TIL that some languages apparently have words inherently differentiating one's status as a citizen or resident of the entity versus a member of a particular ethnic or cultural group? I don't quite grasp the whole thing, although I heard the point being made. What's interesting to me is a) that there is such a thing, which seems very revealing of something about a culture that would need such concepts built into the language, and b) that there seem to be people who think it's inaccurate to interpret the word choice as meaningful. Firstly, since languages have all sorts of concepts built into them, many very specific to their primary culture of use, it seems reasonable that such a thing could exist. Not that I would have thought of it before, since I'm not from a culture where that sort of subtlety functions. Secondly, if that is, indeed, the subtlety of the word choices, where one essentially and inherently includes people, and the other excludes, then I'd kind o...
In fairness, I speculate that part of the origin of Mukherjee's misstep was unconsciously assuming that of course everyone knows transcription factors are the first and most important aspect of gene regulation. Sort of the same way political articles assume that the reader knows elections are won by winning more votes, or crime articles assume the reader knows being arrested is bad. You don't rehash the patently obvious in every news article on a subject.
ReplyDeleteOf course, transcription factors aren't at all obvious to the general public, and if the only thing you knew about gene regulation was that single article, sure, that's kind of a warped view of the world. Mukherjee acknowledges he should have put it in context; but I can easily see how such a thing could happen, to even the best of expert writers.
Yeah, I haven't had time to troll through all of everybody's articles and background. But jiminy cricket, you'd have thought he said vaccines cause autism.
ReplyDelete* clears throat *
* drops mike *