Feminism and Political Correctness

[Diageo]

 

Hey, I'm not saying don't use it, hell people in my close friendship group often call each other by words that are traditionally used as derogatory signifiers of race, but we do it in a jokey knowledge of the fact that we're doing it to subvert the traditional meanings of these words and turn them into terms of endearment. We're also doing it in the knowledge of the fact that not only is our usage unorthodox and meaningless within wider society, but that there is a large contingent of people would would be greviously offended if we said the same things to them.

 

This was the basic argument from the start and you are agreeing.

 

The thing started when Jonnas said that the word nigger by itself can be said depending on who you are talking to, and then Chair said he was wrong. That's how this started and what I was talking about. So clearly here we are in agreement. As for the rest, I have no need to get into.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

So it's OK to glorify slavery in the company of your friends?

 

Did you read what he wrote? Nobody is glorifying slavery. It's humour. I.e., not actual opinion.

 

Yeah, it might be a joke, but how funny is it? How funny is it to trivialise stuff that's associated with awful things?

 

Obviously it can be quite funny, otherwise people wouldn't make jokes about it. A large part of humour is making lighthearted fun of heavy topics in order to more easily deal with them.

 

 

Hey, I'm not saying don't use it, hell people in my close friendship group often call each other by words that are traditionally used as derogatory signifiers of race, but we do it in a jokey knowledge of the fact that we're doing it to subvert the traditional meanings of these words and turn them into terms of endearment. We're also doing it in the knowledge of the fact that not only is our usage unorthodox and meaningless within wider society, but that there is a large contingent of people would would be greviously offended if we said the same things to them.

 

Wait ... are The Bard and Diageo actually ... agreeing for once?

 

*awaits the apocalypse*

[heroicjanitor]

Exactly, half of people see value in making words acceptable so that they are no longer offensive, and the other half want words to never be used ever again. The first one is the most likely to happen imo, if you stop being offended at the words you remove their power over you.

[Supergrunch]

With language, you cannot ever ignore the history of a word, even if this history seems to you to be obscure.

I hope you're making sure that you only use nice when you mean (or wish to imply) "not cut" then. Seriously though, you can ignore almost all the history of words, and when you can't, it's because that history is actually part of the current meaning of the word. So your argument of course stands, but if you use a word like nigger without knowing its connotations, then it's as much that you're ignorant of usage (and thus meaning) as it is that you're ignorant of history. Calling someone a nigger then claiming you weren't aware of its pejorative connotations is really no different to calling someone a cunt, then saying you thought that it meant "happy rabbity person" - assuming you genuinely are mistaken, in both cases you just don't know what the word means.

 

(as an aside - you're not using ad hominems unless your argument is of the form "you are [insert insult] and thus you are wrong," which isn't what you're doing)

 

So out of interest, what's stopping everybody doing that and removing the negative conotations inherent to certain words and making them acceptable whilst we find new ways to express their old meanings?

Because you can't just sit back and decide how word-usage is going to change, as it requires the whole community to follow you. So unless you impose totalitarian restrictions on the use of language, which is arguably impossible, the only way meanings are going to change is if they do so naturally. However, one fairly common semantic change involves originally pejorative terms being reinterpreted as badges of honour, as with e.g. nigga and geek.

[Diageo]

Seriously The Bard, learn to argue without insults. You're bringing the whole tone of discussion down. I'm hardly insulted by the word "pillock" though so if you're really going to go for it you might want to try harder. You don't need to resort to name calling to get your point across, calm yourself down. And the "childish" comment was used ironically.

[Coolness Bears]

[The Bard]

So out of interest, what's stopping everybody doing that and removing the negative conotations inherent to certain words and making them acceptable whilst we find new ways to express their old meanings?

 

Because its not something that conforms to the whims of a few people with good intentions.

 

 

Supergrunch: That is a history of which I am ignorant, but nevertheless the connotation is still there, and therefore could be used in an artful way, although probably not in conversation. I never claimed to be omniscient in this regard, just to be (a little) conscientious in choosing my words. Sometimes.

 

Secondly, I don't think he was using Ad hominem in the strictest way; I just decided it was easier to take him on his own terms.

 

Danny: no, I'm not agreeing with Diageo. I'm saying that there is a small overlap somewhere in our arguments.

 

Seriously The Bard, learn to argue without insults. You're bringing the whole tone of discussion down. I'm hardly insulted by the word "pillock" though so if you're really going to go for it you might want to try harder. You don't need to resort to name calling to get your point across, calm yourself down. And the "childish" comment was used ironically.

 

Your concept of irony is lacking. I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just saying what I think; take it how you want, after all, isn't that the point of your argument?

[Diageo]

Haha. Your spite is funny. So fervent that even when everyone sees we clearly agree on a point, you deny it. Anyway, I'd just thought I'd warn you.

[heroicjanitor]

When Ashley made this thread about feminism and political correctness, I wonder if he anticipated how many times the word nigger would be said in it.

[Diageo]

When Ashley made this thread about feminism and political correctness, I wonder if he anticipated how many times the word nigger would be said in it.

 

Will you get off this and go back to work you lazy porch monkey.

[heroicjanitor]

Will you get off this and go back to work you lazy porch monkey.

 

Slavedriver. I am working I am just breaking when I am running things. I happen to run things when I want to talk today

[Supergrunch]

Supergrunch: That is a history of which I am ignorant, but nevertheless the connotation is still there, and therefore could be used in an artful way, although probably not in conversation. I never claimed to be omniscient in this regard, just to be (a little) conscientious in choosing my words. Sometimes.

 

Secondly, I don't think he was using Ad hominem in the strictest way; I just decided it was easier to take him on his own terms.

I agree with you on the second point, as I was only joking really. But in the first case, there are many etymologies (in fact, the vast majority) which simply aren't part of the current language, with practically no speakers, or in the cases of unknown etymologies, no speakers at all, knowing them. For instance, the one I gave goes back further than Latin. Of course you can make clever references to etymologies, but that is crucially not using the word the normal way, and so you're giving the word a different meaning. I'm aware it's fashionable in Postmodern literary approaches to investigate the use of words in a work by morphologically decomposing them in unexpected ways, or going into their etymologies, but if these are things that both the writer and reader are ignorant of, then it's a futile enterprise. It's a fallacy to suppose that etymologies influence lexical meaning other than in the cases where speakers are aware of these etymologies, because that requires the incorrect supposition that language exists independently of speakers. And in almost all cases, history is totally irrelevant to the way words are currently used.

 

Of course, as I said above, in those cases where it is relevant, it's best to think of it as part of the word's current umbrella of meaning, and so it's not really an etymology or history.

[Captain Falcon]

Because you can't just sit back and decide how word-usage is going to change, as it requires the whole community to follow you. So unless you impose totalitarian restrictions on the use of language, which is arguably impossible, the only way meanings are going to change is if they do so naturally. However, one fairly common semantic change involves originally pejorative terms being reinterpreted as badges of honour, as with e.g. nigga and geek.

 

 

Because its not something that conforms to the whims of a few people with good intentions.

 

 

 

I'm not saying it's something that happens over night or can be fixed by simply changing it's meaning in a dictionary, but much like positive words can become negative over time, why doesn't the process work in reverse.

 

Did the word "Nigger" exist before it became linked with slavery - was it originally a white person word or was it a black person word. If it existed prior to its negative use in a good way, given time, could it not be reverted back to its original status instead of us simply having to ban its use from existance and forever having it mean what it means.

 

I know people who use the word and I've been called it myself. I'm sure I know other people who use it too but they probably wouldn't say it to me because they think I would think them racist because of "society's" persecption - but i'm not society, I'm a person and a fairly reasonable one at that. So I wouldn't take offense but they wouldn't dare risk it.

 

Consequently, we have multiple groups of people who all use the word in a positive way behind closed doors but none of them know other people do it also. And the words keep their meanings.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Captain Falcon

[Diageo]

I agree with you on the second point, as I was only joking really. But in the first case, there are many etymologies (in fact, the vast majority) which simply aren't part of the current language, with practically no speakers, or in the cases of unknown etymologies, no speakers at all, knowing them. For instance, the one I gave goes back further than Latin. Of course you can make clever references to etymologies, but that is crucially not using the word the normal way, and so you're giving the word a different meaning. I'm aware it's fashionable in Postmodern literary approaches to investigate the use of words in a work by morphologically decomposing them in unexpected ways, or going into their etymologies, but if these are things that both the writer and reader are ignorant of, then it's a futile enterprise. It's a fallacy to suppose that etymologies influence lexical meaning other than in the cases where speakers are aware of these etymologies, because that requires the incorrect supposition that language exists independently of speakers. And in almost all cases, history is totally irrelevant to the way words are currently used.

 

Of course, as I said above, in those cases where it is relevant, it's best to think of it as part of the word's current umbrella of meaning, and so it's not really an etymology or history.

 

That's what I was trying to say in the end. Thanks Grunchy.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Did the word "Nigger" exist before it became linked with slavery - was it originally a white person word or was it a black person word. If it existed prior to it's negative use in a good way, given time, could it not be reverted back to its original status instead of us simply having to ban it's use from existance and forever having it mean what it means.

 

"Nigger" comes from the Latin "niger", which simply means the colour black.

[Captain Falcon]

"Nigger" comes from the Latin "niger", which simply means the colour black.

 

But was it merely a way of differentiating people or was it always used in derogative fashion in relation to salvery?

[The Bard]

Of course, you're speaking from a linguists perspective of history as etymology, what I was refering to was the broader and more vague metaphysical sense of Bakhtin who refers to the history of a word as the semantic morphology that informs its present usage. He argues that that is where connotations come from. My basic point is just that being aware of a words connotations is like being aware of its history in a sense, even though you may not have specific knowledge of events etc, you at least a knowledge of the attitudes that govern its usage.

[Supergrunch]

I'm not saying it's something that happens over night or can be fixed by simply changing it's meaning in a dictionary, but much like positive words can become negative over time, why doesn't the process work in reverse.

 

Did the word "Nigger" exist before it became linked with slavery - was it originally a white person word or was it a black person word. If it existed prior to its negative use in a good way, given time, could it not be reverted back to its original status instead of us simply having to ban its use from existance and forever having it mean what it means.

 

I know people who use the word and I've been called it myself. I'm sure I know other people who use it too but they probably wouldn't say it to me because they think I would think them racist because of "society's" persecption - but i'm not society, I'm a person and a fairly reasonable one at that. So I wouldn't take offense but they wouldn't dare risk it.

 

Consequently, we have multiple groups of people who all use the word in a positive way behind closed doors but none of them know other people do it also. And the words keep their meanings.

Of course, it would (and probably will) change in meaning. But lexical semantic change is notoriously impossible to predict, so it's unclear exactly what'll happen in the future. But changes from positive to negative and from negative to positive are both possible.

 

(I think nigger was originally coined by white people just as a descriptive, if slangy, term, which then of course got bundled up with slavery and racism)

[The Peeps]

So really it just means black? Everyone has just been calling them black people all this time? They need to learn to stop being so sensitive

 

In seriousness, I agree with Supergrunch. If we could treat skin colour as we do eye colour then it wouldn't be an issue at all. No one even thinks to presume something about someone simply due to the colour of their eyes.

[Supergrunch]

Of course, you're speaking from a linguists perspective of history as etymology, what I was refering to was the broader and more vague metaphysical sense of Bakhtin who refers to the history of a word as the semantic morphology that informs its present usage. He argues that that is where connotations come from. My basic point is just that being aware of a words connotations is like being aware of its history in a sense, even though you may not have specific knowledge of events etc, you at least a knowledge of the attitudes that govern its usage.

Yep, fair enough, that's different to etymology. But I'd argue that connotations are all just part of the meaning of a word, so if you don't know them in a particular context, you just don't know what the word means in that context. As you can tell, linguists know hardly anything about lexical semantics.

[Diageo]

Black is more of a racial term than describing someone's skin colour. There are tied features like nose, hair type, eye colour, etc.

 

If you ever saw an albino person that was meant to be black, you would be able to tell.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Black is more of a racial term than describing someone's skin colour. There are tied features like nose, hair type, eye colour, etc.

 

If you ever saw an albino person that was meant to be black, you would be able to tell.

 

[Diageo]

 

How ?

[Supergrunch]

Well, race is a cluster of related features which were originally adaptations to specific environments, such as brown eyes and black skin (etc.) in people originating from Africa, as an adaptation to e.g. heat and strong light conditions, and fair skin and blue eyes (etc.) in people originating from Northern Europe, as an adaptation to e.g. cold and lower light conditions. There is a problem with calling the first of these clusters "black" as that's only one of several features, so black means both "black skin" and "black race." The second problem is that these features get harder and harder to associate uniquely with specific "races" the harder you look, as some but not all are shared by populations in all sorts of different areas, and race is pretty much impossible to define genetically, with there being far more genetic variation within races than between races. So race is ultimately a cultural concept, whereas skin colour is just a fairly arbitrary biological variation. It seems problematic to me that the same term should be used to refer to both these things.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

How ?

 

Because you've just argued so hard that words only have the meaning we put into them, and then you go on to define the connotations of a word in such an absolute manner.