The R-Word

[Mlle. Zabzie]

There have always been words that are not socially acceptable. Those words change over time. I feel no need to prove that I'm an independent thinker by using language that I know is offensive. The English language is rich enough, and my vocabulary is big enough, that I can get my thoughts across without recourse to the lowest common denominator. In addition, if I want to cause offense, strangely enough, I can find a way to do that as well, all without using vulgarities (speaking of a word that has changed meaning over time, btw).

And Mya, I totally resemble that description :)

[Mya Stone]

There have always been words that are not socially acceptable. Those words change over time. I feel no need to prove that I'm an independent thinker by using language that I know is offensive. The English language is rich enough, and my vocabulary is big enough, that I can get my thoughts across without recourse to the lowest common denominator. In addition, if I want to cause offense, strangely enough, I can find a way to do that as well, all without using vulgarities (speaking of a word that has changed meaning over time, btw).

And Mya, I totally resemble that description :)

Zabz, no worries. I would refer to you as a gorgeous lawyer. :P

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Mya,

I'm not "gorgous"?

:(

[scotcat]

There have always been words that are not socially acceptable. Those words change over time.

Exactly. Just as certain behaviours or attitudes were acceptable in the past and now aren't, the same is also true of language.

Don't get me wrong, there are some days where I wonder if the whole thing has gone a bit overboard - for example, the fact kids can't sing either 'baa baa black sheep or baa baa white sheep' they now have to do 'wooly sheep' is a bit much - but there are definitely more times than not where I think we're on the right track.

[Weeping Sore]

Words don't mean what one thinks they mean, they mean what everyone else thinks they mean.

So you can dredge up your proscriptive meanings and etymologies and try to prove that a word means something other than what is commonly thought, but if you're trying to actually communicate, what other people think is the only relevant factor.

I remember having to convince my father to stop using the word "niggardly", even though it is completely legitimate and etymologically unrelated to the n-word. Still, people are going to look at you funny when you say it. Why bother? With over 250,000 English words to choose from, you've got options.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Don't get me wrong, there are some days where I wonder if the whole thing has gone a bit overboard - for example, the fact kids can't sing either 'baa baa black sheep or baa baa white sheep' they now have to do 'wooly sheep' is a bit much - but there are definitely more times than not where I think we're on the right track.

I have never heard of this.

[Järv]

In Germany, we are now "encouraged" not to say "Behinderter" anymore, but to use "Mensch mit Behinderung" instead. (Can be roughly translated as "the disabled" vs "person with a disability".)

That is completely pointless in my opinion. The real problem is the status this group of people has in our society. Which is very low, because these people are perceived as being not very useful for society.

Tinkering with the language will not change that.

I expect that kids will soon start to use "person WITH" as an insult.

[scotcat]

I have never heard of this.

Neither had I until my eldest nephew started going to nursery 10 years ago. I was singing 'baa baa black sheep' to him on the way in and the woman running the nursery said 'we don't sing that here. It's offensive to the non-white children that go here.'

Since then, certainly where I live, it's not sung at all. Maybe it's a British thing.

[Altherion]

I don't use it (or at least I don't remember using it), probably because it is ambiguous -- the original meaning implies delay. For example, in electrodynamics, there is the term "retarded potential". There are plenty of words without this sort of ambiguity (e.g. stupid, moronic, idiotic, etc.).

That said, working to banish a word like this is a waste of time. As the NYT article above says, it was originally introduced because it was less offensive than the other designations of that time for people with limited cognitive abilities. I am almost certain that whatever else we choose to call them will eventually become an insult.

[Fragile Bird]

I'm not sure if I've ever used "retard" as an insult. It's just so... 1991. And really since elementary school my vocabulary of colourful metaphors has become much richer and descriptive.

Like x 100

[MinDonner]

Good lord, the Baa Baa Black Sheep controversy again? This isn't "banned in the UK", just by the occasional nursery or school; there's Daily Mail headlines treating this like the End of Civilisation surfacing about every 3 years, by a cursory Google search. I imagine it's now turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy; every time they go "OMG POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!!" someone somewhere will start thinking "oh hey, if other people believe that song is racist, maybe they're right", overreact, rinse, repeat. Doomed, I tell you. Doomed.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Baa Baa Black Sheep was a nursery rhyme, I don't know if it's popular elsewhere but here in England it was quite popular.

It used to go something like this:

Baa Baa Black Sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, no sir, three bags full.

One for the master and one for the dame,

and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

Basically, because of political correctness apparently we aren't allowed to sing that any more. I'm not entirely sure why, but it's a pretty recent thing. - I had it sung to me all the time in the mid tolate 90s...

Yup, am quite familiar with the rhyme and the tune. I'd just never heard any objection to it. I may since my kids are in pre-school, but haven't run into it yet.

[~ZombieWife~]

Whoah on the baa baa black sheep deal. That one is beyond me.

I haven't heard it (having a child in 1st grade), but maybe it's just a matter of time.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

ZW,

It can be worse:

http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2008/07/dallas-county-meeting-turns-ra.html/

From the article:

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. A black hole, according to Webster’s, is perhaps “the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape."

Talk about an overreaction.

[Frisco]

There have always been words that are not socially acceptable. Those words change over time. I feel no need to prove that I'm an independent thinker by using language that I know is offensive. The English language is rich enough, and my vocabulary is big enough, that I can get my thoughts across without recourse to the lowest common denominator. In addition, if I want to cause offense, strangely enough, I can find a way to do that as well, all without using vulgarities (speaking of a word that has changed meaning over time, btw).

For this reason, I try to talk only as much as absolutely necessary. Much of what would otherwise be offensive ends up being muttered under my breath. I still somehow manage to piss people off on occasion.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Leap,

Really? How could that not be considered an overreaction? He made a metaphore that had nothing to do with race based on a common scientific term for a star that has become so dense and its gravity so intense that not even light can escape its gravity well. Saying an office had become a "black-hole" for lost paperwork.

[Sci-2]

That does seem like an overreaction... but then again, you and me are both white, right?

I wouldn't have been offended if the guy had used "brown hole"....in fact that might have been a more apt description of a non-functioning part of government. ;-)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Leap,

You should join the Knights who say "Ni" and work to ban the word "it".

;)

[Järv]

So many evil r-words in the English language...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24027457

[polishgenius]

The baa-baa-black-sheep "controversy" is an absolute nonsense that, as far as I know, never happened. The whole thing came from a Daily Mail (or possibly Telegraph) outrage about how one nursery was having the kids sing 'ba-ba-rainbow-sheep'. And it's true, they were doing that - but not to avoid offending anyone, it was the end of a chain of verses in which they sang about the black sheep, the white sheep, the green sheep, the blue sheep...