LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  What Spain desperately needs is a level-headed Prime Minister who will perform the duties of his office. The current Spanish PM seems to have too much time on his hands, and yesterday he meddled with language once again. In his efforts to control everything, he now wishes to control language—a task well-nigh impossible. Pedro Sánchez has even gone so far as to respell the word odio (“hate”) as “hodio,” a convenient label for whatever criticism may be directed against him. Fancy that! Any criticism, correction, suggestion, or questioning of his policies may now be dismissed as HODIO . One cannot help recalling Nineteen Eighty-Four and its invention of Newspeak. O tempora, o mores!

  I have found this online for Indian giver :  "Indian giver is considered offensive and derogatory. The term has historically been used to stereotype and demean Native Americans by implying that they give or trade something and then take it back. It is important to promote respectful and inclusive language that avoids perpetuating harmful stereotypes or demeaning any particular group of people." I agree with this, of course, but my question is: how can we express that idea now? What do we call a person who gives us a present and after a while wants it back?

  E ric Blair (1903-1950), escritor británico más conocido como George Orwell , escribió en 1949 su famosa novela Nineteen Eighty-Four , donde inventa el NEWSPEAK , para que BIG BROTHER (el hermano mayor), pueda controlar el pensamiento de la plebe, "designed to diminish the range of thought." A menos palabras, menos pensamiento. Y es curioso cómo este idioma, newspeak, ha dado lugar a un sufijo, -speak para formar nuevas palabras y nuevas ideas. Por ejemplo: Newspeak, adspeak, artspeak, futurespeak, govermentspeak, netspeak, chatspeak, Eurospeak... el habla de, la jerga de. 

  Dr. Marilyn Yalom (1932-2019), feminist and historian, and life-long companion to Dr. Irvin Yalom ( When Nietzsche Wept ), wrote A history of the Breast, A History of the Wife, The Social Sex. A History of Female Friendship, How the French Invented Love ... and many others. She was a true-blue femnist of the intelligent, scholarly and educated kind.  I stand to be corrected, but none of her books on women deal with language. I am a feminist because I believe in justice, equality, and have three daughters and three granddaughters. And I believe in change, in dislocating the status quo, in kicking ass, but seriously, not half-hartedly. And I believe that trying to change language artificially is not going to change society. George Orwell and his newspeak taugut us that. To change a language artificially changes nothing. "Socios y socias, niños y niñas, unidos y unidas" is a travesty of equality. "If a lawyer wants to win a case, he/she must..." is a mockery.  I ur...