I'm not sure what I'm trying to say in this post but I'll try to say it as best I can.
According to William Shakespeare, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
But are changes in what we call things meant to clarify or to obfuscate? To provoke or to mollify? To inflame passions or to soothe them?
Many of you are thinking, "What is he talking about?"
It occurred to me that some name changes get closer to the truth and some get farther away.
As children, many of us were taught this little jingle: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
It isn't true; words can hurt deeply. Negative epithets are tossed about with impunity.
Somebody ought to do something.
Truth be told, somebody usually does. Words that are in fashion and acceptable become out of fashion and unacceptable.
Take the words moron, imbecile, and idiot, for example. Back in the dawn of modern psychology, the words had precise meanings. A person of what was deemed average intelligence was said to have an IQ (intelligence quotient) of 100. If a person's IQ fell below 75, he or she was termed a moron. Imbecile meant an IQ below 50; idiot meant an IQ below 25.
The words became pejoratives, however, turning into insults to throw around in anger. I knew one woman who referred to he husband constantly to others as a moron. He wasn't; he held patents. She was venting her anger with an insulting negative epithet. She may have thought her displeasure was justified but she just came across as mean.
Gradually those three terms became unacceptable and the phrase "mentally retarded" entered the lexicon. After a few years, "retarded" also fell out of favor and people said "the R word" intead.
Another phrase was needed so the mentally retarded became the mentally challenged. The social narrative coninued to evolve. More recent phrases include "people with learning disabilities" and "people with special needs" and "the differently abled" in what I'm sure are sincere efforts to remove stigmas, lessen antagonism, learn to accept all manner of people.
It is a noble effort, I suppose, or it could be the self-appointed Languge Police doing their thing in controlling how the rest of us think and act. I wonder where it will end, or if it will ever end, this apparent need not to offend, to be kind but also accurate while avoiding cruelty in our dealings with our fellow human beings.
I probably should go back and rework this post but I'm going to put it out there as it is and see what sort of comments it might inspires.
Gertrude Stein wrote a lot about language and use of words. She wrote a rose is a rose is a rose in a poem which I think meant a word is what it is but all the images you have are yours to bring to it for yourself and you will see what you want to see and any word will invoke meanings for one person that another person may not see. I read a lot of her poetry and this starts to make sense when you see her use of language. As for what you are saying, my only reaction is that language is always evolving and very quickly these days and what was once thought acceptable in description is now no longer acceptable in these very sensitive times that we live and unintentional mistakes can easily be made. Rachel
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your contribution to the discussion. Thank you. Rachel!
ReplyDeleteWhen my son was in an after school program, one of his caregivers got angry at him for using the word butt when he was describing that he'd injured his tailbone in a fall from the equipment on the playground. Then she got angry with me for not being upset with him for using the word. And she got offended with me when I asked her what word she would prefer he use to describe that part of his body. Words do have meaning. And useful words can be abused and turned into slurs. But taking away the useful word doesn't resolve the real problem. The real problem is the abuse. Someone calls their husband an idiot because she is unhappy with him. A perfect person would say, I'm angry because he's made a bad decision, or because he didn't listen to her or whatever the reason. But an angry person is rarely perfect.
ReplyDeleteI found your comment in my email's spam folder. I don't know why it was put there; it's a perfectly fine comment. I don't think you have commented here before (if you have, I have forgotten) so welcome to our rhymeswithplague family (it's small but special) and thank you for your good comment, Lisa!
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