Wednesday lunch break

[kanzeon_2040]

A work project on which I've spent a lot of time lately, including several evenings, has now been put on the back burner. I'd been expecting this downshift to occur by summer, though not quite yet. But so long as the project was up front, I was putting a lot of time into it, and enjoying doing so. Now I'll be able to ask for some new projects to

Comments

[matrixmann]

Someone who seemingly is unaware of the fast dynamic that the English language has... Words in that language are steadily adapted, adopted for different contexts, changed and recombined at will. Often even at faster pace than a native in it can keep track of.
As a foreigner, I say - like "to come out" in English was a very outstanding, unique term or phrasing that can only be brought in connection with sexuality and sex identity...

In German (my native), that's very different. The term "coming out" was adopted, but its meaning there is very tightly bound to the context of sexuality. So to say, to all kinds of shades of "being not heterosexual".
Over time now, I guess, to come out as a different sex identity than that one that one biologically is and than that in one's official documents has been integrated to that term too.

If you would use it in the German language in a totally different context than these two, it would appear way more odd (than in English) because here it's more firmly tied to a specific meaning. (Well, that perhaps because it's a loanword.)

[kanzeon_2040]

Interesting! Here in the US there's a constant evolution of words used to describe different identity groups as the old words are labeled "stereotyped". Just one of many examples - the word "homeless" is being phased out among the younger or more progressive liberals in favor of "unhoused". And not just words, but also acronyms, like POC turned into BIPOC. As an older person I find these battles over words to be repetitive and exhausting. They're more like - are you wearing the latest style of blue jeans or is your wardrobe old. It's very much about fashion and whether you are a leader, or a follower, or an old curmudgeon like me.

[matrixmann]

Over here, it's more like they constantly import/loan the outcomings of the battle of words in the English language.
- Although, important to say, enough words that are being "borrowed" are not used linguistically correctly, some terms don't even exist like that in English as they import them here (so there's the guess that they rather come from the drawing table of a marketing agency).

Particularly in the case of "coming out", I think, its tiedness to the topics of sexuality (and more recently also sex identity) results from the fact that the German language didn't have a specific word before to contain this circumstance what is meant with it.
And due to the term being obviously a loanword, it stayed with just this meaning.
(Overall, that's also not that bad because so you notice as a native speaker of German in your language that someone is going to say/reveal something important about them. It's like a marker that tells you "this here isn't about something trivial".)

...From that point of view, to my ears and understanding, admittedly, it sounds a bit odd if "to come out" is being used with a context which is not that groundbreaking.
Much more than if group X is supposedly "allowed" to use it.
Even if I know that, linguistically, it's quite simple English (it's not a customized or specialized term) and it can be reused for whatever purpose at will.