Number 15
This month's Atlantic Monthly (March 2003) carries "The Language Police" by Diane Ravitch, "an abridgement of a lengthy glossary compiled by a historian from bias guidelines issued by major educational publishers and state agencies. . .used by writers, editors, and illustrators when preparing textbooks and tests for K-12 students." Ravitch's book of the same name will appear in April, from Knopf.
In the "Annoyanceful" issue, I mentioned the displacement of Oriental by Asian. Ravitch's list shows that East and Eastern referring to Asia are banned as Eurocentric. Oriental isn't mentioned but I'll be interested to look for it in the book when it comes out. But West and Western are also on the snit list for the same reason. Could I refer to China as "Eastern" if I intend to travel in an easterly direction to get there? Maybe only if eastern is lower case. Middle East, which indeed is as confusing as the USA's Midwest or calling Europe a continent, is also on the list and is to be replaced by Southwest Asia. This is bound to offend someone. The new currency, the Euro, isn't on the list, but isn't it rather Eurocentric? Not to mention "Europe" itself.
Most of us hope to get old, or at least not to die too soon, preferably without getting old, but the list considers it rude to name this desirable state. "Past one's prime", a euphemism if ever there was one, is considered demeaning, as is "senior citizen", "elderly", and your basic "old" (also "old wives' tales"). "Older people" is acceptable (so far), but you know they have to be younger than some people too, so this one is dicey. Senile is objectionable, which it could be if it refers to all old ~ older ~ people, but what do you call people who are senile?
Bookworm is considered offensive, and is to be replaced by intellectual. I bet most of you are bookworms, and maybe intellectuals. The two are not synonymous. Is anyone offended in the least by being called a bookworm? I can't resist passing on this little verse I memorized when I was quite young, who knows why (according to Web findings, it's by one W. Craddle):
I am anxious after praise.
I sometimes wish it were not so.
I hate to think I spend my days
Waiting for that I'll never know.
I even hope when I am dead
The worms won't find me wholly vicious,
But as they masticate my head
Will smack their lips and cry, "Delicious!"
No doubt the bookworms will.
It would be well to remember that many idiomatic references to people of varied sexes, ages, nationalities, races, and states of health that some people now find objectionable began as euphemisms themselves.
I'm sure many of us were bemused when "people of color," referring to every human being other than what we call white, came into vogue not long ago. When I was growing up in the South, "colored people" was the polite alternative to the formal "Negro" and the hateful other n-word. This prepositional construction seems to strike some people as less offensive than a bald-faced adjective. The list says it's rude to call someone deaf ~ "She's deaf" ~ but OK to refer to a person who is deaf or who has loss of hearing. Characteristic of some euphemisms is the feeling that if you string the idea out longer, and kind of postpone the awful truth (color, deafness, age), deferring the attribute till the end of the phrase, you will soften the blow of reality ~ the assumption being that the reality is bad and therefore requires very, very careful parsing. (Why is it easier to be black than gay? A black person doesn't have to break the news to his parents.) We might as well be back in the Victorian age, whispering behind our fans. All the care in the world will not take the place of goodwill, and any word can be twisted. People of color are what color? My brother narrowly avoided getting beat up in high school because he refused to call himself white, when pressed; sidestepping that game, he insisted he was sort of pinkish or light beige.
When facts cannot be referred to except indirectly, it's hard to think straight. Why is yacht banned as elitist? Rich people mostly don't sail in fishing trawlers. Why is polo banned as elitist? I don't know any polo players, but I know they exist, and I know that through language, chiefly the word polo. Likewise regatta. Is there another word for it? What circumlocution would be safe? Stickball is banned too.
I would call this list insane if that word weren't banned, but it is. All these weasel words will in time become as offensive as their supposedly offensive predecessors ~ the same way morphine was introduced as a cure for addiction to opium, which was supposed to be a cure for alcoholism. The cures are as bad as the thing they attempt to cure, because they do not get at the heart of the problem. Euphemisms ultimately fail because of what lies behind the words, in the mind and heart of the speaker, not in reality.
(Regarding those pictures worth a thousand words, the list says that illustrators should not depict men and boys as larger and heavier than women and girls. Once a friend and I were talking about a new space project in quest of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, in which mathematical formulas and a simple drawing of a human male and female were beamed to outer space. Always vigilant, I complained about the picture as sexist, and my friend asked if it was because the man was larger. Of course not. The average weights and heights of all the men in the world are greater than those of all the women. That is a fact. No, my objection was that the man had his hand raised in greeting, and the little woman was just standing there with her arms down ~ "No, honey, you talk to the aliens." Is it likely? I know I would be waving and chatting it up with aliens if I could, and probably interrupting too.)
Copyright Rhonda Keith 2003. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.
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