Whoever came up with that disgusting poster of Dr Fauci should be given to Kristi Noem to be taken to her gravel pit.
Along with Elon Musk!
I think growing up rich in apartheid South Africa truly warped his brain & it's a sad day he came to this country. Thankfully the Constitution prevents that sickeningly rotten individual from running for president, but unfortunately, doesn't prevent him from spending money or influence to elect a fat thieving traitorous one!
And we've given his companies more than $15 billion since 2003. He's an intricate part of the NASA future. Why would he waste his time on running for office?
Put together a list of "Insensitive words (phrases) you need to stop using right now!". Hopefully will keep you all out of trouble. This is only from the first two articles I looked at, so be forewarned that this is not all inclusive! Addict, non-white, elderly, homeless, sex change, exotic, white list, insane, man hours, alcoholic, dialect, pollyanna, oriental, whitelist, blacklist, ghetto, spooky, sold down the river, grandfathered in, spirit animal, powow, tribe, lowest on the totem pole, savage, gypped, first world problem, brain storm, blindsided, blind leading the blind, dumb, lame, tone deaf, crippled. "Not knowing the word is insensitive does not reduce the pain of the hearer."
Don’t forget “lash out.” According to some activist Woke Parkers, it is racist and offensively violent. See the comments to this article in the local newspaper Wednesday Journal.
I wonder why people get so worked up about such lists. There are no "word police" who will enforce them and you are still free to use whatever words you wish, no matter how crass or rude they might be. If people you don;t know and don't respect object to those words (a) so what?, and (b) they are as free to criticise as you are to speak and write. No point in tilting at windmills when there are real problems to be dealt with.
Michael, generally agree with your comment, but there are “word police” for words used in a public forum. I remember the “thug” incident Eric referenced. That sportscaster had to make a public apology or face the consequences after a spotless 40 year career.
I think the words "word police" imply some group that polices everybody. I think that an employer saying something an employee says or writes is unacceptable is an entirely separate matter.
I refuse to stop using the word thug to describe someone who acts like a hooligan, ie. “Former president Trump is a thug.” If you think it’s racist that’s on you.
It’s time to fight back against these self appointed word police.
i think EZ was making a different point - tho i will leave it to EZ to explain himself, shd he so choose.
as i understand EZ, if you describe the Lyin' King [trump] as a thug, that's not racist. but if you describe a balck man [particularly a young black man], as a thug, that's racist.
I agree with you Ken. I am afraid Eric Zorn was trolling us part of his word police role.
He likes to use John McWhorter as some sort of Word Czar as to what words are acceptable.
Anybody want to challenge my description of the Detroit Piston team back in the day as a group of thugs? There were both white and black players, their skin color was not relevant, their criminal actions on the court were relevant.
I get the concern over calling every aggressive sports play "thuggish" if it was performed by a black player, but white hockey players that are the "enforcers" are called thugs too. Yes, Trump's mob like enforcement of his minions is thuggish, Biden has rightly called Putin a thug, and when teens behave criminally in beating and robbing people we should be able to call them thugs too, no matter what color their skin is. The fact that Tupac can use the word in glorifying "Thug Life" but now the word is off limits to anyone else, even when describing criminal behavior, is just a step too far for the language police. It just sends everyone to their corners and further stifles communication.
McWhorter is a thinker for whom I hold the utmost respect, but he is completely off base on “thug”. There is no racial connotation to the word at all, as EZ inadvertently demonstrates by citing the myriad instances in which he recently has applied it to describe various thugs that are not black. Its synonyms are “hooligan”, “bully”, “ruffian”, and “goon”, not “nigger”. What relevance is there that it became one of the go to terms for gangster rappers to describe their own? It becomes racially charged because of that? Is “goon” therefore a slur against Canadians since it’s long been the go to term to describe thuggish, “enforcer” style hockey players?
The JakeH/JoanieWimmer discussion concerning prosecutorial discretion was interesting. However I found JakeH concerns a bit overwrought.
1. The Trump decision will get reviewed on appeal, and probably on a number of levels.
2. Bragg was able to convince 12 jurors on 34 counts beyond a reasonable doubt, that should at least show that Bragg had a viable prosecution going on.
3. Prosecutors use their “discretion” for all kinds of reasons and for all kinds of motives.
The Hunter Biden trial lends itself to a “witch hunt” much more than the Trump trial.
There was a time in Illinois where prosecutors would work very hard to put away Illinois governors to burnish their own political status with great success.
Advice to office holders, best policy to defend yourself against zealous, politically motivated prosecutors - do not do the crime (agree with you Joanie Wimmer).
If you want to see a really broken process, look at pardons both on the Federal and State level.
Trump pardoned folks to allow them to commit more crimes in the future. And now the Trump felon is promising to pardon fellow criminals in the future for further gang activity.
If you look at the State level, the pardon process is all over the place. You have governor Abbot pardoning a convicted murderer before the trial. His motive is political, not justice and there is no appeal process.
Look at the various State’s procedures and just how they handle pardons. There is no consistent procedure. There is no “equal protection” and folks will get wildly different results depending on the State. Justice in these matters seem to be an afterthought.
Reading comments by a lot of mature white people about how they should be able to continue to use the word “thug,” and how ridiculous the “word police” are leaves a bad taste for me. When you are informed that a particular term is offensive to others, especially people in a minority group that is the object of discrimination in our culture, why would you insist on continuing to use the term? Even Walter Sobchak knew better in the late 1990s:
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.
"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.
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.
So if one person claims offense at any word then the rest of civilization is supposed to accommodate them and refrain from using it? If a nation of 360 million people takes this view to its logical conclusion, we would soon become a nation of mimes. “Thug” is not a racially charged term, despite what Mr. McWhorter says, and I’ve yet to meet a black person who finds it objectionable.
Also, as dutiful viewers of Lebowski know, Walter’s enlightenment was even earlier; 1991 to be exact.
Steven K, it’s absurd to suggest that only one person in our nation is claiming offense at the use of the word “thug” to describe black people. You say that you haven’t met any black people who find the use of the term thug to describe black people as offensive or hurtful, and suggest that, for that reason, the term is acceptable. So we are to come to a consensus on acceptable English usage based on “people Steven K has met”; that should be the criterion? I don’t think so. As to The Big Lebowski, the movie came out in 1998.
More to the point, I think that the reason that there are so few people (black or otherwise) that find “thug” to be offensive is because, as I have already pointed out several times this morning, most people are aware that it is not a racially charged term. At all. Anyone is free to pretend otherwise, but that doesn’t mean that the etymologically informed among us must acquiesce to their misconceptions. You can find a few people here and there that find the word “actress” to be offensive (or claim that they do). Most people, however, not only don’t, they look at the plastering of “actor” in front of the name of a female thespian to be a little weird and very contrived. That’s why “actress” isn’t going anywhere, and will continue to be recognized as the perfectly good word that it is.
The Big Lebowski came out in ‘98, but it is set in “the early 90s, right around the time of our conflict with Saddam and the Aye-rackies” as the Stranger intones in the opening narration.
“Thug” as applied to black people, has become a racially charged term, as Eric Zorn pointed out. And if you, like the rest of the people here decrying the “word police,” continue to use it, you will be judged accordingly. I think that was Eric’s point.
And I’m well aware that The Big Lebowski was set in the early 1990s. Otherwise why would the Dude have told the big Lebowski “this aggression will not stand” in relation to his peed-upon rug!
And the person working at the counter in the bowling alley being named Saddam in one of the dream sequences. I get it. I said late 1990s ‘cause that’s when the film was released.
Are we waiting for just any "black person"? What credential would you require to be sure they "represented" enough to satisfy you because would just one person really be enough for you? What if two responded but only one was against the use of the word "thug"? How many people must you hear from to accept that maybe you could just drop this word from use, and expand your vocabulary a little? How hard is that?
Again, you can say "actress" or "stewardess" or "waitress" all you want. You can also dust off "comedienne" or "aviatrix" or "editrix" if you're so inclined. I am of the opinion that gendered job titles should go, and yet I agree that "actress" may be the last of those to hang on due to the Oscars.
We all decide when to change our word choices and reasons vary. The stakes are very different for somone who has a job writng or speaking publicly.
There is always a phase when some people try to get consensus on word choices when it is not clear if what they are pushing for will take. I remember when some people wanted to change phrases used to refer to disabilities and the class od such people as a whole. The term "differently abled" was floated. It never became the norm probably because it was patronizing. Anyone who jumped on that bandwagon now looks ridiculous.
Regarding thug I would think that context matters. Of course there will people who get outraged at anything. A person could be suspended from his job and pilloried for writing n----- in an appropriate context. That does not mean I would not write that.
I speculate that "actress" indeed is different from the other job titles you list, but intrinsically so, not just due to the Oscars.
When a job entails serving refreshments, telling jokes, flying an airplane, or editing written material, persons of any or no gender pretty much can fulfill those functions equally, so the job title may as well be gender-neutral.
But, if you need to cast someone to play significantly-gendered characters -- say, Scarlett O'Hara or Samson -- it is perverse to regard those as equal-opportunity acting roles. You want an actress and actor respectively, unless challenging gender specificity is meant to be the point of your production, which is not usually the case.
If you can find any evidence that the world writ large considers “thug” to be synonymous with “nigger” I would love to see it. Even better would be some lexicographical evidence of this non-existent linguistic equivocation (actually I’ll save you the trouble and break it to you straight: there is none). Better still would be if people like you would quit imagining that certain words mean things that they do not, and just consult Merriam-Webster to clear up your considerable confusion. I hate to burst your amateur code beaker’s bubble, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
kudos to EZ for referencing the work of john mcwhorter in the analysis of the use and morph of the term 'thug'. mcwhorter is well worth knowing more about - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McWhorter
I will continue to use the word "thug", albeit with a little more specificity. I just don't think there is a better word to describe Donald Trump, a mindless oaf who does damage simply because he can. Curiously, I think "thug" and I think "white".
I'm all for language evolution and being sensitive to those who might be offended by their usage. I do think sometimes people go a little too far and that gives ammunition to the anti-woke/anti-pc crowd. For instance, of the following which are truly offensive:
-finding your tribe
-sitting Indian style
-coming together for a pow wow
-calling anyone an ‘Indian giver’
-at the bottom of the totem pole
-referring to someone/something as your ‘spirit animal’
The correct answer would seem to be "all of them if enough people make enough noise." Personally, I feel Indian Giver the only truly offensive one. I'm sure somewhere on the interwebs someone has made an argument for each of them and perhaps my outlook will change.
But then that begs the question* What is the tipping point? When do I (and everyone else) go from 1 on the list to all on the list? Perhaps the movement to discontinue the casual usage of certain words isn't meant for me but for future generations.
Maybe we stop using stupid tired tropes and efforts to justify them as "not offensive to me" and simply find more imaginative descriptions? "Criss-cross" sitting, for example, is just as clear -- ask any day care kid. And the bottom of the totem pole is holding up everyone else so -- maybe it shouldn't mean what you suggest?
All of these are simply lazy writing. Drop these as fast as that "think outside the box" please.
Okay, so when I want to use the N-word in polite company I should say "thug". Got it. Thank you for keeping me up-to-date on these things.
Why would anyone want to use either in any kind of company?
It’s a joke in response to Mr. McWhorter; Skeptic’s tongue is firmly in cheek.
Whoever came up with that disgusting poster of Dr Fauci should be given to Kristi Noem to be taken to her gravel pit.
Along with Elon Musk!
I think growing up rich in apartheid South Africa truly warped his brain & it's a sad day he came to this country. Thankfully the Constitution prevents that sickeningly rotten individual from running for president, but unfortunately, doesn't prevent him from spending money or influence to elect a fat thieving traitorous one!
And we've given his companies more than $15 billion since 2003. He's an intricate part of the NASA future. Why would he waste his time on running for office?
Put together a list of "Insensitive words (phrases) you need to stop using right now!". Hopefully will keep you all out of trouble. This is only from the first two articles I looked at, so be forewarned that this is not all inclusive! Addict, non-white, elderly, homeless, sex change, exotic, white list, insane, man hours, alcoholic, dialect, pollyanna, oriental, whitelist, blacklist, ghetto, spooky, sold down the river, grandfathered in, spirit animal, powow, tribe, lowest on the totem pole, savage, gypped, first world problem, brain storm, blindsided, blind leading the blind, dumb, lame, tone deaf, crippled. "Not knowing the word is insensitive does not reduce the pain of the hearer."
You forgot about “master” and “transvestite”.
Don’t forget “lash out.” According to some activist Woke Parkers, it is racist and offensively violent. See the comments to this article in the local newspaper Wednesday Journal.
https://www.facebook.com/wednesdayjournalinc/posts/pfbid0Mbxrrfvuvi4Xu5e9zMcpmQJ61eB9h8QGrkCtqM9XrcR233q9LN4FhBKKyPx6kHotl
You left out criminal!
Perhaps on the reverse side are words that we can't use anymore for their earlier meanings, e.g. queer and gay.
I wonder why people get so worked up about such lists. There are no "word police" who will enforce them and you are still free to use whatever words you wish, no matter how crass or rude they might be. If people you don;t know and don't respect object to those words (a) so what?, and (b) they are as free to criticise as you are to speak and write. No point in tilting at windmills when there are real problems to be dealt with.
Michael, generally agree with your comment, but there are “word police” for words used in a public forum. I remember the “thug” incident Eric referenced. That sportscaster had to make a public apology or face the consequences after a spotless 40 year career.
I think the words "word police" imply some group that polices everybody. I think that an employer saying something an employee says or writes is unacceptable is an entirely separate matter.
Got it. 😉
I refuse to stop using the word thug to describe someone who acts like a hooligan, ie. “Former president Trump is a thug.” If you think it’s racist that’s on you.
It’s time to fight back against these self appointed word police.
And Biden has referred to Putin as a thug on several occasions. And he is right!!
i think EZ was making a different point - tho i will leave it to EZ to explain himself, shd he so choose.
as i understand EZ, if you describe the Lyin' King [trump] as a thug, that's not racist. but if you describe a balck man [particularly a young black man], as a thug, that's racist.
That construct strikes me as racist in of itself!
I agree with you Ken. I am afraid Eric Zorn was trolling us part of his word police role.
He likes to use John McWhorter as some sort of Word Czar as to what words are acceptable.
Anybody want to challenge my description of the Detroit Piston team back in the day as a group of thugs? There were both white and black players, their skin color was not relevant, their criminal actions on the court were relevant.
There's a barber shop near me called "Another Barber Shop".
Trump was convicted by the unanimous vote of a 12 member jury, a jury that Trump’s lawyers participated in choosing.
I get the concern over calling every aggressive sports play "thuggish" if it was performed by a black player, but white hockey players that are the "enforcers" are called thugs too. Yes, Trump's mob like enforcement of his minions is thuggish, Biden has rightly called Putin a thug, and when teens behave criminally in beating and robbing people we should be able to call them thugs too, no matter what color their skin is. The fact that Tupac can use the word in glorifying "Thug Life" but now the word is off limits to anyone else, even when describing criminal behavior, is just a step too far for the language police. It just sends everyone to their corners and further stifles communication.
So, EZ, have you finally dropped your Twitter account?
McWhorter is a thinker for whom I hold the utmost respect, but he is completely off base on “thug”. There is no racial connotation to the word at all, as EZ inadvertently demonstrates by citing the myriad instances in which he recently has applied it to describe various thugs that are not black. Its synonyms are “hooligan”, “bully”, “ruffian”, and “goon”, not “nigger”. What relevance is there that it became one of the go to terms for gangster rappers to describe their own? It becomes racially charged because of that? Is “goon” therefore a slur against Canadians since it’s long been the go to term to describe thuggish, “enforcer” style hockey players?
I though "goon" was for The Outfit's enforcers & leg breakers.
The JakeH/JoanieWimmer discussion concerning prosecutorial discretion was interesting. However I found JakeH concerns a bit overwrought.
1. The Trump decision will get reviewed on appeal, and probably on a number of levels.
2. Bragg was able to convince 12 jurors on 34 counts beyond a reasonable doubt, that should at least show that Bragg had a viable prosecution going on.
3. Prosecutors use their “discretion” for all kinds of reasons and for all kinds of motives.
The Hunter Biden trial lends itself to a “witch hunt” much more than the Trump trial.
There was a time in Illinois where prosecutors would work very hard to put away Illinois governors to burnish their own political status with great success.
Advice to office holders, best policy to defend yourself against zealous, politically motivated prosecutors - do not do the crime (agree with you Joanie Wimmer).
If you want to see a really broken process, look at pardons both on the Federal and State level.
Trump pardoned folks to allow them to commit more crimes in the future. And now the Trump felon is promising to pardon fellow criminals in the future for further gang activity.
If you look at the State level, the pardon process is all over the place. You have governor Abbot pardoning a convicted murderer before the trial. His motive is political, not justice and there is no appeal process.
Look at the various State’s procedures and just how they handle pardons. There is no consistent procedure. There is no “equal protection” and folks will get wildly different results depending on the State. Justice in these matters seem to be an afterthought.
Reading comments by a lot of mature white people about how they should be able to continue to use the word “thug,” and how ridiculous the “word police” are leaves a bad taste for me. When you are informed that a particular term is offensive to others, especially people in a minority group that is the object of discrimination in our culture, why would you insist on continuing to use the term? Even Walter Sobchak knew better in the late 1990s:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LslnDx16-Ik&pp=ygUXTGVib3dza2kgYXNpYW4gYW1lcmljYW4%3D
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.
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
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.
So if one person claims offense at any word then the rest of civilization is supposed to accommodate them and refrain from using it? If a nation of 360 million people takes this view to its logical conclusion, we would soon become a nation of mimes. “Thug” is not a racially charged term, despite what Mr. McWhorter says, and I’ve yet to meet a black person who finds it objectionable.
Also, as dutiful viewers of Lebowski know, Walter’s enlightenment was even earlier; 1991 to be exact.
Steven K, it’s absurd to suggest that only one person in our nation is claiming offense at the use of the word “thug” to describe black people. You say that you haven’t met any black people who find the use of the term thug to describe black people as offensive or hurtful, and suggest that, for that reason, the term is acceptable. So we are to come to a consensus on acceptable English usage based on “people Steven K has met”; that should be the criterion? I don’t think so. As to The Big Lebowski, the movie came out in 1998.
More to the point, I think that the reason that there are so few people (black or otherwise) that find “thug” to be offensive is because, as I have already pointed out several times this morning, most people are aware that it is not a racially charged term. At all. Anyone is free to pretend otherwise, but that doesn’t mean that the etymologically informed among us must acquiesce to their misconceptions. You can find a few people here and there that find the word “actress” to be offensive (or claim that they do). Most people, however, not only don’t, they look at the plastering of “actor” in front of the name of a female thespian to be a little weird and very contrived. That’s why “actress” isn’t going anywhere, and will continue to be recognized as the perfectly good word that it is.
The Big Lebowski came out in ‘98, but it is set in “the early 90s, right around the time of our conflict with Saddam and the Aye-rackies” as the Stranger intones in the opening narration.
“Thug” as applied to black people, has become a racially charged term, as Eric Zorn pointed out. And if you, like the rest of the people here decrying the “word police,” continue to use it, you will be judged accordingly. I think that was Eric’s point.
And I’m well aware that The Big Lebowski was set in the early 1990s. Otherwise why would the Dude have told the big Lebowski “this aggression will not stand” in relation to his peed-upon rug!
And dated the check that he wrote to pay for his quart of half and half September 11th, 1991.
And the person working at the counter in the bowling alley being named Saddam in one of the dream sequences. I get it. I said late 1990s ‘cause that’s when the film was released.
So Eric the white guy is pointing out this is a racially charged term.
Why don’t we wait for a black person (someone in the aggrieved class) to make his/ her opinions known.
Why does Eric feel he must “defend” them, a bit patronizing I think.
Or is he an expert on black matters and can speak on behalf of black people as to how thug should be used.
C’mon Peter. Don’t be obtuse.
Are we waiting for just any "black person"? What credential would you require to be sure they "represented" enough to satisfy you because would just one person really be enough for you? What if two responded but only one was against the use of the word "thug"? How many people must you hear from to accept that maybe you could just drop this word from use, and expand your vocabulary a little? How hard is that?
Again, you can say "actress" or "stewardess" or "waitress" all you want. You can also dust off "comedienne" or "aviatrix" or "editrix" if you're so inclined. I am of the opinion that gendered job titles should go, and yet I agree that "actress" may be the last of those to hang on due to the Oscars.
We all decide when to change our word choices and reasons vary. The stakes are very different for somone who has a job writng or speaking publicly.
There is always a phase when some people try to get consensus on word choices when it is not clear if what they are pushing for will take. I remember when some people wanted to change phrases used to refer to disabilities and the class od such people as a whole. The term "differently abled" was floated. It never became the norm probably because it was patronizing. Anyone who jumped on that bandwagon now looks ridiculous.
Regarding thug I would think that context matters. Of course there will people who get outraged at anything. A person could be suspended from his job and pilloried for writing n----- in an appropriate context. That does not mean I would not write that.
I speculate that "actress" indeed is different from the other job titles you list, but intrinsically so, not just due to the Oscars.
When a job entails serving refreshments, telling jokes, flying an airplane, or editing written material, persons of any or no gender pretty much can fulfill those functions equally, so the job title may as well be gender-neutral.
But, if you need to cast someone to play significantly-gendered characters -- say, Scarlett O'Hara or Samson -- it is perverse to regard those as equal-opportunity acting roles. You want an actress and actor respectively, unless challenging gender specificity is meant to be the point of your production, which is not usually the case.
Glenda Jackson played a pretty good King Lear.
So "few people" are offended and "most people" are aware ... perhaps this reflects your social circle, but not necessarily the larger world?
If you can find any evidence that the world writ large considers “thug” to be synonymous with “nigger” I would love to see it. Even better would be some lexicographical evidence of this non-existent linguistic equivocation (actually I’ll save you the trouble and break it to you straight: there is none). Better still would be if people like you would quit imagining that certain words mean things that they do not, and just consult Merriam-Webster to clear up your considerable confusion. I hate to burst your amateur code beaker’s bubble, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
kudos to EZ for referencing the work of john mcwhorter in the analysis of the use and morph of the term 'thug'. mcwhorter is well worth knowing more about - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McWhorter
Terrific group of visual tweets this week!
Like with 'woke', thug didn't become offensive until politicized.
I will continue to use the word "thug", albeit with a little more specificity. I just don't think there is a better word to describe Donald Trump, a mindless oaf who does damage simply because he can. Curiously, I think "thug" and I think "white".
I'm all for language evolution and being sensitive to those who might be offended by their usage. I do think sometimes people go a little too far and that gives ammunition to the anti-woke/anti-pc crowd. For instance, of the following which are truly offensive:
-finding your tribe
-sitting Indian style
-coming together for a pow wow
-calling anyone an ‘Indian giver’
-at the bottom of the totem pole
-referring to someone/something as your ‘spirit animal’
The correct answer would seem to be "all of them if enough people make enough noise." Personally, I feel Indian Giver the only truly offensive one. I'm sure somewhere on the interwebs someone has made an argument for each of them and perhaps my outlook will change.
But then that begs the question* What is the tipping point? When do I (and everyone else) go from 1 on the list to all on the list? Perhaps the movement to discontinue the casual usage of certain words isn't meant for me but for future generations.
* am I using that correctly :-)
Michael M, I reviewed your list and made my picks before reading the rest of your comment.
Bingo! I picked Indian giver as the only inappropriate word. Nice to have a meeting of the minds.
You did not use “begs the question” correctly, but then neither do 99% of journalists, a group you might expect to know better.
In the context that you use, “begs” would be synonymous with “raises”, and that’s the mistake that everyone makes: “begs” actually means “evades”.
when I googled I got "raise a question or point that has not been dealt with; invite an obvious question." Maybe I picked the wrong cite.
Tell me, what is an example of a question that "begs" for my comment?
Maybe we stop using stupid tired tropes and efforts to justify them as "not offensive to me" and simply find more imaginative descriptions? "Criss-cross" sitting, for example, is just as clear -- ask any day care kid. And the bottom of the totem pole is holding up everyone else so -- maybe it shouldn't mean what you suggest?
All of these are simply lazy writing. Drop these as fast as that "think outside the box" please.