I am a sucker for an online linguistic survey. Recently, I saw a tweet about this survey, being done by a PhD student in Helsinki, about attitudes towards offensive language in English. I jumped right on it.
It then got me thinking about this post that I wrote over two years ago (originally published on 10 June 2012). Here it is, with some minor edits, but still with no pictures.
Read, comment, then go take the survey! Continue reading
I originally posted this on 10 June 2010, just over a year ago. The issue of reclaiming derogatory terms for gender, racial, ethnic, or sexual identities is an ongoing struggle, and a controversial one at that.
Yes, he was missing a leg. Didn't keep him from a good fiesta, though!
For a blog post, I suppose it’s a bit long, but for the subject matter, I feel I barely covered the overview. This was also after my beloved Gomer Pyle passed away, but Zelda and Mrs. Parker were still in the future. So alas, no cat pictures to accompany the discussion! So here’s one of Gomer, just for good measure.
Hope you enjoy the post! I’d love to hear what you think of it.
On 23 July 2009, Henry Louis Gates was arrested on his own porch in Cambridge, MA for disorderly conduct. A neighbor thought he had been breaking in, the police were called, and then, though Dr.Gates’ identity and residence status had been confirmed, he was arrested. Judging from all reports and comments by people who would understand far better than me, the incident was an unfortunate case of wounded pride on both sides. I come to that conclusion, of course, having no personal knowledge of not only the events but the potential lingering racial issues that may or may not have led up to the arrest. Continue reading
On 23 July 2009, Henry Louis Gates was arrested on his own porch in Cambridge, MA for disorderly conduct. A neighbor thought he had been breaking in, the police were called, and then, though Dr.Gates’ identity and residence status had been confirmed, he was arrested. Judging from all reports and comments by people who would understand far better than me, the incident was an unfortunate case of wounded pride on both sides. I come to that conclusion, of course, having no personal knowledge of not only the events but the potential lingering racial issues that may or may not have led up to the arrest.
(My favorite part of the story, of course, is the “Beer Summit” that President Obama held on 30 July which brought the professor and the officer together. “Okay guys, just cool it and we’ll hash it out over a couple of beers.” The only thing that would have made it more iconically male would have been if they’d met in a townie bar somewhere. I will try not to be disappointed that the President preferred to drink Bud Light.)
Imagine my surprise when I came out from under my rock to realize that I had just taught an essay written by Dr.Gates entitled “What’s in a Name.” Although perfectly aware of the Cambridge incident, I had somehow failed to link the name from the news story to the name of the author of the essay in my writing textbook. In this essay, he describes an incident from his childhood about seeing a white man respectfully use the derogatory term “George” to address the author’s father at a drug store fountain shop.
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As a Linguist... 