If people still use it that way, it should be in the dictionary. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive
This, especially since dictionaries (at least Spanish ones) have a lot of abbreviations to indicate when a term is archaic, deprecated, rude, etc. Even if nobody uses it in such way today, considering it was used not so long ago, it should remain. It’s history and evidence of the discrimination, I get that it’s offensive but erasing it from the dictionary doesn’t do anything for their cause.
Here’s the definition:
- adj. despect. Dicho de una persona: Avariciosa o usurera. U. t. c. s.
“despect.” is despectivo, which means “pejorative” or “derogatory”. Also, it’s the last definition given, not the first.
What U. t. c. s. Means ?
U. t. c. s. stands for: “usese también como sustantivo” which means: “it can be used as a substantive/noun”
It’s like in Polish - the word “żyd” (jew) has negative connotations, and maybe it becomes rare in usage these days, but the negative meaning sticks. It’s still an offense to call somebody that.
We have more words like this (cygan, rumun) that on its own are official words for etnicity or nationality, but carry some negative meaning. We also have dedicated words to call many different groups in offensive ways.
However languages happen organically and they reflect how people speak, not the other way that there’s some sort of entity that dictates how the entire population should speak (although reformations are possible).
Funny how people try to regulate that by law. We had such case in Polish when few years ago feminists tried to change how we call professions that are typically assigned with men, but some women are also performing them (police officer, firefigter, ministry etc). Some of those forms didn’t make sense completely due to semantics, some were dropped from the language decades ago and sound archaic or unnatural, the lobby lead to memes at the very most.
That movement worked though. You wrote police officer and firefighter instead of policeman and fireman.
Fireman and policeman in English are also not offensive because they aren’t referring to gender or sex.
Human - Group
Humans - Collective Individuals
Man - Individual
Men - Collective Individuals (Non-sexed)Not to be conflated with
Men - Collective (Sex Male)
Women - Collective (Sex Female)
Wo - Female, men - collective individuals (non-sexed).Keep in mind these are all traditional definitions and were constructed before sex and gender were determined to be separate and before intersex was a classification.
We now often conflate those in common English with human and man and person being interchangeable. As man (individual) with man (sex). And many others conflate sex and gender.
Firefighters - Group
Fireman - Firefighting Individual
Firemen - Firefighting Collective (Non-sexed)Police - Group
Policeman - Policing Individual
Policemen - Policing Collective (Non-sexed)The arguments for removing gender from professions is based on the misapprehension that the professions were ever related to gender and as a result mass illiteracy has made it an “issue”.
Wait until they realise a female Jew is a bean
I’m saddened to hear that there are still an appreciable amount of Spanish people talking about us that way, but I’m not upset at the dictionary for recording the way the language is used.
I’m guessing it’s approached in something of a similar way to how English language dictionaries handle the word gyp, which is to give its definition and note that it is offensive.
Exactly, dictionary definitions are descriptive, not prescriptive. They describe how words are used, not prescribe how they should be used.
