Ah Joanie, there is the rub. You say when you are informed that a word is offensive to a particular group, you should stop using it. I think you need to look at the informer and basis for his/her statement. I tend to follow folks who ask they be addressed in a certain way, for example to use the word they in reference to them.
Ah Joanie, there is the rub. You say when you are informed that a word is offensive to a particular group, you should stop using it. I think you need to look at the informer and basis for his/her statement. I tend to follow folks who ask they be addressed in a certain way, for example to use the word they in reference to them.
However, when someone declares the use of a common word in all situations with very limited proof, I tend to ignore their requests.
Peter, you write, “[W]hen someone declares the use of a common word in all situations with very limited proof, I tend to ignore their requests.” Why? Someone tells you that a significant number of people in a minority group are hurt or offended by your use of a particular word, and you choose to “ignore their requests”? I mean, you do realize how your statement that you will “ignore their requests” makes you look, right?
How do you feel about the use of the term “Jew down”? See the article below about a city council President in Trenton, New Jersey, saying a city attorney negotiating a woman’s personal injury lawsuit was “able to wait her out and Jew her down” for a lower settlement amount. Is that another instance of the “word police” making unreasonable demands? Or it bad to use “Jew down” but okay to use “thug”? Does the acceptability of a term depend on which group’s ox is getting gored?
Jew down is a disgusting term that I never found to be acceptable. I have a sense of what words that are on their face unacceptable. I don’t need word police to decide what commonly used words suddenly become unacceptable.
So we have Eric Zorn, a white middle class guy, telling us not to use the word thug.
Thug is a common word and applied to a variety of people based on their behavior.
So if I choose to ignore Eric, I guess I am goring Eric’s ox. He is a big boy, he can more than hold his own against me.
As to how ignoring requests makes me look, you can have your opinion, my opinion is I listen to requests and make my decision based on who is making the request and their basis for that request,
And how do you feel about the use of paddy wagon? Does this term disrespect the Irish so we must drop this term?
I'm not telling anyone NOT to use the word "thug." Use it all you want. It's a free country. And it doesn't offend ME. I'm just telling you and other readers that it's pretty widely considered a racist term and you should brace yourself for some unwanted and unintened blowback. There are other words like that. "Retarded," say. Anyone is free to say that word. THis is America! But it's going to convey more than you want or need to, in all liklihood.
Richard Sherman apparently, and BLM protesters. It has evolved into a code word for some. McWhorter is merely pointing out that the connotation has changed in recent years, depending on use:
"It was the 2.0 problem, as always. Of course, “thug” can still be used as a race-neutral word referring to a miscreant. We can call federal law enforcement “jackbooted thugs” or use the term to refer to Islamic State terrorists. But American discussion has also developed a sense of a “thug” persona, propagated partly by hip-hop iconography, which is specifically Black and even embraced by many Black people as a kind of proud self-expression. The phrase “thug life,” credited to Tupac Shakur, gets at this final meaning, which is racial but not pejorative. In any case, the days when “thug” meant only a ruffian or rascal are long past us; there is a newer meaning, more specific than the older one: thug 2.0."
So you are offended by the use of the verb “Jew down,” but you “don’t need word police to decide what commonly used words suddenly become unacceptable.” Don’t you feel the tension between those two positions? Isn’t it the “word police,” as you call them, that discouraged the use of the term “Jew down,” meaning aggressively and successfully negotiate? I think we all should try to be sensitive to how others, especially those in minority groups, feel about our use of language.
Nobody told me this was not acceptable, I was able to figure that out on my own. I am discussing words that are in common use and then declared inappropriate. Do you think “Jew down” was once acceptable and we needed the word police to tell folks not to use the term?
And yes, there is absolutely a tension between when to use a common word that someone says is not acceptable.
I hate to break it to you, Peter, but there was a time in the United States when use of the term “Jew down” was culturally acceptable. As stated in the article below, “The Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest usage of the term came in 1825 and that it was used in 1870 on the floor of the U.S. Congress to describe a bill setting salaries in the military. The legislation supposedly prompted someone to say that Congress is “ready to Jew down the pay of its generals.” So the term was in common use and subsequently became unacceptable.
I like (and agree with) the article below because it quotes Deborah Lipstadt as saying that “[a]nti-Semitism has gone so deep into the roots of society that [some] people don’t recognize that they are engaging in it when they engage in it.” Kind of like people not recognizing that they are engaging in racism when they use the term “thug” to describe black people because racism has gone so deep into the roots of our society.
First, you do not hate to break it to me, you love to post this article.
But is it relevant? I figured out “Jew down” without that article or any other advice on what is acceptable.
I figured that out by direct experience. I went to elementary school with lots of Jewish kids. Many were my friends and I soon picked up what were hurtful phrases, “Jew Down” was one of them. I also learned that “Kike” was a hurtful expression when I was not served at a restaurant because they thought I was Jewish (I am not).
So you can use your academic articles to define what was and was not acceptable. Me, I learned by experience and I never found “Jew Down” or “kike” to be acceptable with the Jewish people I knew.
I tend to rely on my experience with people rather than articles or people outside the directed groups telling what is and what is not acceptable.
Joanie you are way off base in comparing "Jew down" with "thug". Until recently,. "thug" never was connected to a specific race/nationality/religion etc. It was co-opted in its use and now has become offensive to some people it is now supposed to demean. There has NEVER been any generic meaning behind "Jew down". It was targeted and offensive from the beginning and it's symbolic meaning has not changed.
As I think I’ve made clear, my approach is not to use words that other folks find offensive, whether the term is the n-word, the verb “Jew down,” or thug referencing black people. I don’t bristle at the “word police” and act as though my freedoms are being curtailed.
Ah Joanie, there is the rub. You say when you are informed that a word is offensive to a particular group, you should stop using it. I think you need to look at the informer and basis for his/her statement. I tend to follow folks who ask they be addressed in a certain way, for example to use the word they in reference to them.
However, when someone declares the use of a common word in all situations with very limited proof, I tend to ignore their requests.
Peter, I would prefer “There in lies the problem.”
If you look up alternate definitions for “rub” you will find : “To kill or murder someone: commonly associated with criminal or gangster slang.”
David O., I stand corrected. Consider your preferred usage in play.
“Therein,” not “there in.” “There in” refers to how residents in Vichy France would point out Jews hiding to the Nazis. “There, in the chicken coop.”
Thanks. 🙄
Peter, you write, “[W]hen someone declares the use of a common word in all situations with very limited proof, I tend to ignore their requests.” Why? Someone tells you that a significant number of people in a minority group are hurt or offended by your use of a particular word, and you choose to “ignore their requests”? I mean, you do realize how your statement that you will “ignore their requests” makes you look, right?
How do you feel about the use of the term “Jew down”? See the article below about a city council President in Trenton, New Jersey, saying a city attorney negotiating a woman’s personal injury lawsuit was “able to wait her out and Jew her down” for a lower settlement amount. Is that another instance of the “word police” making unreasonable demands? Or it bad to use “Jew down” but okay to use “thug”? Does the acceptability of a term depend on which group’s ox is getting gored?
https://whyy.org/articles/trenton-mayor-says-council-members-quietly-apologized-for-anti-semitic-remark/
Jew down is a disgusting term that I never found to be acceptable. I have a sense of what words that are on their face unacceptable. I don’t need word police to decide what commonly used words suddenly become unacceptable.
So we have Eric Zorn, a white middle class guy, telling us not to use the word thug.
Thug is a common word and applied to a variety of people based on their behavior.
So if I choose to ignore Eric, I guess I am goring Eric’s ox. He is a big boy, he can more than hold his own against me.
As to how ignoring requests makes me look, you can have your opinion, my opinion is I listen to requests and make my decision based on who is making the request and their basis for that request,
And how do you feel about the use of paddy wagon? Does this term disrespect the Irish so we must drop this term?
My irish friends would be offended if the term "paddy wagon" was no longer used.
Leon, you mean we should check with the targeted party before declaring what words are acceptable to them.
I think you have an excellent point.
I'm not telling anyone NOT to use the word "thug." Use it all you want. It's a free country. And it doesn't offend ME. I'm just telling you and other readers that it's pretty widely considered a racist term and you should brace yourself for some unwanted and unintened blowback. There are other words like that. "Retarded," say. Anyone is free to say that word. THis is America! But it's going to convey more than you want or need to, in all liklihood.
Eric, so you are not offended about the use of thug and indicate I am free to use it.(Thanks for your permission).
Don’t you find it a bit patronizing? If black folks find the word offensive, can’t they say so? Why do you feel the need to defend them?
I think they can defend themselves and if they find the word offensive, let them make the case themselves.
I’m pretty sure John McWhorter, who made the case, is black.
Has he been called a thug? I am looking for a black person who is offended by being called a thug and giving reasons why he/she finds it racist.
Richard Sherman apparently, and BLM protesters. It has evolved into a code word for some. McWhorter is merely pointing out that the connotation has changed in recent years, depending on use:
https://bento.cdn.pbs.org/hostedbento-prod/filer_public/whatihear/3-Code_Word-Viewing_Guide.pdf
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-accident-false-thug-narratives-have-long-been-used-discredit-n1240509
Yes. And fairly anti-woke, if I may use another term that has migrated quite a bit in recent years and that I now avoid.
McWhorter clarified this several times since, that the word still has acceptable meanings, but has evolved. Thug 2.0:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/opinion/it-is-what-it-is.html
"It was the 2.0 problem, as always. Of course, “thug” can still be used as a race-neutral word referring to a miscreant. We can call federal law enforcement “jackbooted thugs” or use the term to refer to Islamic State terrorists. But American discussion has also developed a sense of a “thug” persona, propagated partly by hip-hop iconography, which is specifically Black and even embraced by many Black people as a kind of proud self-expression. The phrase “thug life,” credited to Tupac Shakur, gets at this final meaning, which is racial but not pejorative. In any case, the days when “thug” meant only a ruffian or rascal are long past us; there is a newer meaning, more specific than the older one: thug 2.0."
So you are offended by the use of the verb “Jew down,” but you “don’t need word police to decide what commonly used words suddenly become unacceptable.” Don’t you feel the tension between those two positions? Isn’t it the “word police,” as you call them, that discouraged the use of the term “Jew down,” meaning aggressively and successfully negotiate? I think we all should try to be sensitive to how others, especially those in minority groups, feel about our use of language.
No Joanie, word police had nothing to do with it.
Nobody told me this was not acceptable, I was able to figure that out on my own. I am discussing words that are in common use and then declared inappropriate. Do you think “Jew down” was once acceptable and we needed the word police to tell folks not to use the term?
And yes, there is absolutely a tension between when to use a common word that someone says is not acceptable.
I hate to break it to you, Peter, but there was a time in the United States when use of the term “Jew down” was culturally acceptable. As stated in the article below, “The Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest usage of the term came in 1825 and that it was used in 1870 on the floor of the U.S. Congress to describe a bill setting salaries in the military. The legislation supposedly prompted someone to say that Congress is “ready to Jew down the pay of its generals.” So the term was in common use and subsequently became unacceptable.
I like (and agree with) the article below because it quotes Deborah Lipstadt as saying that “[a]nti-Semitism has gone so deep into the roots of society that [some] people don’t recognize that they are engaging in it when they engage in it.” Kind of like people not recognizing that they are engaging in racism when they use the term “thug” to describe black people because racism has gone so deep into the roots of our society.
https://www.jta.org/2019/09/25/culture/what-does-jew-down-mean-and-why-do-people-find-it-offensive
First, you do not hate to break it to me, you love to post this article.
But is it relevant? I figured out “Jew down” without that article or any other advice on what is acceptable.
I figured that out by direct experience. I went to elementary school with lots of Jewish kids. Many were my friends and I soon picked up what were hurtful phrases, “Jew Down” was one of them. I also learned that “Kike” was a hurtful expression when I was not served at a restaurant because they thought I was Jewish (I am not).
So you can use your academic articles to define what was and was not acceptable. Me, I learned by experience and I never found “Jew Down” or “kike” to be acceptable with the Jewish people I knew.
I tend to rely on my experience with people rather than articles or people outside the directed groups telling what is and what is not acceptable.
Joanie you are way off base in comparing "Jew down" with "thug". Until recently,. "thug" never was connected to a specific race/nationality/religion etc. It was co-opted in its use and now has become offensive to some people it is now supposed to demean. There has NEVER been any generic meaning behind "Jew down". It was targeted and offensive from the beginning and it's symbolic meaning has not changed.
As I think I’ve made clear, my approach is not to use words that other folks find offensive, whether the term is the n-word, the verb “Jew down,” or thug referencing black people. I don’t bristle at the “word police” and act as though my freedoms are being curtailed.