https://x.com/laraseligman/status/1792996008684573064

Why say "the people of Gaza" when "Gazans" is right there? Is it Pentagon-speak?

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    6 months ago

    The typical way to describe people from a place is to use the demonym. An example is Californian. "People of California" sounds like something a pol would say. Or a poet or something. I think it's very notable that - as far as I know - the West Bank has no demonym. Everybody - including reporters - is forced to use a clumsy mouthful of syllables like "Palestinians in the West Bank". I'm not a linguist but it seems really weird to me that a simple demonym (West Bankers?) isn't used.

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    Edit

    A comment to me at another site

    A significant number of them are officially refugees and therefore not Gazan.

    • Dolores [love/loves]
      ·
      6 months ago

      amending 'people' to demonyms is meant to center the humanity of subjects in speech and engender thought and empathy in writing. the most widespread application is probably 'people of color'. i think the whole project was well intentioned and has some legit positives, it feels better to write 'imprisoned people' instead of criminals or prisoners

      but it also rings nauseatingly hollow how corpos and politicals adopted it, they'll sign off on genocide but use the nice words as if that means anything.