Re: NEWS: MicroSoft's Spanish language problems

--- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
> Barbara Barrett wrote:
> > Barbara Babbles;
> > Would "native American" also be used to describe
> > the indigionous peoples
> > of Central and South America?
PCwise, they're "Latinos". Amazing, innit? A black man
moves here (to the US) from Senegal and is called
"African-American". And actual "Native" American moves
here from Ecuador and he's called "Latino". I didn't
move from anywhere and they call me by a colour
(white) my skin will never really attain.

> > I'd have thought
> > that with such PC terms
> > as "Afro-American" etc that "american" implied
> > nationality.
Well, your first mistake was in thinking that PC and
sensibility had anything to with one another. PC is a
way for some politically oriented people to have power
over others and the country via strange notions of
race, victimisation, culture and other ways of
dividing people.

[rant alert]
While I'm all for our collective freedom to express
out cultural heritage, speak whatever languages we
please and call ourselves what we like; an
increasingly large part of me would like to totally
illegalise the "[hyphen]American" suffix that get
tacked on to far too many words. I'd also like to
outlaw colour terms as generally applied to skin
tones.
If They really want a colourblind society They
shouldn't obsess over it.

> In the case of "Native American", "American" refers
> to the whole Western
> Hemisphere.
Pedantically, yes. As far as I've been able to figure,
the PC machine doesn't agree: "Native" ends at the US
border (though, maybe includes Canada as well).

> If it referred to nationality, then I'd
> be a "native
> American", since I was born here.  :-)
No, you'd be "white" (presumably).

I've taken to referring to my own "race" as 'human'
and national or cultural identity as 'American'. The
rest of it's just gotten too stupid. Too stupid even
for the usual American lunacy.

Padraic.


=====
beuyont alch geont la ciay la cina
mangeiont alch geont y faues la lima;
     pe' ne m' molestyont
     que faciont
doazque y facyont in rima.

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