Thinking about words.

One of the side effects of working with language-- writing, copyediting, translating, whatever -- is that you develop a loving relationship with words. And for me, whether I’m editing an advertisement or writing a post, most of my time is spent contemplating the meaning of words; not just their dictionary definitions, but the way they can suggest, insinuate, even titillate depending upon where and how they fit together.

Which is why, lately, I keep thinking about the Jew’s harp.

Last year, I was having a throwaway conversation with one of my friends about the Jew’s harp – also occasionally known as a jaw harp – when he suddenly said, “Oh, but we shouldn’t call it a Jew’s harp”.

“What?” I said. “Why?”

“It could be offensive,” he said.

“It could be offensive?”

“Well,” he said, “it could have come from ‘jaw harp’, in which case it would be fine. But it could also be called that because it has some sort of connotation with Jewish people. And then," he finished with a flourish, "it’s offensive.”

At which point I founded myself staring at him in total dumbfounded confusion, because however you feel about ethnic stereotypes and anti-Semitism and whatever else, that is the instrument’s name. And my friend, despite having just admitted to not even knowing from whence said name originated, was jacked up and ready to Ban Those Words on behalf of Jews Everywhere. (Incidentally, a group to which he does not belong.)

Obviously, this is just one anecdotal example – and a fringe-y one at that – of an issue that crops up more often in the form of a public official saying something like, “I regret my comments of last Wednesday and apologize for any offense caused to the American people”. But since reading this exchange between a few Tumblr-ing 20-somethings, my memory seems to have set this conversation on permanent repeat. Because even though it was generally no big deal and happened quite awhile ago, the principle at work in both instances just frustrates the hell out of me.

Here, we have some people arguing over the use of the term “Mentally Challenged” to describe those diagnosed with mental retardation. Within the past ten years or so, the same advocacy groups who designated this as the preferred term have now deemed it insulting. And while the guy who takes the “Har har, but aren’t they too stupid to even know what it means?” approach deserves to be lambasted – his argument is idiotic – I’m still troubled by what seems like a general rush to scorn people for using the Wrong Words while totally ignoring their context.

To me, to label the words themselves as “offensive” is to completely miss the point. As George Carlin once said, the words are blameless. Even the ugliest of them – the ones we refer to by their first letter only – are still only words. And the people who want to censor them – who channel so much energy into designing the perfect, politically-correct, non-degrading term by which to call a group – will find only disappointment in store.

Because for all their efforts, changing the way people speak is not the same as changing the way people think.

The people who care enough, and are sensitive enough to these issues, that they seek out, learn, and use the preferred/PC term – whether it’s describing someone with a mental disability or someone with a certain skin color – are people in whose mouths no term would be pejorative in the first place. And for the people who don’t care – who see ethnic minorities or women or the differently-abled or any other group as worthy of scorn – not even the most politically correct words can temper the ugliness of their context.

The tormentor who sneers, “What are you, developmentally disabled?” at his victim is not inflicting less harm than the one who calls him “retarded”.

The guy who thinks that a “Jew harp” offers some referendum on the character of the Jewish people has issues that won’t be resolved just by changing the instrument’s name.

And meanwhile, with every word that gets banished from the lexicon for being offensive to one group or another, our language loses some the elasticity and nuance and history-shaped meaning that makes it rich and interesting and unique.

**************************************************************

On the other hand, I see all this through the eyes of someone who a) writes for a living, and b) is not personally affected by the issue at hand. How do you see it?