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xxlovelynovaxx · 1 year

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Term Coining Time:

Descrippunk

This is for when you defy the efforts of people to box you in with neatly delineated labels that don't overlap, as if they were putting you in a house with a manicured lawn and a white picket fence.

You may use the label bi lesbian, bi gay, straight gay, or similar. You may ID as queerhet due to another identity queering your heterosexual attraction. You may identify as a traumaendo system or endogenic in the increasingly used meaning of "not fully formed from trauma" instead of "not at all formed from trauma". You may identify as a manwoman, a nonbinary man, nonbinary woman, or nonbinary manwoman.

You reject that these identities are inherently mutually exclusive and let your garden of dandelions riot across multiple yards. You refuse the idea that anyone but every individual using the label defines it - and accept that any use of the label not explicitly intended to do harm therefore becomes a part of the definition. You break down pointless fences and reject the idea of labels as property with boundaries and ownership altogether.

You refuse the concept that things like gender (especially manhood), system origin (especially traumagenesis), heterosexuality (in the context of other queer identities), and more, inherently taint an identity when present in any amount to the point of locking you out of identities that don't and can't inherently exclude them.

When someone says "words have meaning", you respond "the meaning we make of them". When someone says "that meaning matters", you say "people matter more than words, because words aren't alive and we are".

It's almost a hedonistic approach to labels - that they are here for our use and pleasure. It rejects prescriptivism at a fundamental level. It rejects a claim to a "right" to restrict the definition of a label or indeed to have any entitlement to its meaning once coined.

And it assumes good faith if there is room for any benefit of the doubt whatsoever.

I coined this specifically after dealing with the same shit for ID'ing as bi lesbian and a traumaendo system and multigender.

The one and only negative experience I have ever had with a supposedly inclusive system as a partially traumagenic system is when I was told by the coiner that being even a little bit traumagenic locked me out of the endogenic label, despite a self-contradictory origin in which I am simultaneously entirely traumagenic, partially traumagenic and entirely nontraumagenic. Because origins aren't that simple.

And no, I don't mean individual headmates, I mean our system is all of those. Plurality is more complicated than some systems would like to admit.

This was after being repeatedly harassed over the bi lesbian label and our multigenderness, so it came to a head there, but it's really all the same shit.

#traumaendo #bi lesbian #multigender #queerhet #descriptivism #coining post

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disabledunitypunk · 3 months

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If a community disability term, such as neurodivergence, contains diagnoses that in your experience are too different to be related, you can opt out of the term, but you do not get to disagree that the term still includes both for other people with those diagnoses.

I don't actually care what the coiner's intentions with a word were that much, beyond, "if even one person finds a wider or more inclusive definition meaningful, the definition expands to encompass their usage of it".

That's descriptivism, the idea that words only exist to be useful to us and that we shape their meaning to that end. It is the counterpart to prescriptivism, the idea that words have concrete, strict, static definitions and that we have to use the right words as accurately as possible and can't use words if they fit badly enough.

"Words have meanings" is a prescriptivist take, but so is "I don't feel neurodivergence includes xyz".

I mean this in a way less aggressive than it sounds, but quite simply, neurodivergence doesn't revolve around your experience of it.

I also find it symptomatic of the extreme cartesian dualist bias most people haven't actually examined that "physical disability" can include everything from neurogenic pain to irritable bowel disease to limb deformities to cardiac issues to asthma to paralysis to visual impairment and more, but neurodivergence and neurodisabilities are often limited to, if not the more palatable and less disordered forms, even just things that are primarily cognitive or emotional in nature.

To explain, cartesian dualism is the idea that there is a separate, nonphysical "mind" from the physical neurological structure of your brain and body - and that therefore essentially mental illness and neurodivergence are sicknesses and differences of an abstract consciousness that is little more than a different word for the idea of a "soul".

It's very disturbing to me that people think that, because we don't fully understand how bioelectrical and chemical processes or neurophysical structure inform the phenotypical presentation of disorders and neurodivergence with an array of cognitive-emotional symptoms, that we can simply just say "eh, it's not physical in the same way physical neurological symptoms are.

Okay, that's a mouthful, but basically, our entire consciousness - emotions, thoughts, the places in our physical bodies we feel our emotions (and store trauma), the physical symptoms of our mental illnesses, and so forth - they all are caused by one of essentially three categories of things.

Either the electrical signals passing between neurons in a certain order and direction, hormones and enzymes and proteins being chemically processed by receptors in brain and other bodily cells (which, it's important to note, mental illness and neurodivergence exist as a conversation between brain cells and other bodily cells), or the actual physical shape of the brain.

From what little we do understand, we know that electrical activity, chemical activity, and physical differences in the brain are responsible in some way for the psychological phenomena we study. We mostly just don't understand exactly HOW.

The similarities between primarily physical neurological conditions and primarily mental neurological conditions is that they are both a result of what is occurring in the neurological system (and to a lesser extent, in where the neurological system interfaces and communicates with other systems).

Migraines, nerve pain, epilepsy, bell's palsy, Parkinson's, tremors, stroke, lateral sclerosis - these are very different from things like bipolar, anxiety, OCD, NPD, AvPD, SzPD, PTSD, DID, autism, schizophrenia, ID, and so on, for many people.

It's why you can opt out of labels like neurodivergence for conditions you don't feel it fits.

But, crucially, you don't get to make that decision and universally define the word for others. The most inclusive definition of the word prevails, because there are people who do find that their experiences with things in each of those category are similar, or so closely related they can't be separated, or simply worth grouping together for the fact they occur in the same bodily system via the same or similar mechanisms.

For me, my chronic pain, my gut health issues, my MCAS, my autism, my anxiety, my PTSD, my DID, my chronic fatigue, my brain fog, my schizophrenia, my ADHD, my tremor, my dysautonomia, my balance issues and struggles with spacial awareness and lack of awareness of my physical body, the alexithymia that I've worked so hard to manage, my language and sensory processing disorders... it's all closely and heavily interrelated.

Some of it causes or worsens other parts (or in some cases is minimally suspected to, but I'm mainly focusing on the ones that inarguably directly cause the others here). My anxiety and PTSD trigger my gut issues. Inflammation from my MCAS triggers my chronic pain and brain fog and POTS and makes my anxiety, depression, and DID worse. My dyspraxia and sensory processing are worse when I'm brain foggy or in pain. Getting excited about special interests can make my tremor worse than anxiety can. This is kind of a weird one, but self-injury from BPD has caused nerve damage. Autism and ADHD cause a large portion of my chronic fatigue.

That's without even getting into where the symptom sets overlap.

Anxiety comes with tachycardia, shortness of breath, feelings of dread/doom, stomach upset, tremors, dysregulation of my sense of temperature, flushing, and more.

POTS comes with... tachycardia, shortness of breath, stomach upset, tremors, dysregulation of my sense of temperature, flushing, and more. And MCAS covers the "feelings of dread/doom", so when they are flaring up together...

Chronic pain is a symptom of depression and PTSD as well as fibromyalgia and nerve damage. Chronic fatigue is a symptom of just about every disability that exists.

Food sensitivities are as likely to be from neurodivergence as from eating disorders (which can be considered neurodivergent) as from GI issues. I see an allergist for my condition which is caused by dysregulation of gastrointestinal cells, which is suspected to potentially be related to trauma, which is also suspected as having a relationship with the dysautonomia present in my POTS, trauma for me which is as much a result of my neurodivergence and the casual ignorant and often nonmalicious ableism ingrained into every facet of society I faced as the abuse I went through. (And some of the abuse was a result of my disabilities, both primarily physical and primarily mental!)

There is no separating it for me. They are not different enough to deny myself a label that acknowledges that and never will be. Neurodivergence and neurodisability (a term I coined) as well are as much for people like me as people who have fully discrete separate symptoms.

I even find the separation of disabilities into "physical" and "psychological" to be a bit of a misdirection. Psychological disabilities are physical. They manifest through physical symptoms. Even emotional symptoms are experienced by the body on a physical level, though a lot of us neurodivergent folks struggle with awareness of that (I know I did and often still do).

Anxiety is often a rapid heart rate and sweating and shortness of breath. Depression is pain and appetite suppression and often low blood pressure. Sadness can be chest pain and throat tightness. Excitement often has near identical physical manifestations as anxiety. Happiness is usually felt throughout the whole body. Sensations of different temperatures, breathing, pulse, and gut functions are most primarily associated with emotion.

"Trust your gut" even means "trust your intuition", meaning your subconscious mental sense of safety vs danger, for this reason.

"My heart plummeted."

"My heart was in my throat."

"My stomach was roiling with nerves."

"I felt a cold sweat on my neck."

"I knew in my gut I could trust her."

These are how people describe emotions.

Even where the symptoms are either not identifiably physical or not experienced as physical in the consciousness (such as thought patterns), they are caused by physical processes in an actual physical organ. Their cause is the same at a fundamental level as a primarily physical symptom such as pain - while they may occur in different locations in the neurological system, or may be triggered by different sets of chemicals, at a basic level they are both physically occurring in the same bodily system.

Even separating out the brain as an organ from the rest of the body has actively limited scientific progress. It's only as modern science has actually been analyzing it in concert with the other bodily systems that it is responsible for both controlling and processing feedback from that large advancements in our understanding of neurology have been made.

The organ responsible for telling every other organ what to do and understanding what happens in every other organ cannot be compartmentalized and analyzed on its own. At least, not if we want any actual useful data.

I often wonder, for people who do have discrete symptom sets, is there a reason other than simply "it doesn't make sense to group it with my other neurodivergence" for saying they "disagree" with the definitions of neurodivergence and neurodisability that they are allowed not to use for themselves?

Is it possibly that neuroableism is so rampant in our society and even in disabled spaces that they simply haven't examined their own internalized biases and bigotry and they don't take neurodisabilities, including their own, as seriously as disabilities they consider more physical?

Is the idea that they have been as physical as their other disabilities all along scary or threatening because it means that in shoving them off into the realm of "mental" disability they've been pushing themselves past their limits to "overcome" something that is just as painful, just as harmful, and just as concretely, profoundly disabling as their other disabilities? That they were just as unable to do the things their disability prevented them from doing and hurting themselves just as much by trying to and then blaming themselves on top of it for the ways they "fell short" due to said disability?

This is not meant as an attack. I sometimes have the people who say this stuff unintentionally stumble on trauma triggers, but I don't dislike them. I wish I was more capable of having these conversations without really essentially running and hiding. I try to use this blog for that because I'm able to ignore it more easily than my main blog when I'm in a heightened state, and because it's more of a controlled environment where these conversations are intended to take place.

These are questions I'm asking specifically from analyzing past attitudes of mine. I didn't necessarily share them publicly, but there was a time where I felt similarly. I'm not asking out of some concern-trolling, either. I acknowledge that what I talked about is only one possible explanation for that belief, and if that is the case, I'd simply encourage the people for whom it's true to be patient with themselves and let themselves be disabled, whatever that means for them.

I don't even think it's necessarily a super harmful belief, although I think it crosses a line when the belief goes from "that's not how I use neurodivergent for myself" to "I don't think it's useful for neurodivergence to be defined that way in general". I think it's one we should all interrogate, sure. Providing a possible explanation is my way of trying to open up a conversation about that. Eliminating a possibility as wrong still gets us closer to a more accurate understanding, even at an individual level.

I think put quite simply though, if that is the case, I don't feel condescending and patronizing pity. I'm angry on all of our behalf that we live in a society that so deeply ingrains those ideas into us in order to uphold the oppression of all disabled people, and especially to sow disunity between us to disrupt our efforts at organization and liberation. I'm angry that we've been taught to hurt ourselves in this way. I'm furious that we've been convinced that this is the right way of understanding and dealing with disability.

So, to loop back around and neatly tie this post off with my original point: I would like to motivate people to examine WHY they label certain diagnoses as neurodivergent/neurodisabilities and others as not. I would encourage them to remember that an umbrella label including diagnoses of theirs that they don't want to use that label for doesn't make the definition wrong. I'd remind them that they are absolutely welcome to use a more restrictive definition individually without challenging the general definition, because words can mean multiple things.

And I'd say that the most important thing is just to remember when discussing this is that other people may consider a shared diagnosis to be neurodivergent where you don't, and that "disagreeing" with them is fundamentally "disagreeing" with their identity and how they experience it, which however well-intentioned is still bigotry. It doesn't make you a bad person, but it is a harmful action and the right thing to do is whatever needs to be done to not continue to harm others. Whether it's as simple as just stopping or as complex as analyzing the entire lens through which you view neurodivergence, the important thing is respecting that neurodivergent identity means different things for different people.

And after all, at least in English, 95 percent of the 3000 most frequently used words have multiple meanings, as do 100 percent of the top 1000 most used words. Words like go and set have upwards of 300-400 definitions! Rather than treating definitions like a math problem, right or wrong, let's treat them as interpretive, and facilitate communication by asking people which they mean.

#prescriptivism #descriptivism #mod stars #unitypunk #neurodivergence #neurodisability #disability #physical disability #neurology #neuropsychology #cartesian dualism #cw brief self harm mention #ableism #neuroableism #trauma #adding this in the tags: a good example is how lqbtqia+ people can opt out the reclaimed label queer #whether your identity is always considered valid as a queer identity or faces bigotry at every turn you can choose to demand inclusion #no matter whether or not you use the label queer #that's important

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dsm-wannabe-linguist · 2 years

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not a prescriptivist nor a descriptivist but a secret third thing

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zenosanalytic · 3 months

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If you're really interested in English Phonetics(how it's pronounced), you'd be far better served watching Dr. Geoff Lindsay's Videos on this topic(ignore his ad-reads they're usually for pretty awful products/services; ppl gotta make a living under capitalism, unfortunately (:T) than trusting ANYTHING you read on the subject here(YES I am vaguing at least two posts u_u)

#Dr. Geoff Lindsay #The English Language #English Phonetics #Linguistics #Descriptivism #Link Posts #zA Posts #zA Opinions

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kragehund-est · 11 months

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if you ever feel stupid, remember that there are people who push standardized language, but swear they're still descriptivists because they're pushing a new standard instead of an old one.

#prescriptivism #descriptivism #linguists #langblr

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degengxrl · 2 months

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theres no wrong pronunciation/spelling prescriptivist scum

#SpIn posting #linguistics #linguist humor #prescriptivism #descriptivism #im so fucking sick of ppl #misanthope #estrogendyking

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ithoughtiwasthegayone · 1 year

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reminder: prescriptivism is inherently classist

#linguistics #prescriptivism #descriptivism

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onearthwerebrieflygorgons · 1 year

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The linguist in me is super intrigued by how consistently people have started putting commas between complex noun phrases in a subject position and the verb.

The old man in me fucking hates it.

#linguistics #language change #generational shift #descriptivism #yes I have two people inside me #I'm bi

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cucullas · 1 year

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- Mes, que diràn a Barcelona ? Ara bé. Sem a Barcelona o a Russilló ? El Barcelonès diu : jo parlo ; el Valencia diu : yo parle ; el Mallorqui diu : jo parl : el Russillonès diu : jo parli. Qui te ra-hó ? Jo pensi que tots quatre ne tenen, y que cum n'es d'aixo n'es d'allo. - Y donchs, també cairà escriure Canigu al lloc de Canigó ? Perqué no ? Canigu, qui vol dir : Montanya blanca, [...] y perqué convé an als fills del Monseny de pronunciar Canigó, ai xo vol pas dir que nosaltres, qui sem nascuts y qui vivim en Ia falda o al peu d'aqueixa montanya, siguem obligats de fer com ells. Qui sab millor que'ls fills mateixos del Canigú'l nom del gegant llur pare ?

Estève Caseponse (1850-1932) in the introduction of Contes Vallespirechs (1931) about why he doesn’t write “on the manner of Perpinyá” or “following the rules of Barcelona” when writing his Tales of the Vallespir.

“- But what will be said in Barcelona?

Now, are we in Barcelona or in the Rousillon? A Barcelonese says: jo parlo; a Valencian says: yo parle; a Mallorcan says: jo parl, and a man of the Rousillon says: jo parli. Who is right? I think the four of them are and that here and there things are different.

- So, do we also have to write Canigu instand of Canigó?

Why not? Canigu means: White mountain and just because pronouncing Canigó suits the children of Monseny (mountain near Barcelona), that doesn’t mean that us, who were born and who live in its slope or at its foot have to do the same. Who knows better than the children of the Canigu themselves what is the name of the giant they call Father?”

#llengua catalana #renaixença catalana #esteve caseponse #descriptivism #prescriptivism #regional llenguages #catalunya nord #rousillon #linguistics

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tagitables · 1 year

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To be clear, I mean aspects with an s (it is not meant to be aspect). This plurality, as opposed to this singularity.

#tagitables #philosophy #philosophy of language #descriptivism #prescriptivism #atomic proposition #sono mama

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maniacalchuckling · 13 hours

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'a lot' not being one word is so stupid. Everyone uses it as one word, spelling it as one word is one of the most common spelling mistakes I've seen, it's even pronounced without a space. Why won't the dictionaries catch up eughhhhh

#alot #a lot #descriptivism #prescriptivism #man fuck prescriptivism #Ingsoc new speak ass logic

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xxlovelynovaxx · 1 year

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"Words have meanings, we need those meanings to be rigid and exclusionary in order to understand each other, words can definitely never have multiple meanings-"

I don't care whether you're a bi lesbian exclus or a terf or the coiner of endogenic saying mixed origin traumaendo systems are using endo incorrectly. You're using rhetoric that's INDISTINGUISHABLE from one another and also that fundamentally misunderstands how language works.

And yes, I include terms that someone coined. Because here's the thing - the desires of the person who put the letters together don't outweigh actual usage by large subsets of a community. Words are determinist, not prescriptivist. They are not ill fitting clothes that you have to just choose the least uncomfortable one from. They can be TAILORED. And most importantly, they can mean different things to different people. Two people might be comfy in the same medium shirt, while one is loving how loose and flowy it is and the other likes how well the tightness shows off their body.

Like, no actually, I don't think having a bunch of highly specific labels and then "mixed origin" and "sapphic" facilitates communication, actually. The opposite, in fact. However, if EVERY word can mean multiple things, then you do in fact have to talk to people to find which usage of it they mean. And 99 percent of the time the usages are highly related anyway. I've mostly seen traumaendo systems mean "not completely formed from trauma" when using endo (as opposed to "not formed from any trauma whatsoever, no sirree, no trauma exists here") and I've mostly seen entirely sapphic people using bi lesbian.

Anyway prescriptivism is incredibly triggering for us, like as in, it in general and especially "endo definition" discourse is our worst trigger. This post is partly a way of processing this. One person gets to decide their PERSONAL usage of a word. NO ONE PERSON gets to decide what community usage is "correct", when it is being used in good faith. "Incorrect" usage is not inherently bad faith and never will be.

(Yes, the coiner also said "bi lesbian discourse is different" because the people who coined lesbian aren't around to tell us how they feel... except that misses the point entirely. Even if someone coins a term and then excludes ANY good faith usage of it, even a usage that's slightly offset or stretched from the original, they are an exclus, full stop. That may seem overdramatic, because it's not the same exact definition and so therefore some people define that as NOT being usage of the term that was coined. But the term itself IS being used, just not the exact MEANING. So - good faith definition, good faith usage.)

(They are also often an essentialist of some kind, too.)

(And also trying to fit complex identities into neat little boxes. What are they going to do about me, Schrodinger's gay/system, who both is and isn't attracted to men, and who both is and isn't formed by trauma? Does what small part of me is traumagenic taint the rest of the endogenic origins so much they can no longer be called endogenic and must be relegated to "mixed origin", "adaptive", or other microlabels?)

(How is that different from any attraction of men tainting sapphic attraction to no longer be lesbian?)

(Why does a coiner's personal usage of a word outweigh the needs of any other person who finds comfort in it? Why do they get to say a word can't have two related meanings, when half the reason dictionaries exist is because half of all english words do? Likely in other languages too but I'm sadly not yet fluent in any.)

(How many qualitative words do we know that are so exacting that they can't mean "definition or very close to the definition"?)

This is a fundamentally different philosophy to prescriptivism. Maybe this makes you nervous or defensive, because you coin terms. Here's the thing: I also coin terms. I'm not very good at coming up with terms off the top of my head, but I'm going to need an example so:

Someone coins "redshiftallion" to mean an identity that is defined wholly or in large part by the concept of a wavelength of light being stretched. Someone decides "this is pretty close to my identity, which is the concept of a wavelength in general being stretched, so I'm going to use it just for myself to mean that also". The coiner of redshiftallion then gets upset about the personal usage of their term to mean something very slightly different. But more of the community starts using it to refer to wavelength stretching identities in general, as an umbrella term. But it also still means specifically light wavelengths being stretched too.

Why does the coiner get to decide that the second definition is "incorrect", rather than "additional"? They shared a chocolate cake recipe and then got upset that someone used a different color of sprinkles while making it and giving credit to their original recipe! Everyone else is going "two cakes"! while they're going "that's not MY cake recipe because MY recipe calls for ONLY photon sprinkles and you included radio sprinkles and therefore you CAN'T call it "redshiftallion" cake.

Like, the fundamental nature of the cake itself didn't change. Nor was the original cake thrown away to make room for the new one.

Anyway, when I call myself endogenic/traumaendo because I had to come THROUGH trauma and bullying from sysmeds to even realize I was PARTIALLY endogenic, like it took me so long to admit and was so painful and hard and scary and I was harassed over it when I did realize too - yeah, denying my usage of the term as "incorrect" (saying "sure you can use it but that's not what it means and you don't get to use it to MEAN that") doesn't seem particularly in good faith, when there's the simple solution of two meanings.

I'm not just gonna use mixed origin. I use that too, but I fought for this word. I hurt for this word. I went through yet more trauma after already being through plenty for this word.

And yes, I feel the same about bi lesbian, but the worst I have to deal with is babyqueers on twitter who haven't learned lesbian history with that. Not someone saying "I am the god of this word because I was the first person to suggest it, and because you have trauma it'll never really be FOR you".

Imagine saying that and not thinking you're the shitty one. Imagine gatekeeping endo-safe* traumatized systems out of a word you came up with (while pretending you're not by saying "well anyone can use it but only my way is right") because you want it not to change and "it's only been eight years" as if language isn't evolving more rapidly than ever thanks to the internet.

*Using this instead of pro-endo because while I am very pro-endo in terms of loving all endo systems, I also feel like saying "pro-endo" legitimizes the idea that you can be anti//endo, as if it's not just "lendo allies vs hateful bigots. Maybe this is silly of me, but I think "safe" carries the same general meaning that most people use pro endo for anyway, so.

Imagine saying "if you have any trauma in your origins at all - (and some people consider ever headmate origin in their overall origins, rather than defining it by how they originally became a system) - then go make your own term or call yourself mixed origin, you don't belong in THIS community, it's for systems WITHOUT trauma/any traumagenic origins".

(Don't get me wrong, I absolutely get wanting safe spaces from endomisics and sysmeds. But there's a difference between locking bigots out of an identity and locking an identity out of an identity, and conflating the two helps no one.

Like, I'm actually closest to quiogenic. I don't know for sure my full origins. I don't actually know if the trauma came before or after becoming a system. I had very early childhood trauma, but I could also be protogenic for all I know. So in a very real sense, I am both traumagenic and not, because I don't know for sure, because the traumagenic parts I suspect are in some ways discrete from the endogenic parts (as in, I am separately endogenic and traumagenic, as if the two origins happened simultaneously but unconnected), that there's times I faced trauma while already a system that feel like they caused the system to be reborn a la a phoenix out of the ashes, and just... so much more.

So it's my word too. Labels don't belong to the coiner. They belong to the community. Even if they belonged only to the community they initially described, that means the community gets to decide whether to allow additional definitions.

It's my word. I'm endogenic, partially AND fully not formed from trauma, because plurality is complicated and self-contradictory like that.

This has been sitting on my chest for an awful long time. It can be hard to process stuff in the inclusive plural community, because it being so small means it inevitably gets back to whoever is referred to. I don't... particularly care anymore? This person badly triggered me because they justified what I think would otherwise be a semi-reasonable desire (wanting a word that means "nontraumagenic") with inherently harmful rhetoric.

Yes, prescriptivism is inherently harmful, because it prioritizes language that is not alive or sentient or feeling over people that are all of those things.

And I just don't care anymore. So... send post.

#endogenic #not putting this in the discourse tag or safe tag because while it is technically both #the discourse tag is unsafe and the safe tag I feel like would be bad to put even discourse that is safe into #prescriptivism #determinism #descriptivism #traumaendo

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