Verbal Tolerance
I work as a monitor in the GAC gym a few afternoons each week, and it’s an awesome job. I can read or do homework or play spider solitaire (addicted) or IM for hours without having to do much work at all, except for occasionally answering a question or asking my boss to lower more basketball hoops. A group of 15-30 guys come in from about 3:30-5:30 every day and play a pickup game of basketball, and while we typically just ignore each other, some sit immediately behind me to take a break and speak freely, assuming that I am not listening.
It’s fascinating to hear what their conversations are about as opposed to what student conversations in the student center or before class involve. Whoever these men are outside of the gym is stripped at the door: here it is all sports, agility, power, and testosterone. Earlier today I came back to my desk in the midst of one of those conversations, and all I heard were hushed murmurings, low laughter, and “…raped. Raped in the butt.” I know most of these guys to be courteous, respectful, and polite (at least to me), but sometimes there are some really sketchy characters, and apparently these were the latter.
I don’t know what they were talking about, but what interested me was that they felt so carefree in not only discussing but seemingly making fun of rape, but could not bring themselves to say “ass,” something I hear frequently in here (actually, much worse). Why would that person find it okay to joke about forced sexual acts, but made uncomfortable by a slightly improper term for an anatomical feature that we all have? I might just be overreacting, but it seemed odd that such a casual reference to something so deeply immoral was dandy, but a slight digression into a term that would be deemed profane on most of Harding’s campus could not be uttered.
I came to the conclusion that I was overreacting, probably because I know someone whose life was completely devastated when she was raped. This personal insight I have with the term often makes me listen a little closer, squirm a little, or become offended when people use it so lightly. I know this to be the case with other terms like referring to something stupid as “retarded,” something disliked as “gay,” someone moody as “bipolar,” or casually saying something like “I’d kill myself if that happened to me.” To the person saying such things, it’s no big deal, just a way of expressing themselves. To the people who have experienced or know someone who has experienced being raped, mentally challenged, homosexual, bipolar, or suicidal, the words take on a very deep emotional meaning.
What’s my point? I don’t know that I have one. I could say something about being more tolerant and thinking before you speak, but I don’t think most people realize how many are offended by those terms (and Lord knows I don’t always think before I open my mouth). I could say something about how people tend to say things in confidence that are much more likely to be vulgar or offensive than they would publicly (duh). I could say something about how sometimes, free speech is abused. I could say something about how even our president slips every once in a while with a joke about the Special Olympics. I guess what I’m really saying is this: try to be tolerant and accepting. I realize that my world of blogging and feminism means as little to the guys I am surrounded by as does their world of three-point shots and fouls to me. Still, I try my best to appreciate them for what they do. We don’t always understand where other people are coming from, but a little tolerance and respect goes a long way.
I think you are absolutely right that our own positions in life and our experiences change how we use and hear language. Some people hear racially offensive things where I do not, just like some are hurt by some of the words and phrases you mentioned. There is no easy answer to fixing all of the pain that various people have because of their pasts. I guess maybe the best possible approach is to try to be as curteous and and sensitive as possible.
One other thing that the listeners of such language can do is to give others the benefit of the doubt. When I hear people say things that could be insensitive, I try not to assume any ill intention. I just understand that everyone says things that they don’t mean to be hurtful, but can be occasionally.
This reminds me of another point. Words are like weapons. The power of language to shape mindsets and culture is amazing (and, like weaponry, potentially destructive). This struck me the second time I read through this article.
Many of the words and phrases you mention and others that come to mind reflect destructive societal forces at play. I just want to look at two in particular.
Rape – rape is a word that is thrown around far too often and far too casually. Even giving the individual speakers the benefit of the doubt does not cover that our culture has failed to take this as seriously as it needs to. I think most in our culture do not realize how incredibly destructive rape is – or else there is no way they would casually use such a word.
Gay – the use of this word as a synonym for something being bad is quickly becoming unacceptable in society, and that is a good thing. But the history of that word shows the deep disgust that many have for people who are homosexual.
It is interesting to see how language changes to reflect cultural change, and how it catalyzes cultural change. I wonder how language and culture will evolve with these words and phrases you bring up over the next couple of generations. Will our children and grandchildren still joke about rape and mockingly call things gay, or will those words become like “nigger” has today – unacceptably vile.
Well said.
Agreed. The spoken word has been given little thought in these latter generations. It seems mankind has stripped words of their meaning by overuse and verbally vomiting willy nilly.
I remember being taught in elementary English class how the written word and the spoken word were two different species of communication. That line now seems to have disappeared. Thankfully, while at Harding, Mrs. Gowen impressed upon me the fact that words, in any form, can never truly be rescinded. The second one’s thought becomes oratory, it changes the world. It’s a fact that many folk disregard.
We have become a verbal society; just words expressed rather than any true conveyance of ideas.
* Outside of politics obviously. Politics is ripe with semantics and rhetoric.
Mr. Tuesday, you cranky old man…
Just kidding.
But seriously, I don’t think your critique of “these latter generations” is especially valid. The point is that the difference between flippant use, offensive use, and meaningful use of language is completely relative. It is relative to the people speaking and the people hearing (or writing-reading).
For instance, older generations used language to describe women that was destructive in its flippancy. Lots of words and phrases were used to diminish the importance of women in society, from “that old bird” to “little old lady” to a host of other things. The same is true for language that was flippantly used by older generations to describe black people – “niggers,” “negroes,” “boy,” and others.
Perhaps it’s not a valid comment to this article. My point was that the word “nigger” held much more power in any form during the Civil Rights Movement, where as when it is sung in Rap songs today or uttered between two friends of African heritage, it holds as much water as “pal.”
I call my friend “sucka” all the time, though I don’t take him for a person who is easily deceived, and yes, I can be a stodgy niggard at times, but I refuse to be old and narrow.
Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about this till you mentioned it, but I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone, after finishing a difficult exam, talked about how they were raped by it or how it “bent them over”.
I don’t think anyone means to be offensive by saying these things, but careless words can certainly still be hurtful ones.
Mr. T, you crack me up. Those are all good points, but I think they just further reinforce the idea that language is completely relative in its meaning/flippancy/whatever.
“Nigger” was used flippantly for decades before the civil rights movement even began. It was just what white people called black people.
Then “nigger” was used in a very strong and often intentionally hurtful way during and after the civil rights movement (even to today).
Now, “nigger” is used flippantly again by an entirely different source in an entirely different way.
It all seems very relative to me, and doesn’t necessarily show a trend of “this latter generation” destroying language that was once respected as sacred. If anything, the modern political correctness movement shows that a lot of people are thinking more about the words they say and the impact is has, not less.
David,
While I do think the trend of political correctness is increasing and that shows the amount of foresight people have as far as offending others goes today, I do not think that is true for the improved quality of language and communication overall.
Vocabularies are dismally low compared to those of previous centuries, and language and communication in and of themselves are lacking vitality and truncated. I think people in general are getting lazier and will settle for the lowest form of expression they can find that will get their point across. Is there anything wrong with that? Maybe not. Maybe it’s nicer to have everything more concise and easy to understand. But I can definitely understand why Mr. Tuesday might have said that the spoken word has been given little thought recently.
David – It’s about time someone christened the Mr. T moniker. Cheers!
Heather – Exact. It’s a lazy public looking for the lowest form of expression; I obviously couldn’t have said it better myself.
“Vocabularies are dismally low compared to those of previous centuries…”
I think this is another one of those myths of the grand old past. I know a lot of people say stuff like this (especially curmudgeonly old men), but that doesn’t make it true.
I doubt that vocabularies were all that great in previous centuries, because most adults could not read or write at all, and that was not that long ago.
Just in the US: in 1870, 20% of the adult population was illiterate (and likely had very poor vocabularies). Today, much less than 1% of the adult population is illiterate.
http://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp
I think there is a perception that “back in the day…” people were smarter and more thoughtful, but I don’t believe that myth anymore.
I would say that people were less well read “back in the day,” but I also submit that those who were held much more esteem for the vocabulary they did possess.
Don’t you think that literate elite is still around? It’s just that the bottom part has moved from illiterate to literate. So the overall average has gone up, but the average literacy of literate people may have gone down?
You’re provoking me with that “curmudgeonly old men” comment, aren’t you? Now I’m all up in arms.
Mr. Tuesday is correct. Though fewer people may have been literate, those who were had to make up for everyone else, and that’s how you get books like Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter filled with passages like this:
“Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.”
Whereas today, it might say something like this: “The sailors had a superstitious fear that, whenever a whale spout was announced, it was always Moby Dick, luring them on to their doom.”
Of course, that’s just one example, but it’s an example from a characteristic 19th century novel, written as any novel is to appeal to the literary community. Moby Dick wouldn’t have sold in 1851 if it used the same vocabulary we do today.
Aren’t there still books that are written today that appeal to the literary elite? I see those books everywhere. The dumbed-down books are in addition to those, not in place of.
Yes, but what is the percentage of the literary elite books to the dumbed-down ones?
In the 19th century, books had to be relatively short, but extremely rich in vocabulary, theme, and context. Do you know who’s on the best sellers list for today? Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series. Those books are terrible. They overuse what few good vocabulary words she knows (chagrin), the themes are potentially harmful for the girls who read them (find the “perfect man” to control your life, and your inferiority complex will be replaced with complete adoration!), and they are comprised of 400-500 pages of basically worthless plot.
Today, it isn’t important that you appeal to the morality or philosophical nature of humans to sell books. It’s important that your plot is interesting and your binding is thick.
. . seamen . . (snicker)
Lolol.
To be more serious, I don’t think there’s any way of knowing how the ‘literate elite’ of today compare to previous eras, although I agree with David that base literacy is more widespread today, thank God. There are still plenty of books/movies/works of other art that 5 percent or less of the population has ever heard of, and I think it will always be that way.
To answer another point of yours David, I think vocabulary is a cheaper skill nowadays that it’s pretty easy to hop on a computer and look up a word you don’t understand. Walking around with the voluminous knowledge in your head was much more impressive when Boswell or whomever was doing it.
Bestsellers have always been crap. The publishing industry, throughout its history, is fraught with mediocre-at-best novels that people enjoy. It’s not at all a contemporary phenomena. We look back at the lit. of the 19th century fondly because there’s over a century of filtering keeping out the bad, popular books.
Sure, Melville wrote beautifully but if you open nearly any page of Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow you’ll find language and syntax that is equally poetic, difficult, and beautiful. We as a culture (and especially English majors, profs., etc.) tend to fetishize the old. I am too often guilty of the same offense.
Lastly, why should be begrudge books like Twilight its popularity? The fact is that Meyer’s books have millions of people (most of them young) reading something when they probably wouldn’t otherwise have reason to pick up a book. It may not happen for everyone, but reading something tends to make the reader want to read something else. Twilight could be a very good thing for the written world. That being said, I doubt I’ll ever even consider reading it.
I don’t begrudge it the fact that it’s making girls (and boys) read, but it isn’t sending a good message out. I realize a fan girl base is natural, but this isn’t just pre-teen girls who want a boyfriend, this is college-aged girls stereotyping a dangerous, overprotective, dominating stalker as the perfect boyfriend, and waiting around for someone like that to find them in real life. The main character feels she has found true love because he tells her he loves her with poetic lines, and it is when he constantly reassures her that he does, in fact, care for her, that she begins to achieve the smallest amount of self-confidence, and even then she second-guesses it at every step.
My problem isn’t that Stephenie Meyer has appealed to a broad fan base with a decent plot and fairly good writing; then I would rebuke J. K. Rowling, as well. My problem is that she has done so with a weak female lead who encourages girls to depend solely on their male significant others and to only feel strong, beautiful, or worthy after they have that man by their side and completely changing the course of their lives.
I haven’t read any of the ‘Twilight’ books, full disclosure, but I have a lot of friends who are gaga over them. This is interesting though–my nephew came over the other day, said he’d rented the movie in a moment of weakness (he likes comic book and vengeance movies, thought the vampire angle might be enough to be interesting). He said ‘so this guy is like 200 years old right?’ I said, I think it’s something like that. And he goes ‘and she’s fifteen? I couldn’t watch it because that’s disgusting.’
Stephenie Meyer–Mormon mom. I don’t exactly expect her to be Germaine Greer. It is disappointing though that you don’t find what you’re talking about Heather more in popular fiction–and in all fairness maybe it’s there, just not a runaway hit like ‘Twilight’ and I don’t have a kid young enough to know.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133026805706&ref=nf
Verbal Tolerance or Verbal domination? Could it be that use of one term over the other, (in my case not being one to banty about four (or 3)letter words myself, we are fortunate to be able to have the examples of the A word and the B word) might relate to the use of the two in other contexts? Meaning while discussing a reprehesible act they might wish to compartmentalize the victim from themselves. Meaning also that an act performed on them by someone is not the same as an act performed by them on another? And even more so is it important to protect the use of the language in the case of hetero vs. homo interactions? Is it a potential cultural bit of information that men reserve the right to use B and A is for women? BTW: I am not a psychologist – “not that there is anything wrong with that”. Nor one of them to which its reference became a familiar punchline.
perhaps, heather, you should check out the book “Everything Bad Is Good For You” by Steven Johnson? It may just help with your chronic pessimism with respect to modern culture. anyway, here’s the wikipedia entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Bad_Is_Good_For_You
My recent crack (ouch) on interactions was hopefully not lost in the cultural wind. (ew) I see now that several comments have related it to power dynamics, and I would add humor as another factor in dealing with positions. (Was a pun intended?) Not that I know. (But just another angle on the components of communications and relations.)
As far as literary elites, I think that volume and techonology, not to mention progress or lack of some, explains the difficulty in finding the so called good in things. It is probably market dynamics that have ruined if not just made it hard to find the good. On the other hand, is that not a force of the market?
Google’s April Fools joke this year pokes fun at vocabulary evolution. http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com/. Great stuff!
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, I feel like I’ve completely abandoned this thread (mostly because I have). It’s been a really intense paper-writing and getting-ready-for-a-mini-vacation week.
@Leroy: I’m afraid I don’t understand your first comment, which is probably error on my behalf. Are you referring to the A and B words as “ass” and “butt” and simply refraining from actually saying them, or something else? Please clarify.
@j ball: Thanks, it looks interesting. I don’t mean to come off as shunning all modern literature or culture; the truth is, as Ian said, that my education stresses the importance and influence of past literature. It’s easier to extol past writers for the works that have been highly acclaimed for decades, even centuries now, than to defend and praise today’s writers, for me. Plus, it was just a good opportunity to hate on Twilight. Eck.
@Mr Tuesday: Lol. Love the pandas.
Heather. Wow! Great post! Excellent thoughts.
Thanks, Edward!
You say you “know most of these guys to be courteous, respectful, and polite,” but do you think it possible that you have potentially labeled these guys before they even opened their mouths and spoke of rape?
As a former college athlete at HU that dealt with the tiresome struggles of athletic stereotypes, I found myself endlessly classified and typed by peers and professors before I was ever given the opportunity to, well, be myself. Yes, these men loosely said things that could be labeled as insensitive, but my question is, would be be wrong to think that you already dawned these men “ignorant” and “macho” with preconceived stereotypes before they ‘offended’ you? Maybe you were subconsciously, or even consciously, waiting in the GAC each day for them to slip up and say something that would fit the fabricated label you had already bestowed upon them.
Think openly; we do this a lot more then we want to admit. I know I am shamefully guilty of stereotyping. How about you?
Jt,
I’m sorry you were stereotyped, and apologize if this has offended you. Yes, I do know most of them to be courteous, respectful, and polite, because a few of these guys talk to me as they are preparing to play or to leave. They are typically funny, easygoing, and friendly to me. We’ve had some thefts at the GAC recently and this kid misplaced his ipod. I found it and he thanked me profusely and has continued to do so whenever he sees me.
I try my best to think openly every day about everyone I am surrounded by because I have been judged ungraciously in the past and it’s just a good method of thought. I tried to make my article clear in pointing out a few uncharacteristically rude, disrespectful, and shady players who sometimes come in, instead of painting them all with one brush. I apologize if this was not evident. Please do not put words like “ignorant” and “macho” into my mouth; I never said them, nor intended to. I am merely stating that not everyone who comes in to play basketball is as friendly. There is a reason for the stereotypes you suggest, and while I am not labeling every HU student athlete as someone who jokes about rape, you can’t deny that some of them do, and that these guys are the reason why the stereotypes exist.
I’ve read your initial blog and the comments about the power of the word and they can be weapons, etc. I did not find any comment about the statement that our President made about Special Olympics. I know those words must have been hurtful to friends and family and the members of Special Olympics; why did you not comment about his use of words? I’m sure if President Bush had said something like that, shock waves would still be felt. Words once spoken cannot be brought back.
Um…I did.
“I could say something about how even our president slips every once in a while with a joke about the Special Olympics.”