Re: ideas and questions

Dammit, it's getting more and more dangerous to call a
cat a cat nowadays. In France we have this ridiculous
trend too (we always follow the Americans at a
distance of 10 years), but we still can say, AFAIK,
"l'alphabet, or le langage, des sourds-muets" without
getting courted !

True, if you want to tell about a black person, old,
blind and handicapped, you normally have to say
something like "une personne de couleur du troisieme
age, non-voyante et a besoins specifiques" (but I
think that soon, even "personne de couleur" will be
forbidden). This is all very stupid. I'm white and I
never thought it offending when African people called
me "le Blanc" (and they didn't mean it offending
neither).

I would like to mention a chef-d'oeuvre of
administrative style, you can read it in Paris metro :
"Toute personne est tenue d'obtemperer aux injonctions
des agents de la RATP tendant a faire observer les
dispositions contenues dans le present reglement". In
clear, this means that if the company (RATP)
controller tells you that you're doing something
against the rules, then you should obey him. But what
percentage of the population can understand the
original sentence, I'd like to know.

(We now have a Commission of specialists whose job is
to try translating administrative information into
everyday language. This is a huge progress).

--- Adam Walker <carrajena@...> wrote:
> --- Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> wrote:
> > over. If not, there still will be the Language of
> > the
> > Deaf-Mutes.
> >
>
> Just FYI, most Deaf (in the US at least) find the
> term
> "deaf-mute" offensive since most of them learn at
> least some speech (whether they are comfortable
> using
> it or it be a usable amount or not) and some are
> proficient users of speech (eg. Marley Matlin).  The
> term may, sometimes, be an accurate label, but it is
> almost always taken as insulting by the Deaf
> themselves.
>
> Adam

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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