It's how you ask the question that matters

[andrewducker]

The New York Times took a poll.  They asked half the people whether they thought that gay men and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the US army.  60% said yes.  They asked the other half whether they thought that homosexuals should be allowed to serve openly in the US army.  44% said yes.

One can only assume that people are made of crazy.  And stupid.

From

Comments

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Semiotics. They're interesting and important. No, two apparently equivalent words do not, in real world terms, mean the same thing.

[andrewducker]

Of course not - "gay man" includes the word "man", which has a humanising effect on the people you're talking to, priming them to respond in a more empathic manner towards the subject you're asking them about.

I still despair though.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Above certainly wasn't meant to imply that you didn't already know that, of course!

There are vast applications of semiotics to all sorts of humanities fields. F'rex, the semiotics of academic gender studies jargon are virtually guaranteed to get them exactly the audience, positive and negative, that they indeed gain.

[andrewducker]

Yup - when people use in-group language with out-groups and expect the same reaction then both sides tend to get a nasty shock.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Of course, for some groups (fundementalist religions, for example) this is a feature, not a bug.

[andrewducker]

Oh, and I don't mind people assuming I don't know stuff - my knowledge of semiotics comes almost entirely from a copy of "semiotics for beginners" that I picked up a few years back. Same with critical theory and postmodernism :->

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Hey, I might have peer-reviewed a semiotics journal, but that's not to say I have any formal knowledge of the subject either...

[ahsirakh.livejournal.com]

Also, "homosexual" draws attention to the act of sex more than "gay men and lesbians" does.

[badbookworm.livejournal.com]

That's what I came here to say. The phrasing of the first question was humanising.

It is still depressing, though, that people's opinions are so easily manipulated. Not to mention a but worrying.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Well, the fast-in-fast-out of a poll is the ideal forum to show dramatic results.

What worries me is that the various gay activism groups haven't done such thorough research that this is old news. Control the dialogue, people.

[badbookworm.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. It's not rocket science - I was probably about five when I realised the manipulative power of "It is, isn't it?" versus "It isn't, is it?" Which is remarkably effective despite being about as subtle as a hammerblow.