经济学人下载:词汇意义的变化(2)

Ms Manne distinguishes between sexist beliefs and systemic prejudice. For instance, the idea that women have certain innate characteristics (being loving and nurturing, say) and natural roles that derive from them (wife, mother) is sexist. It is when women fail to behave as they “should” that her version of misogyny comes into play—when men punish them for being too sexually active (or not enough), for neglecting their domestic responsibilities or for claiming “male” roles such as leadership. Her misogyny is the enforcement structure of sexism.
曼恩女士区分了性别歧视观念和系统性偏见。例如，认为女性有某些天生的特征(比如爱和养育)以及由此而来的自然角色(妻子、母亲)是性别歧视的观点。当女性表现得不像所谓的女性应该表现的那样时，她的厌女症就会发挥作用了：当男性惩罚女性，因为女性在性方面过于活跃（或不够活跃），或因为女性忽视了家庭责任，或因为女性声称自己是“男性”角色，比如领导。厌女症是性别歧视的执行结构。

In her recent book “Down Girl”, Ms Manne argues for an “ameliorative” approach to concepts (one she draws from another philosopher, Sally Haslanger), whereby they are made fit for philosophical scrutiny. The vindictive psychology of some men is beyond such analysis, but the expectations widely imposed on women, and how non-conformists are treated, can be probed, and maybe even changed.
曼恩女士在其新书《失意女孩》中，主张用一种“改进的”方法来处理概念(她从另一位哲学家萨利·哈斯兰格那里借鉴了这一方法)，使其适合于哲学研究。一些男性的报复心理超出了这种分析的范围，但我们可以探究女性普遍承受的期望，以及如何对待不墨守成规的人，可以探究甚至可能改变这种期望。

What words mean is generally determined another way: most linguists believe that they simply mean what people use them to mean. As virtually all modern lexicographers acknowledge, dictionaries are there to register actual usage, not to tell the mass of people that they are deploying a word incorrectly. If philosophers or activists want dictionaries to include a new meaning, they have to get people to use the word that way.
单词的意思通常由另一种方式决定:大多数语言学家认为，单词的意思只是人们用它们来表达的意思。几乎所有现代词典编纂者都承认，词典的存在是为了记录实际用法，而不是告诉大众他们错误地使用了某个词。如果哲学家或积极分子想让词典囊括一个词新的意思，他们必须让人们这样使用这个词。