Stop using the word "discover" as it's colonizing language

[Blue_Adept]

Link to tweet

"Hey, instead of saying you "discovered" something, like a genre of music or a culinary delight, you could say you were "introduced to" it.

This avoids colonizing language AND lets you practice some good citational politics by saying who taught you about the thing."

There's a lot of discussion in the replies on this (from the original tweeter as well).

My view is that this is policing language way too much and putting meaning into words that isn't there in order to further an agenda.

But what do I know.

[MineralMan]

1. Silliness. Utter Silliness.

Feh!

[beaglelover]

2. That tweet was surely in jest, correct?

[Blue_Adept]

4. I had wondered but it's defended in the replies by them and others

I want to chalk this up to "youthfulness" but we're seeing it in a lot of areas.

[Squinch]

3. Assholes abound.

[ProudLib72]

5. I know it means "Discover for yourself"

But I detest the way they use it in advertising. "Discover Palm Springs Resort Spa..." How can it be "discovered" if there is already an ad for it?

[kcr]

6. My view is that it's some right winger mocking progressives.

That would be the agenda.

[MineralMan]

7. As defined:

The Tweeter is using only a fractional definition of that word and is applying it to all meanings. It is a stupid, stupid statement, by someone who does not understand language.

dis·cov·er
dəˈskəvər/Submit
verb
1.
find (something or someone) unexpectedly or in the course of a search.
"firemen discovered a body in the debris"
synonyms: find, locate, come across/upon, stumble on, chance on, light on, bring to light, uncover, unearth, turn up; track down
"firemen discovered a body in the debris"
2.
archaic
divulge (a secret).
"they contain some secrets which Time will discover"

[TheBlackAdder]

10. +1

[lapucelle]

12. I grew up in NYS in a town with "Kill" in its name.

It's a Dutch word for a body of water. Maybe we should change the name of the Catskill mountains as well. Think of the kitties!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_(body_of_water)

[TheBlackAdder]

16. The mayor of Fishkill rained on the demonstration, saying its origin was stream running through town.

In college, when continuing my education, I was told never to use Wiki.

kill2
kil/
noun
noun: kill; plural noun: kills

(in place names, especially in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) a stream, creek, or tributary.
"Kill Van Kull"

[lapucelle]

19. We teach now to never cite Wiki, to read it skeptically,

and to use it, at most, as a resource for possible links to reliable data and resources.

The etymology of the word:

kill
"stream, creek," 1630s, American English, from Dutch kil "a channel," from Middle Dutch kille "riverbed, inlet." The word is preserved in place names in the Mid-Atlantic American states (such as Schuylkill, Catskill, Fresh Kills, etc.). A common Germanic word, the Old Norse form, kill, meant "bay, gulf" and gave its name to Kiel Fjord on the Baltic coast and thence to Kiel, the German port city founded there in 1240.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/kill

[TheBlackAdder]

8. Foolish energy waste, like those PETA people protesting Fishkill, NY for promoting violence to fish.

Silly people abound, looking for causes to define and give meaning to their lives.

With regards to that PETA thing, they didn't realize that a kill is another name for a stream, ie. Fish Stream, NY.

[MadDAsHell]

9. I dont disagree in theory, but this right here is exactly why we got killed in 2016.

People think this is what liberals spend their time and resources thinking about.

They then assume (probably correctly in at least some cases) that things like this will be the priority of elected liberals.

If you already think elected officials don’t care about your priorities, and then you find out they’re spending time on things like this?

Less time policing others’ thoughts and words that don’t affect us would do us a lot of good, politically and personally.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. An interesting and important point.

[dhill926]

13. I just discovered...

Another stupid argument...

[Blue_Adept]

14. I introduced you to it. Please use me as a citation regarding this going forward.

[dhill926]

15. Haha...done...

[Paladin]

17. Our enemies use this sort of crap against us. Let's ease up on the language policing. (nt)

[milestogo]

18. Reminds me of this question: "Did Renaldus Columbus discover the clitoris in 1559?"

Dear Cecil:

In a recent review of Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex I read that Renaldus Columbus discovered the clitoris in 1559. I can't make sense of this. Wasn't it right under his nose the whole time, so to speak? Who discovered the penis? And who was Renaldus Columbus, anyway? Any relation to Chris?

Mark Lutton, Malden, Massachusetts

https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/912/did-renaldus-columbus-discover-the-clitoris-in-1559/

[JDC]

20. I just discovered I have a dislike for notions such as this

[left-of-center2012]

21. I discovered I disagree with you

[jalan48]

22. Let's play purity politics while Rome burns.

[Sneederbunk]

23. I was introduced to blood in my urine.

[frazzled]

24. There's a difference in agency between the two

They're not interchangeable. If you discover something, you are the agent of the act; if you are introduced to something, someone else is the agent and you are the recipient.

A scientist who has just found a new cure for the Zika virus, for example, can't say "I was introduced to a cure for Zika!" (or as a poster above noted, you can't be introduced to blood in your urine). You also can't be introduced to your husband having an affair. "I discovered my husband in bed with another woman!" (Not, "I was introduced to my husband in bed with another woman.&quot

This is the most inane thing I've ever heard. Words have many contexts and usages. Just because Columbus is said (wrongly) to have "discovered" America, it doesn't mean real discoveries can't occur.

Epic fail on this one.

[Kilgore]

25. I just discovered this is a dumb freaking idea

And I'm heading to the bar to discover how many beers I feel like drinking.

[lpbk2713]

26. I just re-discovered why I don't do social networking.

Life is too short to accommodate BS such as this.

[oberliner]

27. This seems like a really productive argument

Like taking an undergrad course on twitter.

[DavidDvorkin]

28. I just discovered a Tweeter to avoid.

[Nevernose]

29. Im an SJW professionally

Or at least it’s one of my job duties.

1. Twitter has to be the worst platform for a truly meaningful, online conversation like this. Can’t be done justice in 140 or even 280 characters, and cannot possibly be meaningfully dialogue or didactic.

2. I can see a valid argument for “before you use the word discover, think of the history, ramifications, and meaning of the word. Consider the speaker, the audience, and the context, whether you’re the wrong person saying it or just listening to it.

3. Columbus didn’t discover shit. He did from his perspective and Europe’s perspective, but the ensuing five centuries of genocide and degradation negates the word discovery. Because of what happened afterwards, it’s far from an appropriate word to use. That doesn’t make the entire word/concept a pariah.

4.Teaching through analogy and parable: I was introduced to rap music in the 80s. I didn’t like most of it (still don’t like the majority of current rap). But I discovered it when my friend and I borrowed a car when we were teenagers and Ice Cube’s second album was in the cassette player. Totally changed my entire perspective on what the genre was and could be. Ice Cube & Co invented it; my friend was actually from a loosely affiliated set, so that knowledge kind of music was mostly all he possessed. But me? That was the day I discovered rap music.

5. Not everything is cultural appropriation or intellectual colonization. It’s like porn and art: most of us know ithe difference when we see it, and even then the line is sometimes blurry. It’s context.

6. We still face the mindset of colonizers and the colonized. Many of us, even those seemingly on top of the social order, are in some ways both colonized and colonizer. Freire taught us that oppression is just as bad for the oppressor as the oppressed, just in different ways.

[Calculating]

30. Oh FFS

This kinda of stuff literally gives progressives a bad name and distracts from REAL socioeconomic and environmental issues. Never mind the fact that we're destroying our world and have income inequality worsening every year, let's argue about whether it's more socially correct to say discover or introduced.

[Stinky The Clown]

31. More twitter bullshit. Just can it, okay? Unrec.

[fescuerescue]

33. The legal profession will have to adapt

Now instead of using Discovery in a trial, they will have practice Introducery.

[Blue_Adept]

34. So many things to change!