Linguistic Pitfalls

I tried posting a picture of the new doggie addition, but my tech-savvy-ness is obviously lacking today. Suffice it to say, it's been an adjustment, and inevitable comparisons to Mandy abound, but he has enough personality in his own right that he's his own man (dog) and is slowly making a place for himself.

On a non-canine related note... Censorship.

A few stories have come out and struck me as fucking irritating. Canadian radio has pulled Dire Strait's Money for Nothing from radio play, due to the fact that the lyrics include the word "faggot". Matt Good also felt the wrath of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council when a local Saskatoon radio station played the non-radio edit of Load Me Up, in which the lyrics are "This seems so practised / Me fucking this up". I'm a big Matt Good fan, so I personally think the swearing in his lyrics isn't gratuitous and really fits in with the song... but some bored little @#$%?& whined enough and there we go.

Turning away from radio and back to some paper-based insanity, some self important scholar (*cough*AlanGribben*cough*) has decided to edit Huckleberry Finn because "nigger" is offensive. Which I won't argue, it is. But it's also period correct. Do a quick google news search for "Huckleberry Finn" and read the numerous blogs all condemning this action as unwarranted censorship.

Anthony Furrey recently wrote a column in a local newspaper arguing against the vanilla-ing of language (at least that's what I like to call it... the cleaning up of preceived offensive words). He argued that there are dictionary definitions for the words "retard" and "lobbyist", and we shouldn't soften them by saying "disabled" or "advocacy". Changing the word doesn't change the thing (a rose by any other name?) and doesn't change society's reactions, positive or negative, to it. Furrey makes an excellent point when he says: "I’ve always thought it dumb that some people wanted to extract the word retarded from our discourse. If a kid wants to make fun of a disabled guy then he’s going to do it. The problem is not the word we use to describe the retarded, the problem is just that if someone is different from the masses they’re going to be made fun of once in a while."

Changing the language we use isn't going to change what caused the negative connotations to that language in the first place. People treated retards with disdain, so the term become disdainful. People oppressed black men and women, so nigger became oppressive. People continue to persecute homosexuals (LGBT) so queer, fag, faggot, gay have all become inappropriate terms to use. Despite the fact that according to Oxford, these are all legitimate words.

• Retard: delay or hold back in terms of progress or development
• Queer: strange; odd
• Faggot: a bundle of sticks bound together as fuel.
• Fag: British slang, a cigarette
• Gay: light-hearted and carefree; brightly coloured; showy

The only term that Oxford defines 100% as oppressive is nigger, and it's not a word in wide use today. But when Mark Twain wrote his book, it was in use, it was period appropriate, and I think it's important to read it in the context of the era in which it was written, and understand the message Twain was conveying. Twain was an avid and vocal supporter of civil rights, emancipation and women's rights. "Lincoln's Proclamation" he said, "not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also." (thank you Wikipedia).

My point is not that we should necessarily resurrect the everyday usage of all these words. The negative connotations are pretty firmly implanted in our collective consciousnesses, and it's moving backwards to go around intentionally saying offensive things to people you know will be offended by it. My point is that instead of focusing on the language, focus on where the negative connotations came from. From intolerance, and oppression, and ignorance. Put your energy into fighting those things, into promoting tolerance, patience and understanding; not into using white-out on a few words. By hiding behind white-out, we're moving pushing the root of the problem out of the light and instead focusing on pretty-ing up the symptoms.