Him: “Etymology is the logical root of words. Without it, language becomes arbitrary, malleable, stripped of meaning. That’s exactly what the system wants: to twist words in order to twist thought. Newspeak begins here—when we forget that freedom, justice, or authority have precise, inherited, rooted meanings. To know etymology is to resist. It is to think clearly with words that still carry truth.”

Him: “Every word carries historically constructed semantic content. Its etymology reveals not only its linguistic origin, but also the primary intention behind its use. For example, education comes from the Latin educere, « to bring out, to raise » a dynamic toward autonomy. If we redefine this word to designate simple conditioning or passive transmission, we negate this fundamental orientation. The word then ceases to designate what it designated. This creates a short-circuit of meaning.”

Me: “No, this is not true. Etymology does not set rules. Like I said, please acknowledge the fact that you have to concede that ‘girl’ is gender-neutral in this case. You don’t have to do a whole critical analysis here—it really is not that deep.”

Him: “We don’t have gender neutrality in French. In German, they have feminine, masculine, and neuter.”

Me: “Okay, but that’s not relevant to the fact that we say ‘girl’ in English to mean ‘female child’ specifically despite it etymologically descending from a gender-neutral term”

Him: “So we can write anything arbitrarily and interpret words without foundation. Worse, we can lose words to ideologies”

Me: “Strawman argument. I said that words are defined by how they are used, not that you can use ‘toaster’ to mean ‘tree.’ My argument is that etymology doesn’t prescriptively dictate the meaning of a word, and there are many examples of this.”

Closed out with this:

Him: “I am not responsible for the lexical poverty of English and your difficulty in accepting that Latin words are relevant and based on implacable logic. Etymology is a major tool against obscurantism. Extremely so in France, where the system is violent in its distortion and dilution of words. It is a tool. An empirical DNA.”

Me: “The system is violent in its distortion and dilution of words? Reminds me of how your people were violent to mine when they enslaved them. Now fuck off.”

and then I blocked.

And how did this conversation start? Someone used the term “principle” instead of “doctrine” (in a particular context) in an Instagram story I shared, and he replied to it with, “It’s a ‘doctrine.’ Not a principle!”

I shit you not. 🙄

“Genuine anti-racism doesn’t make exceptions. If your anti-racism includes demonizing white people, it’s not anti-racism. It’s just racism.”