Who remembers this incredibly stupid, yet hilarious, Democrat pandering?
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/. — 2 years ago(February 14, 2024 07:42 PM)
I think it’s a bit unfair to call someone a linguistic
prescriptivist
for this. The chaplain probably understands the linguistics behind amen, but it’s doubtful most listeners do and this ends up falling into the same cringey category of “
herstory
”. A very cheap way of making a social point that will be confusing or misunderstood by listeners and reeks of anglocentrism.
In many cases, English has historically defaulted to a masculine (like an unknown singular person always being a "he", not a "he or she" or a they"). Or a word that was historically gender-neutral, like "man", later evolved to be gendered so that "chairman" or "mankind" seemed needlessly gendered to exclude women.
After the women's liberation / feminism movement gained steam in the 1960s, the pushback linguistically led to some reasonable practices, like "chairperson", "humankind", or the unidentified "she" or "they". It also led to some really cringy options that don't even make sense linguistically like "herstory" instead of "history" (to criticize the male focus when teaching history), "womyn" instead of "woman", or "Latinx" instead of "Latino".
Here, the chaplain appeared to want to make a statement about gender equality by ending the prayer with "amen and awomen" instead of just "amen." "Amen" is a Semitic word found in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, etc. that expresses the idea of "May it be so", or "Seriously, I am repeating that I emphasize this". It's been imported into Greek, Latin, English, and other languages because of how extensively it appears in the Bible. The "men" syllable in "amen" has nothing to do with human males. So when the chaplain says "awomen", he's saying a meaningless word next to a meaningful word, as a signal that he supports gender equality.
People are annoyed for various reasons. It could be because they dislike what they perceive as virtue signaling, or because they are linguistic prescriptivists and don't like making up meaningless words that misuse language, or because they see their religious heritage being poorly used as a prop to make a social statement, or just because they are against gender equality in the first place.
My password is password -
/. — 2 years ago(February 14, 2024 07:55 PM)
I'm against it because, look at the origin of the words "man" and "woman", they were gendered, "wereman" and "wifman". Now we have this completely screwy idea of removing gender from language. This screws with languages like Spanish, French and German, that have strongly gendered terms.
It's a weakening of the language to pander to social mores that in 20-30 years will be forgotten about as the bastardization of English.
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/. — 2 years ago(February 14, 2024 07:55 PM)
Why does Congress pray at all before session? Does separation of church and state not extend to the House and Senate? Am I oversimplifying it? It frustrates me that we have to waste time on arguing about how a prayer is said in a federal building.
My password is password -
/. — 2 years ago(February 15, 2024 06:47 AM)
I’d rather completely do away with the prayers. I know you’re trying to say there are snowflakes on both sides, but House Dems passed a rule that says all legislation has to use gender neutral language and the House GOP literally threw a tantrum about how proud they are to be daughters and sons, etc.
Gender isn’t under attack. Cleaver is a pastor and I’m pretty sure he knows exactly what he was doing.
My password is password -
/. — 2 years ago(February 14, 2024 07:58 PM)
Here, the chaplain appeared to want to make a statement about gender equality by ending the prayer with "amen and awomen" instead of just "amen."
Cleaver’s intent here was unclear. As a minister he is well aware that the word comes from Hebrew and is etymologically unrelated to “men.” There are no groups of feminists demanding the use of the word “awomen,” either - the idea that feminists get offended by every word that contains “man” is a cultural meme made up to make fun of people who argue against actual sexist language.
My password is password -
/. — 2 years ago(February 15, 2024 08:04 AM)
Amen is one of the oldest words on the planet and it means "truth".
It's of Hebrew origin, but was also in the Egyptian language, mostly as a name, but can be found in the Book of the Dead.
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/. — 2 years ago(February 15, 2024 03:40 PM)
Amen was used in Christian and Jewish prayer is of Hebrew origin, not Egyptian. The similarity of the sound of “Amun” and “amen” is a coincidence. There is no connection with the personal name Amun or Amen, originally the name of a local Theban deity who later becomes identified with the sun god Ra.
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/. — 2 years ago(February 17, 2024 05:54 AM)
The patron deity of Thebes, Amun, was nationally important. The pharaohs of that new dynasty attributed all of their successes to Amun, and they used much of their wealth and captured spoils on the construction of temples dedicated to Amun. It later became customary to say his name in praise as a sing of thankfulness and gratitude.
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