This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen in months

[Arch0wl]

LINK:

http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/18/at...register-until

This is a screenshot of the quiz talked about in the link:



This is actually a very specific ideology regarding linguistics, so it's intellectually shameful that a college would mandate that position before taking classes. Specifically, this quiz takes the position that words have static, singular meanings and that their contextual implications are what the quiz says they are.

These implications/meanings need to be shown to be there, to be static, to be unavoidable etc; you can't just say you're right and put it in a quiz. But this is what they're doing.

This is one of the most unrigorous thought processes I've ever seen a university transparently advocate. The faculty of linguistics and philosophy at this university are, I suspect, embarrassed to be associated with the campus.

[rayword45]

Well to be fair, rape at the very least does have a VERY clear cut dictionary and legal definition and isn't slang, so desensitizing that word is like desensitization of words like autism and is pretty easily seen as offensive.

As for the rest, considering they're all slang I agree with you, but really, is this is stupidest thing you've seen on this topic? Nitpicking of the English language isn't much of a big deal, if anything bothers me still it's #Shirtgate.

[Arch0wl]

Did you read the link?

Students can't register for classes until they agree with the quiz's interpretation of words. That's most certainly the most ridiculous thing I've seen in months considering this is coming from an institution imparting knowledge and truth.

Rape does have a legal definition. The quiz doesn't ask students to accept the legal definition. It asks them to accept a hypothesis that some linguistic act desensitizes rape, which is hardly demonstrated. Even the studies I've read that assert this is true have extremely poor methodology in going about proving this conclusion and barely come up with a decent correlation in defense of the hypothesis.

[Hakulyte]

First thing I wrote was without reading link, which makes the topic completely different. I thought it was just a meaningless quiz in some random class my bad.

Edit: This is kind of funny and sad at same time, but at least it's fairly simple to understand why they would do that. Did people get expelled from using these words as a joke?

Actually, I can't even defend what they're doing so, sorry if you wanted to debate about it. It's just wrong when it comes to rights lol.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

Your place is doing good if this is the worse you've seen.

These type of quiz are usually made to help people associate words with ideas.

I can't stress to you enough how important it is to keep in mind that this is coming from a university that teaches science and philosophy.

If you're going to claim a phenomenon happens, you can't just put it on a quiz and say students are wrong if it's not true. You need to have evidence that the phenomenon happens.

This is an anti-intellectual and anti-scientific way of imparting an idea. It might be acceptable for a political party, I guess, but it's counter to principles of science and critical thought, and its primary purpose is to promote a linguistic ideology, not to demonstrate something true.

The hope is that if students are required to get a test question right, then they themselves will believe those words have those associations, even if they don't in reality.

It's of the same level of shamefulness as if a college required you to take a test of political ideologies before you could register, and then say capitalism is better than communism or vice versa.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

Did people get expelled from using these words as a joke?

No idea, but that does happen.

[rayword45]

No I did not read the link. And now that I read that, that is actually completely fucked up.

Let's be frank, nobody is going to fail this if they really wanted to pass because the matching is extremely easy. However, the ethical problem with this is

A. It's highly assumptive of one word's definition, not to mention extreme (My mind doesn't turn towards violence when I hear the word bitch)
B. It's attempting to force views upon students, and even if these are basic human decency views (subjectively speaking) you can't police thoughtcrime. I mean, there would likely be a conservative uproar if the test was on homosexual pejoratives.
C. And as you said it goes against the college curriculum itself.

[Arch0wl]

in hindsight, the link was somewhat obscured by the screenshot, so I've edited it to be more obvious

[Surt]

Sure, words are contextual and have multiple meanings, but those meanings are connected, and every word, on some level, will imply its other meanings regardless of the context. More so, how meanings develop is often reflective of underlying attitudes -- new meanings, for the most part, don't just pop out of nowhere.

The fact that those words/phrases are problematic is, well, a fact, and with the alarming reality of college sexual assault rates (1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted while in college), and the overall fucked-up attitudes society at large has towards gender and sexuality, it's definitely reasonable to make students recognize the potentially harmful thought patterns they might have in those areas.

I applaud their decision.

[choof]

thanks for the trigger warning

[rayword45]

At this point, we're moving into slippery slope arguments which I STRONGLY do not believe to apply here.

Just because you make an offhand comment about a girl being sexually attractive, promiscuous (and I don't believe one should be stigmatized for that) or even desensitize the word rape, does not mean you're on the pathway to becoming a sex offender.

Likewise, this "screening process" is actually completely useless because any rapist idiot could match the answers to the liking of the college and say "Yes, I agree that it's wrong".

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Surt

I applaud their decision.

So, you've publicly admitted your ignorance of multiple fields, then, including psychology, linguistics, philosophy and so on, all because your kneejerk reactions seem, to you, to substantiate a linguistic ideology of yours.

You:

"words are contextual and have multiple meanings, but those meanings are connected, and every word, on some level, will imply its other meanings regardless of the context"

This is unsubstantiated, for one. Every word will imply other meanings regardless of context? How absurd. You are ignoring that people themselves have to interpret language, and that if a person does not see a word that way, they're not going to draw that interpretation. This is also a nonstandard use of 'imply', since 'imply' usually means to logically follow -- you mean 'connotes', probably, although based on how unfounded this conclusion is I'm not sure you're concerned with semantic precision.

If you disagree with me, feel free to substantiate the "words will always imply (connote) meaning regardless of context" claim. I'd love to see it.

You again:

"how meanings develop is often reflective of underlying attitudes -- new meanings, for the most part, don't just pop out of nowhere"

What is your evidence for believing this?

"bae" is a new word and hardly reflective of an underlying attitude. At most it connotes affection.

Some words may be reflective of an underlying attitude. That is a much more scientific wording and the kind of wording you should be using. For you to so hastily conclude that the interpretations of this quiz are correct demonstrates how poor your causal reasoning is. You should re-evaluate whatever instruction you received in causation and critical thought, either by a university or yourself, because this is not rigorous thought on your part and unsuitable for higher learning that is purported to be truth-seeking.

The fact that those words/phrases are problematic is, well, a fact

Absolutely not. You've not even come remotely close to substantiating this claim.

Your rape statistics are mostly unrelated to this discussion, but for you to use the "1 in 4" statistic (which tells me you didn't scrutinize how those statistics were obtained) reveals a lot more about your existing ideological biases than you probably thought you were doing.

More importantly, your post is filled with conclusions that you think are representative of truth and that all is required to claim truth is to assert a few declarative sentences about what words do. Linguists and psychologists spend decades of research to prove these claims, and you think you can say something like "this linguistic phenomenon happens" from your armchair and assert a phenomenon to be overwhelmingly true in a vast majority of cases. Your intellectual arrogance should be embarrassing, if you ever have enough insight to understand how sloppy the thoughts you've just put to writing are.

[ilikexd]

Yeah, pretty ridiculous. There are many words whose origins and etymologies have offensive implications and definitions. They shift over time regardless of what anyone attempts to prescribe. I just briefly looked at this and skimmed the posts in this thread, but I may have something more to say later; this is something I'm deeply interested in.

"This phrase indicates an inherent connection between sex and a physically violent act."

HOLY SHIT

Not even close... this is actually aggravating to read, ugh. As if the only definition of 'hit' were a "physically violent act."

[rayword45]

Now that you mention that, I wonder what their anti-gambling position is.

"Blackjack is an inherently violent game"

Don't smack me for being unfunny.

[ilikexd]

Originally Posted by Surt

...it's definitely reasonable to make students recognize the potentially harmful thought patterns they might have in those areas.

I applaud their decision.

It's one thing to bring this to students' attention, but this forces the students to agree with the position of the university, that these words are necessarily harmful, and that they necessarily imply sexually demeaning things.

How often does somebody actually associate "I'd hit that" with a violent act? When you say "this sucks!" when you mean "this is undesirable!", are you ever thinking about fellatio and that it might be implicitly demeaning to some people who enjoy performing fellatio? That is what it "implies", after all...

I wouldn't mind the university's decision if this exercise was shaped in a different way that simply informs students of what these words may imply, and how they may upset or offend certain people. But it requires students to accept that they are unconditionally problematic, in all situations. And while there are more legitimate concerns specifically regarding the usage of 'rape' as a synonym for dominate/defeat with certain people, the other ones are quite a stretch.

[ilikexd]

Originally Posted by rayword45

Now that you mention that, I wonder what their anti-gambling position is.

"Blackjack is an inherently violent game"

Don't smack me for being unfunny.

Yeah, 'hit' can simply mean 'come in contact with' in a very vague sense. "Hit that" referring to sexual intercourse just refers to bodies coming into contact, nothing violent at all. That this implication was made is honestly frightening, has no basis in reality, and makes me question the sanity of whoever imagined that. I mean come on, another way of saying this is "tap that."

[tosh]

I'd hit that 64 measure run with ridiculous FA.

For real: I understand the necessity to bring more attention to these issues, but there are much better ways of doing so.

Another thought: Isn't UC Davis like 40% East Asian? Obviously not all of them are exchange students, but if it's anything like my uni then I would guess that a fair number did not have English as a first language and some may not be privy to slang that is common in the continental US.

Edit: Wow those spelling mistakes in the screenshot.
Way to spell achievement, connection, and commodity.

[ilikexd]

Originally Posted by tosh

Edit: Wow those spelling mistakes in the screenshot.
Way to spell achievement, connection, and commodity.

Wow, that's unbelievable.

[MinaciousGrace]

at this point you just realize that higher learning is a farce and accept that most americans aren't capable of understanding even the basic concepts of nuance connotation and context

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

at this point you just realize that higher learning is a farce and accept that most americans aren't capable of understanding even the basic concepts of nuance connotation and context

I agree to an extent. Some universities still very much uphold principles of higher learning, but many are becoming merely machines to be socialized according to a specific norm.

A much bigger problem is that academic journals often make submission quite difficult for people unaffiliated with a university, and journals are effectively where the bulk of new knowledge occurs. So submission to a journal entails acceptance of all the social policies of a university, which may be backward like this UC Davis one.

I was in awe when I saw a Harvard law professor talk about the difficulties of teaching rape law because students complained that they found the content 'triggering'. Something doesn't cease to be true or valuable because someone's feelings don't gel with it, and that should never be a consideration for whether to teach subject matter. It takes a tremendously entitled person to think they should have their base reactions accommodated at the expense of knowledge.