Gros mots

Clearly, it’s my training as a linguist, but having just heard a piece on The World Tonight that New York has apparently banned the "n-word", I have two reactions: that history is repeating itself, and that people are intensely misguided.

Their interviewee seemed worried that "young African-Americans" are increasingly using this word – to describe themselves and each other. So? I just imagine the local council (or any other governmental body) banning the word "queer", because it is being used "increasingly by gay people themselves". Surely the change in usage of this and a number of other formerly offensive terms has taught us that when a word used to denigrate a group is taken and used affirmatively by that group, it neutralises the negative connotations of the word in most contexts. Clearly, if I am called a queer by an overtly homophobic (straight) person, in a threatening way or in a way I interpret as insulting, it can still be a bad word. But preventing any group, particularly a minority and/or a group which has historically been the subject of hatred, from defusing terms of abuse is utterly misguided and ultimately damaging to the progress of that group.

This returns us to a wider point, with regard to "bad words" in general. It is still a common refrain for some to decry what some believe is an increasing use of formerly taboo terms, those four-letter words in particular. The man on the radio programme pointed to the history of the n-word, saying it was "poisonous" and should be avoided at all costs. Well, read any book on the history of English or any other well-documented language and you’ll see all sorts of words we use today in polite conversation that were once taboo. "Nice" for example, and "knave", if my GCSE English serves me well. Other words have gone the other way, such as the "c-word", which is sprinkled liberally through the works of Chaucer. So what? words change, all words change. Culturally-loaded terms can become banal, and others take their place. They mirror shifts in what language communities (read "societies") consider appropriate or not – witness the decline in the shock of blasphemy (in the true sense) in the West, and the rise of the offensiveness of derogatory terms for black people, gay people, women, Jewish people, and so on. Banning a single word or a whole book of them is not going to prevent hatred occurring, nor is it going to make the world a better place.

In the end, words only have so much meaning as they are given, by the person who says (or writes) them, and by those who listen to (or read) them. It’s the intent that matters – something that very few non-linguists seem to grasp. A word is a meaningless string of sounds (or written symbols) with no independent existence. Until a word is slotted into context – heard or read by someone who finds it meaningful – it remains anonymous, and innocuous. No word should ever be banned – even accepting that a ban will have no effect anyway. Although I am not concerned by the substance of this decision, I am troubled that so much ignorance remains where language is concerned. Let’s fight injustice, intolerance, and hatred – not their symbols.