AliceFraser
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Screw Euphemisms. Saying what you mean might be less offensive.
🕑 Added 2016-10-27 02:29:13 +0000 UTC TW for strong language, by definition: I'm discussing loaded language in this post, and will go with quotation marks rather than censor asterisks because I want to consider the impact of the words I'm examining.-
If you worry that you might have a problem with that stylistic choice, click away now (or if you really want to read, cut-and-paste into microsoft word, and do a pre-emptive find-and-replace on words you might feel to be deeply unsettling)
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Let's think about blunt speech. A lot of what we consider blunt and confronting speech is actually euphemistic. We use it to avoid saying what we actually mean.
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"Man up" is considered offensive by some people because it implies that men are strong, and by implication that women are weak. It is the corollary of, "don't be such a girl", "don't be a pussy", and "stop being a bitch".
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What it's actually meant to mean is "Don't be a coward", or "be brave".
Why do we feel more uncomfortable asking someone to display a moral characteristic than execute a physical (gendered & therefore loaded) one ("grow some balls")?
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All of the above euphemisms imply a hierarchy, deriving as they do from a history of gender hierarchy, and (arguably) feeding back into it and reinforcing it with their continued use. They have become loaded with the implications of that historically sexist binary.
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The kind of cultural baggage that went into making feminine epithets more negative and masculine descriptors more positive went unexamined for a long time, but is now being examined and questioned, and (sometimes annoyingly) called out.
Similarly loaded insults include "retarded" as a euphemism for foolish, "gay" as a euphemism for "lame", which is itself a euphemism for "not good". PROBLEMATIC.
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I don't feel great about the overuse of the word problematic in certain discourses, because IMO, it's often a very selective way of punishing things you don't like because you don't like them, and overlaying a sheen of malice onto things that may be innocent or well meaning. Jumping on word use can also be a way of feeling like you're fixing a problem, when you're actually jumping on the symptom. And that's dangerous.
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Masking a symptom without dealing with the underlying disease is a recipe for someone running a marathon pepped up on cold and flu medicine and dying of a heart-attack.
I don't think it's great for progress. Problematic is a problematic term.
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People who object to the problematisation of words say things like, "it's just language", or "it doesn't mean that any more". Which is equally (or more) useless.
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People who problematise language accuse word-use of feeding into toxic attitudes which lead to dehumanisation and violence. I think there's a reasonable middle path to walk.
(Unless we can solve inequality, in which case, everyone can use whatever flippin' words they like)
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But here's a relatively simple solution to at least part of the problem.
Why not say what you actually mean, if you can? Rather than using the words that you know are going to hurt or annoy or turn people off (if you do know that). You don't need to look for an alternative inoffensive euphemism! You can just say what you mean!
Don't be a coward.
Display some moral integrity.
Be brave.
Stop being mean.
Comments
Going with the verve of your post Alice ... Or FFS, "Man up" may be just a verbal abbreviation, much like For Fucks Sake. Good post though I think you've got it backward, people do the dance of verboseness is order not to offend. Or turn people off. Oh to have the forthrightness of an elderly relative at Christmas dinner!
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