but not using it at all, well, didn't some conservative states try to enact laws to do the very same thing?

And "handicapped"on that list? Do people really use the term "handicapped" as an insult? I am not expecting to ever see anyone say something like "You're so handicapped" the way I would, say, "You're so retarded" or "You're so gay." I mean, I may be looking at this the long way, but that really seems like overkill.

I guess people are running out of ideas for things to get offended by?

twocows said:

Are you sure this isn't a hoax or a joke? I can't believe people are this stupid.

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You would be surprised at how stupid some people can get.

I always knew some people got offended way too easily, but this is just ridiculous. Next thing you know someone's gonna ban the word "bug" for being offensive to insects or "germ" for being offensive to bacteria.

who even really uses these without some degree of sarcasm regularly anyways? Of course, it can be misconstrued but at this point it'd be better to just teach people how to give and take sarcasm better.

Language policing is literally one of the most annoying trends that I have ever seen in recent years and I really wish people would stop doing it, especially when we live in a world where you can literally waltz right into a ♥♥♥♥ing Michigan Secretary of State office and lie about a disability to get a "princess pass", or have people say that queer people should be burned, or assume that all black people are committing crimes and refuse to offer justice even if they didn't.

Replacing words with their exact meaning is in no way helping the problem. It is exactly the same as calling someone the word. It has gotten quite ridiculous lately...

Silais said:

People really need to realize that they simply can't take offense to everything; at some point, it becomes exceedingly ridiculous. If you are personally offended by the use of a neutral word such as "girl" or "derp", you probably have deep emotional issues and cannot take any sort of perceived criticism.

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I know, at some point there needs to be a clear line between what is offensive and what is not. People are taking offense to literally everything, you can't even say the world "girl" now? How is that offensive? It's a fact.

Let's be real here...How are you going to ban the words "You Guys", or "Girl"? I struggled to think how the words I listed above could be offensive, but this is just ridiculous. What are we supposed to call people? How will we refer to genders? Seriously, "you guys", is not an offensive term, neither is "girl", this is just simply outrageous and extremely unnecessary. While a very small few of the words listed may be offensive, most are just meant for simple jokes and sarcasm that most adults are mature enough to handle anyway. This campaign is just stupid, to put it lightly. Can these people not take a simple joke? Next they're going to be banning words like "old" and "young" or something like that, and pretty soon people on that campus will be limited to a small handful of words that make up the english vocabulary.

I find this to be stupid. It's Political correctness taken to an extreme. The can understand "retard", and "gay"( along with the other homophobic words like "♥♥♥" (oh the censor kicked in, well the F, A, G word), but how is "you guys offensive"? Even girls say it, including several feminists I've heard. I'm used to using "you guys" due to that's the way one generally refers to a group (even with only one boy) in spanish and other romance languages (it's a grammatical rule). Oh well I don't have an issue with using "you guys and gals" or "you gals and guys", but it's just the idea that it could be seen as a "ban-able" offensive word is ridiculous.

How the ♥♥♥♥ did they make it to college with the IQ of a potato?

Magic Guard said:

I know, at some point there needs to be a clear line between what is offensive and what is not. People are taking offense to literally everything, you can't even say the world "girl" now? How is that offensive? It's a fact.

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I don't think the issue is with calling a girl a girl, but calling a male a girl as an insult. People often call men girls for doing something that isn't deemed masculine. For example, they may cry and their friend could call them 'a big girl'. I don't know where you are, but the phrase 'big girls blouse' is still popular around here, meaning that a man is acting in a way that 'doesn't suit his gender'. Just thought I'd clear that up. ;)

Personally, it doesn't offend me. But it does make me laugh how terms like that, which are quite obviously gender stereotyping often get overlooked but if you say 'that's so gay' or describe someone as 'mixed race' you're the worse person in the world. It's okay to suggest girls are weak and overly sensitive, but don't ever describe something bad as 'gay'.

But I agree with most people on here, everyone is way too sensitive these days. If someone outright insults you, saying something along the lines of 'I hate you because you're gay/black/male/female/' fine, be offended, but don't get upset about someone's use of slang, that obviously wasn't intended to be offensive. Words do have different connotations and don't jump to the conclusion they were trying to use the offensive one!

I'm still baffled that derp is actually a word and not a meme ._. I'm really behind on my language.

I can understand wanting to ban gay and retarded, but I'm seriously caught with banning "you guys". Like, what's the point in that? What will that solve?

Tyheamma said:

I don't think the issue is with calling a girl a girl, but calling a male a girl as an insult. People often call men girls for doing something that isn't deemed masculine. For example, they may cry and their friend could call them 'a big girl'. I don't know where you are, but the phrase 'big girls blouse' is still popular around here, meaning that a man is acting in a way that 'doesn't suit his gender'. Just thought I'd clear that up. ;)

Personally, it doesn't offend me. But it does make me laugh how terms like that, which are quite obviously gender stereotyping often get overlooked but if you say 'that's so gay' or describe someone as 'mixed race' you're the worse person in the world. It's okay to suggest girls are weak and overly sensitive, but don't ever describe something bad as 'gay'.

But I agree with most people on here, everyone is way too sensitive these days. If someone outright insults you, saying something along the lines of 'I hate you because you're gay/black/male/female/' fine, be offended, but don't get upset about someone's use of slang, that obviously wasn't intended to be offensive. Words do have different connotations and don't jump to the conclusion they were trying to use the offensive one!

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Your assessment of the 'girl' argument isn't quite right I don't think - 'girl' is used often as a word for women, which is a very big feminist issue. It's especially egregious when you see people say things about men and then about girls.

Oryx said:

Your assessment of the 'girl' argument isn't quite right I don't think - 'girl' is used often as a word for women, which is a very big feminist issue. It's especially egregious when you see people say things about men and then about girls.

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My assessment is right, I'm just addressing a different issue. The word 'girl' is used as a insult towards males, and some people do find that offensive. However, there is obviously another 'abuse' of the word - that using the word 'girl' rather than woman is offensive. And I must admit, until you mentioned it, I had never realised! I think it just goes to show how obscure some of the reasoning behind this offensive language is, that most people don't even know that how they're using it is offensive.

So my point is correct, I guess I've just misunderstood and I'm barking up the wrong tree, ha.

An alternative to Wuss is Wimp, which can be pretty effective.

This is obviously a hoax or satirical. I seriously doubt the veracity of the article. It's highly overstating the intent. All of you who are overreacting to this are no better. By the way, the article is linked to http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/, a CONSERVATIVE institution.

That being said, language is a powerful construct and yeah, it can be rooted in prejudices and oppressions. And I know this sounds crazy, but in the real world, if you offend someone, you apologize and move on, as a general rule.

Here's the posters by the way: http://www.macalester.edu/morethanwords/posters/

NO WHERE does it state euphemisms you are forced to use but it does suggest alternatives. It does NOT ban those words. Lame and other words are historically linked to ableism (derp was a horrible choice on their part, but I don't think it should detract from the presence of other more harmful slurs). All words operate in context. The words you use can contribute to environments hostile to people if you aren't careful.

And the other question at hand is "are words like wuss offensive"? There's a difference between offensive and offending someone. Rarely you'll offend someone with words like wuss, but the nature of the word is rooted in putting down a group of people (men who act feminine, which basically means that feminity in general should be viewed as bad). The R-word is a more extreme example: it won't always offend, but it's always offensive (and offensive is a spectrum, things like wuss aren't very offensive). My point, however, is that you should be careful about using words like that. You honestly don't know if someone has struggled with being called a wuss their whole and that word in that case does really offend someone. You don't know if they have an austistic sibling and have had to deal with people saying horribly offensive things about autism, invoking the r-word.

Finally, I'd like to reiterate. This article originates from a source with a strong conservative bias.

Wow... I... I don't even know what to say here. Derp? Wuss? Come on, even the phrase "you guys"? I don't understand how the hell any of those could be considered offensive.
I just... The media is getting more ridiculous every generation...