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What thoughts go through your head when you hear someone refer to left-leaning individuals or policies as "liberal"? (midwest.social)

submitted 2 years ago by seahorse@midwest.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Whenever I hear someone use liberal to describe someone or something that is left leaning I just get the sense that their politics are too US-based and kind of roll my eyes because that's not really what liberal means. Is this an appropriate reaction or should I get off my high horse?

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[–] wazowski@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

i think that a word... can have different meanings? 🤷‍♀️

liberal = non-orthodox is not specific to the us, in fact, non-orthodox is one of the official definitions of the word liberal, which is befitting of many leftist policies

it just so happens that liberal is part of neoliberalism, which creates a perception of a contradiction in meaning, but in reality isn't that 🤷‍♀️

but important to note, all of this is in the realm of prescriptive linguistics