The dictionary definitions have not changed as far as I can see, for one, and this is an international forum not even US based. So why, even if the connotation (and I would certainly debate that it's the "primary" connotation that changes) in the US, would we have to abide by it ?
Alright. Here's an explicitly UK dictionary definition of "stereotype," listing all senses provided for the noun form of the word.
- a method of producing cast-metal printing plates from a mould made from a forme of type matter in papier-mâché or some other material
- the plate so made
- another word for stereotypy
- an idea, trait, convention, etc, that has grown stale through fixed usage
- sociol a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows others to categorize them and treat them accordingly
1a and 1b refer to printmaking, which is clearly irrelevant in this context. 2 is, as best I can tell, a reference to animal behavior (repeating the same actions over and over with no clear reason why), which is clearly also irrelevant. 3 relates to literature, convention, or style, not beliefs about groups of people. 4, on the other hand, is explicitly about groups of people...and is exactly the definition I quoted above.
If you're going to use the forum's point of origin as an argument, it would be rather more helpful if the dictionaries of that land actually agreed with you. (This is from the Collins English Dictionary, to be specific.) For the record, the definitions from both Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries also explicitly call out that "stereotype" is especially used when the presumed group characteristic is "wrong" or "harmful," and the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy does similarly: "A too-simple and therefore distorted image of a group, such as “Football players are stupid” or “The English are cold and unfriendly people.”" and "A generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group."
This is not something special to the United States. This is not something special to
English. In German, the primary meaning of the noun "Stereotyp" (
according to Duden, as far as I can tell the most prestigious actively-published dictionary in Germany) is "
vereinfachendes, verallgemeinerndes, stereotypes Urteil, [ungerechtfertigtes] Vorurteil über sich oder andere oder eine Sache; festes, klischeehaftes Bild," or when translated into English, "oversimplifying, generalizing, stereotypical judgment, [unjustified] prejudice about oneself or others or a thing; fixed, cliche image."
Furthermore, at least according to
the actual dictionary of the Académie française,
"stéréotype" doesn't even refer to
people at all; it refers to ideas, fashions, or behaviors that have become staid or lost their meaning--and the same goes for more recently-updated ones (since the aforementioned dictionary's 9th edition only reaches "s
avoir" and therefore the above definition is from 1935) such as
Trésor de la langue française informatisé, which (again, ignoring the irrelevant A and C definitions, which relate to book-printing and to construction respectively) gives as definitions:
B. 1. PSYCHOL., SOCIOL. dée, opinion toute faite, acceptée sans réflexion et répétée sans avoir été soumise à un examen critique, par une personne ou un groupe, et qui détermine, à un degré plus ou moins élevé, ses manières de penser, de sentir et d'agir. Synon. cliché.
2. PSYCH. Geste, mouvement, paroles répétés de façon mécanique, sans participation de la volonté, et inadaptés à la situation.
3. LING., STYL. Association stable d'éléments, groupe de mots formant une unité devenue indécomposable, réemployée après avoir perdu toute expressivité et avec une fréquence anormale.
So...yeah. In French, "stereotype" doesn't even mean the meaning you're using it for. And in English (whether UK or US) and German, it means exactly what people are telling you it means. Maybe, instead of dying on this hill, just use the less-loaded term?
