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Language should be adequate to the context of a conversation. If you were writing a legal document, or some policy for a kindergarten it might make sense to mak
by n6242 3y ago
Language should be adequate to the context of a conversation. If you were writing a legal document, or some policy for a kindergarten it might make sense to make that distinction, but this is a public forum with many non-native speakers. Parents is a concept pretty much all of us are familiar with and if you say parents we'll understand you mean people using the service because they care for young kids.
- truculent 3y agoLanguage should be adequate to the context of a conversation. If you were writing a legal document, or some policy for a kindergarten it might make sense to make that distinction, but this is a public forum with many non-native speakers. Child-raiser is a concept pretty much all of us are familiar with and if you say child-raisers we'll understand you mean people using the service because they care for young kids.
- froh 3y agochild-riser is a lovely neologism, more self-explanatory than caretaker, but still caretaker is well established. and to clarify: I chuckled with sympathy reading your response :-)
- flkenosad 3y agoIt's not that it's bad neologism. It's that neologism is bad in general. :-)
- PawgerZ 3y agoNew words are bad in general? How so?
- fifirndisiwbbd 3y agoChange is hard and expensive. The juice needs to be worth the squeeze. Far too often those introducing new words (or even worse redefining existing ones) are playing power games with their in groups best interests in mind, not the rest of us.
- skywhopper 3y agoEvery word you just wrote was a neologism at some point.
- ghusbands 3y agoCaretaker is not well-established where I am. A caretaker takes care of grounds of schools and other similar large buildings.
- froh 3y agoI see. and that's indeed one of the two main meanings. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/caretaker https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/caretaker hmmm is there some extended n-gram search these days where you can search for a specific word *with a specific meaning*?
- 0xcafecafe 3y agoIMO I felt that battle was lost couple of years back when my wife was pregnant with our youngest. We were looking for CDC guidelines on covid booster for expectant mothers. The website mentions "pregnant people". That's when I felt discourse is evolving to cater to the edge cases. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/pregnancy.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...
- tsimionescu 3y ago[flagged]
- flkenosad 3y ago> Some men can be pregnant Only if you define man in a way such that any person can claim manhood.
- tsimionescu 3y agoNot necessarily. Unless otherwise asked, I, like the vast vast majority of people, classify others as men or women or non-binary based on their presentation, because it's the only thing I have access to. If someone wears masculine clothes, and masculine style, and has a masculine name, and I knew nothing else about them, I would obviously say he is a man. If I later find out he was born female, I wouldn't suddenly start thinking he is a woman. On the other hand, if someone dresses and styles themselves in a typically feminine way but tells me they use masculine pronouns, I will of course by reasons of politeness call them by their preferred pronouns, but privately I would find it hard not to consider her a woman who prefers masculine pronouns.
- diffea 3y agoThat's just daft though. Defining women and men in terms of clothing, haircuts and other adornments is awfully regressive. It's like 1950s-style sexist stereotyping all over again.
- snowwrestler 3y ago“Child raiser” is perfectly adequate to the context of a conversation about people who are raising children.
- greatgib 3y agoWouldn't the employees of the day care be able to be considered as "child raiser" if I follow the meaning of the words?
- snowwrestler 3y agoNo, because child care (aka day care) is temporary and optional. A person who is raising a child has taken responsibility for them through their childhood—metaphorically “raising” them up into adulthood.
- fifirndisiwbbd 3y agoThere are plenty of “child raisers” who provide more care than a daycare and less than a parent. And since we’re being technically correct, raising a child is always optional (even for the parent).
- snowwrestler 3y agoI agree. That’s why I said child raisers have “taken responsibility.” I could have also said “accepted responsibility.” I wouldn’t consider a parent who opts out of raising their child to be a child raiser.
- thinkerswell 3y agoWhat an insult to someone who has taken on the responsibility of raising a child. Of course they should be called parents. A man doesn’t adopt a son only to be called his “child raiser”. Stop this foolish line of thought.
- Spivak 3y ago
- Angostura 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]