Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

Language usage moves at an ever-increasing pace! No sooner have you settled in your own mind what a word or phrase means than the meaning is out of date. But tomorrow it may be current again

One that really threw me to be honest was when the word "queer" was deemed OK by self-describing homosexuals after having long been condemned as demeaning. And while on the subject, the "N" word. Frankly I've never understood the reasoning (reclaiming the term) behind either of these cases.

[smittims]

Wearing the 'N' word as a badge of pride is a gesture of defiance, in the same way that the 'Impressionists' owned the word which was intended as patronising disparagement. In the same way, pop groups called 'Simple Minds' and 'The Animals' were throwing back in their faces the criticisms of the older generation. There's a clothes shop in Manchester called 'Damaged Society', and one in Shrewsbury called 'Wierd Fish'.

. Along with ripped and apparently paint-stained jeans (for which, I gather one pays more than for plain ones) and deliberate mistakes in adverts it's all part of a long-running trend where the faulty and sub-standard is embraced as new and praiseworthy.

[french frank]

Wearing the 'N' word as a badge of pride is a gesture of defiance, in the same way that the 'Impressionists' owned the word which was intended as patronising disparagement. In the same way, pop groups called 'Simple Minds' and 'The Animals' were throwing back in their faces the criticisms of the older generation. There's a clothes shop in Manchester called 'Damaged Society', and one in Shrewsbury called 'Wierd Fish'.

. Along with ripped and apparently paint-stained jeans (for which, I gather one pays more than for plain ones) and deliberate mistakes in adverts it's all part of a long-running trend where the faulty and sub-standard is embraced as new and praiseworthy.

To be pedantic (again), I'm not sure that groups who are in some way discriminated against, marginalised or insulted for what they are adopting (or 'owning') the terms of abuse as 'badges of pride' is in any way to be compared with a 'long-running trend where the faulty and sub-standard is embraced as new and praiseworthy'. It's ill-advised to generalise on such things as motives and behaviour arise from a variety of causes. This includes why people criticise others about what is none of their business. But I would stress that that's just my own opinion based on what I see, hear and experience.

[smittims]

Point taken; maybe I was casting my net a little wide and the latter half of my commonwealth forgot its beginning. But it is part of a process of reassessing or redefining the use of a word or a connotation.

And in my experience the 'N' word wasn't always used by caucasians as a term of abuse , merely as a term of reference. In the same way 'discrimination' has come to be seen as a bad thing, where formerly It was a useful skill ('the ability to discriminate between the genuine and fake')

[french frank]

PAnd in my experience the 'N' word wasn't always used by caucasians as a term of abuse , merely as a term of reference. In the same way 'discrimination' has come to be seen as a bad thing, where formerly It was a useful skill ('the ability to discriminate between the genuine and fake')

That is the interesting linguistc point: it's once words are plainly used as terms of abuse (e.g also the schoolkids' use of 'spastic') that they become unacceptable. It's the abusive intent which offends and hurts. By reclaiming them, the victims hope to render them harmless and discourage their use.

[smittims]

Quite so. But I doubt if 'cretin' and 'incurable' will ever be reclaimed - both once accepted medical terms. As a 1950s Headmaster my father was used to terms such as 'educationally sub-normal' , which after all simply meant below normal on a scale . But by the 1980s it was seen as abusive.

[Pulcinella]

York Press:

• Heavy snow has fallen after an amber weather alert from the Met Office

I suppose we have to be grateful that it didn't fall before the alert.

[LMcD]

York Press:

• Heavy snow has fallen after an amber weather alert from the Met Office

i suppose we have to be grateful that it didn't fall before the alert.

It wouldn't be the first time the Met Office was caught out. Quite recently a council leader in Wales claimed that flood warnings were an hour late.

[oddoneout]

Quite so. But I doubt if 'cretin' and 'incurable' will ever be reclaimed - both once accepted medical terms. As a 1950s Headmaster my father was used to terms such as 'educationally sub-normal' , which after all simply meant below normal on a scale . But by the 1980s it was seen as abusive.

When my daughter was an au pair in America 20 plus years ago she was appalled by the casual use of the term "retard" to describe the autistic toddler she was looking after, the more so as it was 'professionals' (speech therapists and the like) using it. They couldn't see why she was bothered. I imagine that has changed now.

[french frank]

When my daughter was an au pair in America 20 plus years ago she was appalled by the casual use of the term "retard" to describe the autistic toddler she was looking after, the more so as it was 'professionals' (speech therapists and the like) using it. They couldn't see why she was bothered. I imagine that has changed now.

Yes, and changed for the better. It's hard to see why 'retard', 'cretin', or 'educationally subnormal' - all implicitly, if unintentionally, demeaning - would ever be reclaimed as badges of pride. That's quite different from the 'N' word or the similarly racial 'P' word; or any slang term used in a derogatory or mocking way like Clarkson's 'innocent' use of the word 'slope'. It's not the word that's insulting: it's the use of the word; and once it's become generally accepted as a term of abuse, even if its use is not intended to offend, it's liable to offend and is therefore better avoided. Adopting the insult as a 'badge of honour', on the other hand, is thumbing one's nose at the perpetrators - and well done too. With time the insulting sting will have been removed.

[vinteuil]

Adopting the insult as a 'badge of honour', on the other hand, is thumbing one's nose at the perpetrators - and well done too. With time the insulting sting will have been removed.

Yes : it is a question of taking control of the language - and goes back a long way : Methodists, Quakers; more recently the black community taking on the N word -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.W.A

and similarly queer &c. One of the more recent is the disabled community adopting the term crip (cripple) as a term of celebration -

https://cripticarts.org/the-crip-monologues-2/

The important thing is that it is those communities reclaiming a word rather than having it thrown at them