Name Change is in Order

[Humerox]

The funniest part about all this is that Aruden is just trying to grief a guild.

To the argument itself, the word "holocaust" is not offensive; it wasn't even used in common parlance (in referring to the Jewish genocide) until after 1978, when the TV miniseries Holocaust used the word to describe what happened to the Jews.

"Holocaust" had a significant secular history prior to its employment as a referent to the Nazi Judeocide. You attempt to leave the impression that "holocaust" had absolutely no secular history before it became the principal American-English referent to the Nazi mass murder of Jews.

Many works have been written that use "Holocaust" outside of your definition:

The Young Turks and the Truth about the Holocaust at Adna (1913 -- massacre of Armenians in 1909.)

The Holocaust and Other Poems (1914 -- "Holocaust" in this title refers to the San Francisco earthquake and fire.)

The Holocaust in Minnesota (1918 -- great forest fire.)

Some examples after WW2:

Holocaust at Sea (1956 -- account of a 1942 naval battle, the sinking of the battleship Scharnhorst.)

World Law or World Holocaust (1957 -- address before the Oklahoma Bar Association.)

Holocaust! (1959 -- account of a 1942 fire. A newspaper headline description: "Boston Fire Death Toll 440; Night Club Holocaust Laid to Bus Boy's Lighted Match" -- New York Times 30 November 1942, p. 1.)

I could add many more, but you get my point. Your narrow defenition of the word and its history is ignorant, and your attempt to force that narrow definition on everyone here is offensive.

[Humerox]

*definition

[Kornaki]

I get non jewish holocaust results on page 8 of google

http://www.africanholocaust.net/
http://www.myspace.com/toxicholocaust

I think some people in this thread just aren't very good at using google

[Kornaki]

Can you not edit messages? Anyways, I googled 'United States' and it took me 14 pages to find a website not referring to the country.... and that was OSHA, and it was the 'us' in 'Contact us' that got highlighted, so I'm not sure what to think of the result. But if somebody made a guild called 'United States' in Everquest I would put 50/50 odds on it not referring to the country

[mitic]

what about a name change to <hello kitty> or maybe <homocaust> ?

[Aruden]

""Holocaust" had a significant secular history prior to its employment as a referent to the Nazi Judeocide."

"Faggot" had a significant secular history prior to its employment as a derogatory referent to homosexuals.

We're talking about what the word means today to the vast majority of English speakers.

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by Lazortag [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I guess this is more of a gray area then. I think it probably depends on the intentions of the people making the guild. If someone like Yiblaan (who's openly gay) made a guild with the aforementioned name, I think people would be less offended than if one of the many homophobic red99 players made such a guild. I'm just not sure this is the best analogy since the word in question can also be pejorative, whereas "holocaust" is never pejorative.

It doesn't have to be explicitly pejorative to be inappropriate. Let's assume for a moment that you accept that Holocaust = Jewish Genocide. If the name of the guild was "Jewish Genocide" would there be any doubt whether or not it was inappropriate?

[Autotune]

I heard Japanese people get offended every time someone talks about atoms.

[Humerox]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It doesn't have to be explicitly pejorative to be inappropriate. Let's assume for a moment that you accept that Holocaust = Jewish Genocide. If the name of the guild was "Jewish Genocide" would there be any doubt whether or not it was inappropriate?

That's the rub. If the guild name were "The Holocaust", I'd ride the white horse 'til it died.

It's all subjective. When I hear the word, I don't associate it with the Shoah automatically. The guild name makes perfect sense in the primary definition of the word when applied to the server, and makes much less sense as an intentional slur against Jews.

[Autotune]

Originally Posted by Humerox [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The guild name makes perfect sense in the primary definition of the word when applied to the server, and makes much less sense as an intentional slur against Jews.