You Can't Say That!
Or can you? On the culture wars and "forbidden" words.
You’re reading Wait, Really? — a newsletter unpacking what's in the culture, with a feminist spin. Want to get it in your inbox? Sign up below.
“Gypsy” — the name of a popular song by Fleetwood Mac, shorthand for a person who is itinerant, or an offensive slur?
“Unhoused” — a way of talking about people without a home that doesn’t hold the stigma of “homeless,” or an unnecessary and confusing euphemism for the same thing?
“Folx” — a more inclusive way of addressing a group, or an overly intellectualized spin on an already gender-neutral term?
The rules of language seem to be ever-shifting these days, with genuine confusion over what a well-meaning person can say without offending someone.
Many of us struggle with this on a practical level, especially around this time of year. Gathered around holiday tables, a neighbor uses a word that makes you cringe or a cousin, one semester into college, flashes a disapproving glare. You mean you didn’t know that calling something “crazy” was a violent, ableist slur?!
As a writer, I think about these shifts probably more than I should. How do I effectively, but also respectfully, write about certain groups of people? When should I take into account individual preferences for words or titles, even when they make things harder for readers to understand? Who makes these rules? Who should make them? (And why aren’t they distributed?) And how much of our changing linguistic choices are happening only among an elite few?
I often interrupt this spiral by reminding myself of successful, and important, efforts to change language from the past. In the 1970s, for instance, feminists fought to “de-sex” language. Terms like “policeman” became “police officer.” “Stewardess” became “flight attendant.”
This was ultimately a good thing, and many of these terms have stuck. And yet these days, in an effort to be “inclusive” (a word that, like “diversity” before it, seems to have lost all meaning), it can seem as if we have lost the plot — arguing over pronouns while trans rights are eroded; debating whether “differently abled” or “neurodivergent” or “able-bodied” or “person with a disability” is the most sensitive language while millions of those people struggle for basic support and safety; dragging each other for using outdated abortion language instead of actually fighting for abortion rights.
Language is a diagnostic, the linguist Robin Lakoff once told me; it reflects the beliefs of a particular moment in time. And sometimes linguistic relics need a necessary push out the door.
On the one hand, it’s sobering to see just how much of American English is rooted in mockery and -isms — or at the very least can send misleading messages. “Lame,” for something uncool, was once a word to describe a person with real physical impairment. “Peanut gallery” comes from the areas in the back of vaudeville-era theaters where Black people typically sat. “Seminal” — a word for greatness — comes from “semen,” which is Latin for “seed.” (So does this imply that only those who possess “seed” are destined to be great?)
On the other hand, to what extent are we just tripping over euphemisms?
This week, a couple of colleagues at The Times and I decided to test that question. With the help of the polling firm Morning Consult, we asked a representative sample of over 4,000 Americans how they’d respond to a handful of words whose “rules” we believe are still unsettled. (Words like “spirit animal,” “Third World” and “master bedroom” — which some have opted to call “primary” because of the connotation around “slavemaster.”)
You can check out the responses here, and take our quiz with your family around your holiday dinner table (!) to see how you compare to the general public. You can also read a discussion between myself and the Columbia University professor and linguist John McWhorter.
Happy holidays — and enjoy!
Note: A version of this post originally appeared in the “Opinion Today” newsletter of The New York Times.
Why not if not Jess? I'd love to know.