Pen's Tumblings

Words have power

Doing something regrettable is R’ed.

Semicolons are transvestite hermaphrodites.

Something a bit old-hat or pathetic is gay.

A temper-tantrum is a paddy.

To not pay your debt is to welch.

Hard work is N-work.

Something thrown together is N-rigged.

Or if you are in Northern Ireland the latter is, “a bit paddy looking”, whereas something well done and tidy is “Protestant looking.”

At least one of these terms will likely make you smile. At least one will make someone think, “what’s the big deal with that?”

Each one of these is offensive to someone.

Don’t believe words have power? Ask someone who has lived with hearing words used as weapons against them.

When I was little my mother would never tolerate us using the word “stupid”, not in any context. We couldn’t call each other stupid, and you know siblings just love to call each other stupid, or anything anyone did stupid. Mum made it clear, “that’s not a nice word and we don’t use it.”

I know a lot of people like to say, “it’s just a word, it only means what it means and nothing else.”

Well, to them I say, “nonsense.”

I don’t know whether they genuinely believe that or are being deliberately obtuse, after all, if we don’t see a significance to our actions we don’t have to address them.

Back in the ’80s people first began talking about how we speak, some of it was daft. You couldn’t say, “short”, it had to be, “vertically challenged”, except everyone thought that meant someone who couldn’t stand, perhaps due to drunkenness. Bald people became, “follicly challenged”, except it wasn’t that THEY were challenged in the follicle department but that the follicles were challenged in the hair producing department.

Those who didn’t agree liked to point out these terms, they liked to claim they were OTT and that therefore everything was OTT. Then others said, we’ve always said that and we mean no harm so we’re going to keep saying it, if it upsets you learn to be not upset.

Some people have tried to do this. Words have been taken back, reclaimed by the groups at whom they were aimed as derogatory, if they lose their power they lose their ability to cause pain.

I am all for that. All for it.

That doesn’t mean, to me anyway, that we can be obtuse. If you belong, or identify as belonging to a group and want to claim a term for yourself, great. That is not the same as someone bandying it around with abandon and then saying, “they use it themselves so I’m going to keep doing it.” Not when we know that what lies behind the words use is the idea that the group referenced is somewhere worthy of scorn or mockery.