Unhoused? Has homeless as a word been banned?
Welcome to the euphemism treadmill
In the US they mean different things, as homeless includes people living in other people’s homes. That can include people whose house just burnt down and are living with friends or family because they lost their permanent residence (home). Unhoused is about where they are staying.
People on the street are homeless and unhoused.
And you really think people use and understand these terms like that?
You may be correct in the academic sense, but completely wrong in all other senses.
He isn’t correct in an academic sense. They are synonyms. Unhoused is being used because homeless has negative connotation to it.
@Grimy Maybe. But unless you can produce a source, it sounds to me like you’re only guessing, and forming an essentialism from your feelings and assumptions rather than from evidence.
Not sure about Canada, but in the US:
Homeless = no permanent residence, which also includes couch surfing, parents and children who just fled an abusive family member and are temporarily ltaying with friends or relatives, and people who are living in their car. All people without a home.
Unhoused = homeless people that don’t have a roof over their heads. Might include living in a car.
They are synonyms. Please don’t make things up.
Edit: to all the knee-jerk downvoting. This is literally a quote from an article the user himself supplied as proof that there is a difference.
Unhoused is probably the most popular alternative to the word “homeless.” It’s undoubtedly the one I see most often recommended by advocates. But it doesn’t have a meaningful difference in connotation from the more common term, “homeless.”
It’s literally just a pc synonym of homeless.
@Grimy Believe it or not, different dialects may have different meanings for the same words.
Yes, but academically and more broadly in society, homeless means unhoused (by broadly in society, I mean in the common language like how third world is a synonyms for developing country even though academically it means something else.)
Important to note that he said in the US, not his hometown dialect or something. It’s a blanket statement that is completely wrong no matter how you look at it.
@Grimy Canadian English is a dialect. So is US English. And both have sub-dialects, as well as registers. These are real differences that really do affect how specific words are used and understood.
In US English, unhoused means homeless. I’m saying that it is used and understood as a synonym (you can’t argue this point either way without rhetoric) and that it is also officially considered a synonym (you can argue this point by opening a thesaurus).
I understand your point, it’s just wrong in both cases. Instead of explaining it, back it up or am I to believe you just because you can quote the wiki on rhetoric? I guess rhetoric only applies to the other person.
@Grimy Get over yourself.
And goodbye. There’s plenty of hopelessly tiresome people online already, and no one needs more.
And grow the fuck up already.
@Grimy You are relying on a rhetorical device called an essentialism: an assertion of fact without evidence, a claim asserted as established fact without supporting argument or proof. Put another way:
Things aren’t true just because you say they are, no matter how sure you are.
Essentialism isn’t merely poor forensics. It’s very literally gotten millions of people killed.
We always want to make every effort to use good forensics in arguments.
I don’t believe you actually KNOW the facts.
What’s with the wording of this title? “Unhoused people” instead of “Homeless”/“Homeless people”
It’s another one of those whack a mole words people are pushing. Once everyone gives in and we start using unhoused, it will suddenly switch to uninhabited because it’s racists to houses or something!
It’s annoying as hell, because instead of fixing the issues we’re mastrubating about words and alienating people that we need to fix the issue.
@madcaesar There are plenty of people I block just for being needlessly tiresome, on the logic that they will probably never say anything that will make anything better for me or anyone else, but will still fill up the world and my life with pointless, irritating noise.
You’re today’s winner.
So you’re saying we can make you go away with repetitive noise? Hmm…
@Warl0k3 What I’ve learned from decades of being online is that many people are just kind of pointlessly tiresome, essentially just producing meaningless noise that benefits no one, though maybe it helps them in some way, I don’t know. There’s a vast over-abundance of this kind of online noise, and it’s always disposable.
Even many total assholes online have something useful of interesting to say. But useless noise is just that, and I have no problem blocking such people.
“Bay-bee shark doo-doo, doo-doo doo-doo…”
Sarcasm aside though, I think you might have fallen into the habit of using your disinterest performatively to try and discourage the kind of noise you’re talking about. I get it, I do, but calling people out that you’re intending to block either hurts the people who’ve made one dick comment or encourages the kind of people who make said dicks comments because it amuses them. The people you don’t like aren’t going to start respecting your opinion or regarding your actions as understandably reasoned just because you point out what you’re doing.
The third option is that you’re doing it to be smug? But from a brief scroll through your comment history that seems really unlikely. So, given the absolute hell the world is devolving into, does this really do anything positive for you? Because to an outside observer, this seems like the non-cathartic type of void screaming. I’m truly sympathetic there, and it might be worth it for your own peace of mind to start blocking more frequently but just moving on from there. Giving attention to people you write off as without value cannot be personally constructive.
@Warl0k3 If your goal is to be useless and annoying to others, you’ve succeeded. Bye-bye.
