Words Hurt: The PC Police vs. Your Vocabulary
Watch out before you refer to a thief being caught "red-handed," condemn a "blacklist," or, heaven forbid, refer to someone who is cheap as being "niggardly." Brad Rourke just doesn't comprehend the rationale behind many of the "no-no words" recently circulated by the Army. It's all Greek to him.... Oops! Better apologize to Greek-Americans.
There’s a big fuss at the moment over a list of “no-no words” circulated by an office of the Army. Compiled by someone with expertise in equal opportunity matters, the list purports to be 76 examples of words that simply should not be used in the workplace, as they are hurtful. The email, in fact, has an accompanying PowerPoint titled “WORDS HURT!”
While the majority of the words are ones that would – and should – get your children’s mouths washed out with soap, some are puzzling.
“Colonial,” for instance, is on the list. Ditto “Canuck.” Many are chortling at the evident politically-correct overreach. The list evidently discourages workplace talk about Vancouver’s professional hockey team. Others are predictably angry.
Me, I am sad.
There are a number of words and phrases on the list that aren’t there because of a judgment call about what might offend (for instance, I can see why “girl” could be on the list, even if I do not agree). But other terms?
“Red-handed,” for example, is on the list. But, this term does not refer to Native Americans but instead dates to the 15th century. Its first recorded usage of “red-handed” is in Scott’s Ivanhoe. The “red” refers to blood, not skin color.
“Blacklisted,” ironically, is also on the blacklist. Again, to those at home keeping score, this word has nothing to do with race. Ask the blacklisted “Hollywood Ten,” who would probably tell you that, while the idea of a blacklist may be offensive, the restriction against mentioning it is even more so.
But, my favorite one is this: “Sounds greek to me (sic).” Anyone who, like me, spent time in school trying to learn classical Greek will attest that the first hurdle one encounters is learning all those funny letters. Anyone not familiar with the Greek alphabet, when presented with Greek words will . . . well, they will find it all Greek to them. UPDATE: It was just pointed out to me that ‘Greek to me’ is from Shakespeare (Julius Caesar). My mistake.
In the late 1990’s, an aide to DC’s then-mayor, Anthony Williams, was forced to tender his resignation for using the word “niggardly” (a word with a Norwegian pedigree dating to the 14th century that means “miserly”) in a staff budget meeting. Some of those present felt uncomfortable by his word choice. He was hired back quickly, but the event left a sting and was an op-ed cause c√©l√®bre for some weeks.
The obvious thread running between the Army’s PowerPoint and DC’s budget meeting would appear to be ignorance.
If true, that’s certainly reason to be sad. But, the person who compiled the Army list works in a professional capacity, in an office. He or she is, to use a term of currency, a “knowledge worker.” He or she is educated. The list surely has been vetted by more than one person. And, the staffer in question in DC in the 1990’s was similarly professional – and the aide immediately clarified and defined the word he used. Even after, with the full definition of the word made plain, many columnists and commentators still held that using the word was inappropriate – because, rightly or wrongly, it was offensive.
The former president of the National Bar Association asked at the time, “Do we really know where the Norwegians got the word?” New America Foundation fellow Debra Dickerson wrote that “on the streets and in the living rooms of Washington, [the issue has] been taken quite seriously. It matters here that anyone . . . involved in D.C. politics and putatively well-intentioned toward blacks . . . would use an obscure word that incorporates the hated slur, rather than one of its many synonyms.”
I have to believe that there is a similar logic at work with the Army PowerPoint. Why offend, when just by ignoring a small list of words you can avoid it?
Here’s what is sad about this. The very fact of the no-no list highlights how little distance we have come since the 1990’s DC budget meeting, just as that event showed how little progress we had made since the decade before. Allow the idea of “race” to enter the room, and dialogue is shut down by immediate suspicion. In this environment, there is no such thing as an innocent remark, nor is there such thing as a valid grievance. Just recriminations, one to the other.
This nation is long past overdue for some straight talk about race relations, citizen to citizen. Yes there are past hurts to be righted. Yes there is institutional racism to be attacked. Yes, some people are oversensitive. But whenever the subject comes up, battle lines are drawn and no headway can be made.
It would be nice if I could say “It’s all Greek to me” or catch a crook “red-handed” without being told that I might be offending someone.
Sometimes I think it is those who are taking the most care who are, paradoxically, holding us back the most from making progress on this issue.
Brad Rourke writes a column on public life called Public Comments, produces a videolog called Taxonomies, is a founder of the Maryland neighborhood blog, Rockville Central, and is in a band called The West End.
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29 Comments
1. Cassandra:This item has “Postmodern” written all over it. Apart from it being designed along the discriminatory Positive Action lines – the redistribution of rights and power – the key words are “words hurt”. Don’t we know that in Pomo sound-waves are literally weapons, beating against the eardrums of opponents, just as pens are javelins, writing polemics against victims? The depth and length by which figures of speech are taken to ludicrous – literal – heights, is breathtaking! LOL if the imprecise use of terms and definitions wasn’t at the root of today’s madness that passes for a ‘debate’!
Dec 6, 2007 - 3:56 am 2. Sassenach:It’s hard to make progress when facts (such as the origin of words and phrases) are not permitted to matter, only feelings. What is permissible one day is a thought-crime the next.
Dec 6, 2007 - 4:16 am 3. Hugh:Gosh it makes me so angry, these politically correct police. They’re fascists, man. They want to control our minds. But I’m an independent thinking American, no one can tell me what to say. That’s right. I’m so durned free and independent, and I know I am because I listen to Michael Savage and watch Fox News, and them folks says it like it is. They don’t tell me to speak politically-correct. Nosirree. They just remind me that the liberals want to enslave me, and so even though I work a 65 hour a week job in a factory in Kentucky and can’t afford health insurance, at least I can hold my head up ‘n say, “I’m an American, by gum, and if’n I want to say ‘niggardly’ I can! So I’m gonna vote Republican. Sure, I won’t have any worker’s rights, I’ll have no medical insurance ‘n probably die young cuz now I can’t declare bankruptcy anymore. But I can say ‘niggardly’ and there ain’t a damn thing those liberal communists can do about it. Yee-haw! I’m free! Look’t me, pa, I’m free! Niggardly niggardly niggardly!” (Cough! Cough! Cough!) Damn, I’d keep saying it but I have this pneumonia thing, and I can’t afford the medicine…Oops, boss is screaming at me to get back to work or he’ll replace me with a temp. Liberal elitists remember my message and the message of the American people: you can stop me from saying ‘niggardly’ when you pull those words from my pneumatic water-filled desperately-in-need-of-medical-attention-but-can’t-afford-it-because-I-vote-Republican lungs, y’hear?”
Dec 6, 2007 - 4:31 am 4. Anthony:This nation is ripe for more than straight talk about race relations: it is ripe for straight talk. But we’ll have to do more than blame others, complain or get angry. The infection of political correctness has proven too tempting to restrict its censoring power to race alone. Anything may be offensive now, because the word “offensive” is an all-purpose shield against all and any critical language.
We’ll have to learn to refuse the commissars. What are we but servants if we let others tell us how to speak?
I suggest we learn to speak well, dangerously well, and say just what we mean–politely but precisely. Make it a form of civil disobedience. And as in all civil disobedience, do not back down.
Dec 6, 2007 - 6:21 am 5. syn:I used to be in NYC theater an environment where the actors, directors, writers are so PC police that the only thing they would reach deep inside their souls to express was their hatred for the Jesuslanders.
I think Dennis Millers says it best “I never thought Big Brother would appear in the form of a Liberal.”
Dec 6, 2007 - 6:39 am 6. Swede:Hugh works for CNN in the Republican Caricature For Debates department.
Dec 6, 2007 - 6:51 am 7. Andrew:So now Shakespeare references are banned?
“It’s Greek to me” comes from a scene in Julius Caeser, when a minor character reports on overhearing a Greek orator speak. “It was Greek to me,” he says.
Would that all reports could be so succinct.
Dec 6, 2007 - 7:02 am 8. Pat:If “words hurt”, then let’s see some statistics on the number of word-inflicted injuries that are treated by U.S. emergency rooms each year.
Zero, you say? Hmm. Back to the drawing board, then.
Dec 6, 2007 - 7:10 am 9. Bugs:Unlike Hugh, I’d rather have free speech than free health care. If that means voting Republican, fine with me.
Dec 6, 2007 - 7:25 am 10. southdakotaboy:Yes, Hugh we know the Conservatives are to blame foe everything. If we would just listen and do what you lefties tell us then we could all live as good a lives as they do in that garden spot of lefty thought, North Korea. Because as you know everything is perfect in North Korea and if you think otherwise well they have a place to fix that little problem.
Dec 6, 2007 - 7:27 am 11. Wolf Pangloss:Pity poor moby Hugh.
Dec 6, 2007 - 8:15 am 12. BMoon:RE: Hugh’s comment….
Is the word, “infantile” on the list? I wouldn’t want to harm any precious toddler’s feelings by comparing his comment to them.
Dec 6, 2007 - 8:23 am 13. Brad Rourke:Hey, everyone, thanks for a robust comment thread.
Andrew: Thanks for the catch on “Greek to me.” Duh. And, I agree: Would that all reports were so succinct.
Hugh: I think you may be seeing this piece as more “dogmatic” than it is meant to be. I am advocating that we address the ways we offend each other, rather than pretend they do not exist.
(Which leads me to…) Anthony: I like your call for polite precision as a form of civil disobedience. Both of those things are in short supply these days.
Thanks again, all.
–Brad
Dec 6, 2007 - 9:03 am 14. Amphipolis:I wish the effort was invested in improving vocabulary instead of destroying it.
The words thug, assassin, and vandal are all derived directly from the names of ethnic groups. Sinister and awkward refer to left-handedness.
The word candidate literally means clothed in white. That obviously must go.
If these people had some real knowledge they would be dangerous. As it is, all they do is pander to their favorite victims.
Dec 6, 2007 - 9:05 am 15. Susan Katz Keating:My own take: this list is a lazy make-work or contractor boondoggle. Read all about it here! http://susankatzkeating.blogspot.com/2007/12/forbidden-word-list-boondoggle.html
Dec 6, 2007 - 9:07 am 16. mishu:This post reminds me of the line from the 40-year-old Virgin:
Smart Tech Customer: Well aight check this out dawg, first of all, you throwin’ too many big words at me, and because I don’t understand ‘em I’m gonna take ‘em as disrespect. Watch ya mouth and help me with the sale.
Dec 6, 2007 - 9:30 am 17. Chad Wooters:Whatever happened to “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
Dec 6, 2007 - 10:20 am 18. Amphipolis:One constant in arguing with the left is their atrocious language which they use in constant personal attacks on those who disagree with them.
They are so seeped in the use of hurtful language that they see personal attacks in every statement made by others. They expect and can only understand ad hominem arguments. It gets to the point where rational, unemotional discussion becomes impossible, which I suppose is the objective.
They do not use language to persuade. They only use it to project power.
Dec 6, 2007 - 10:23 am 19. Bugs:Unless the Army’s standards have gone way down lately, I don’t think they would produce official training materials with that many typos. Maybe the sender was typing from memory, or maybe this is a hoax. Let’s not get Rather’ed. How about some further digging?
Dec 6, 2007 - 2:19 pm 20. gringo:The best words to describe all this is are: “Taboo” and “blasphemy”.
Dec 6, 2007 - 2:41 pm 21. Kurt:Regarding “niggardly,” the complaints about that word only demonstrate what I sometimes like to call the new illiteracy. I work at a university, and one time I was at a faculty senate meeting when someone used the word properly. One of the faculty members sitting nearby me almost went ballistic, and I thought, how sad, this is a university and many members of the faculty don’t have a clue what the word means or what its origins are.
Dec 6, 2007 - 8:06 pm 22. Mike:I heard someone get upset and claim that the word Oriental was racist when referring to one’s origins – as from the Orient. When do words become offensive? When one person finds it so, even if it’s because of over sensitivity to a word they really don’t understand? Why should we allow a term that has no ill intent become so offensive? Just wondering.
Dec 7, 2007 - 7:46 am 23. Full Metal Cynic:I’ve been hearing about this list of verboten words on talk radio for a couple of weeks now. In fact, there are a lot of such lists, some by corporations and even churches. I just hope to God I’m not going to have to eventually do that Fahrenheit 451 thing–start memorizing books (especially my Oxford English Dictionary).
Dec 7, 2007 - 7:59 am 24. Amphipolis:I object to being called caucasian. I am not from the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian seas.
Dec 7, 2007 - 8:51 am 25. Xanthippe:This list is unbelievable. I had no idea some of these words hurt.
“Lackey”?
Dec 7, 2007 - 10:33 am 26. Older and Wiser:Another example of the infantilization of adulthood that has occurred during the reign of the “Big-Baby” Boomers. People hear a word, and instead of maturely finding out whether the word was intended to be offensive, they jump immediately into tantrum mode.
No wonder they want a nanny state. They’ve become so immature, they are in need of an ever-present baby-sitter to protect them from themselves.
Dec 7, 2007 - 12:30 pm 27. Kevin:I’m still angry that we can’t go out and have a ‘gay old time’ without someone giggling.
Dec 8, 2007 - 5:18 am 28. John Foland:Shame on the army and any entity that bans particular words simply because they may be unfamiliar and therefore “ungood” to a dumbed-down ignorant mob. This is painful.
Dec 8, 2007 - 8:34 am 29. offendedblogger:Well, shouldn’t Whitewash, Brown-nosing and Yellow-belly be on the list??
Dec 8, 2007 - 9:51 pm