Illegitimate or undocumented?
Cool! Beethoven made a written request that after his death, doctors investigate the cause of his hearing loss and the findings be made public.
Given recent increased awareness and sensitivities about judgmental, insulting, offensive (or merely presumptively framed) designations, this article reminded me that it’s odd we still widely use the term “illegitimate” to refer to a child born to someone who is not married to the surviving biological father at the birth. (For males we used to say “bastard” although I don’t know if in all technicalities that overlaps with “illegitimate”.)
This perhaps makes sense when talking about historical matters, to the extent that was the designation at the time and also had legal significance. But just as we’ve moved towards referring to people as “undocumented” instead of “illegal alien”, both because of the connotation and lack of accuracy, I’d have thought that we wouldn’t want to say that a person can be not legitimate. However, I don’t think I’ve heard a convenient alternative.
Oh yeah, and also this article is interesting.
