[Callers] Painting the bikeshed (was Jets / rubies genderfree terms redux: gems?)

[Aahz Maruch via Callers]

On Sat, May 30, 2015, Michael Fuerst via Callers wrote:
>
> If a our group of like minded people can't agree on terms to use
> when teaching relatively straightforward dances, can we expect a
> nation to agree on such trivial issues like use of force by police,
> national health insurance, income distribution, and money's influence
> in elections 

Actually, that may not be a good comparison.  There are two forces in
discussions like these that are both somewhat in opposition and somewhat
combining:

First is the tendency to "bikeshed" -- obsessing over trivial details
because we can.  (See the Wikipedia link below.)

The second tendency is to obsess over language because language matters.
If you need convincing of this, I strongly recommend reading _The
Everyday Language of White Racism_ by Jane Hill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law_of_triviality
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