The Linguistics of Name Calling
Kenneth Taylor

19 January 2013

我们本周的主题是骂人的语言学。This episode is sort of the linguistic companion of our episode onForbidden Words. On that one, we talked to a philosopher about the semantics of slurs that are so offensive that decent people just shouldn’t use them. On this episode, we’re going to look more at words like ass-hole, that are offensive enough to pack a punch, but aren’t offensive enough to be always inappropriate.

But let’s start at the beginning, with name calling in general. Name-calling is widely regarded as a bad thing. But from a linguistic perspective, it is an utterly fascinating phenomenon. And it’s begun to capture the attention of lots of linguists and philosophers partly for that reason. Now you might say that name-calling isregardedas a bad thing, because itisa bad thing! And I certainly admit, as I have already said, that decent people shouldn’t use words like the infamous N-word or the K-word as applied to Jewish people. But it’s important not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Take the word ‘asshole’ – such a marvelous little word, a true linguistic wonder. And it’s far less offensive than the mostly unspeakable N-word. The N-word is a terrible and ugly word. To call somebody the N-word is to imply they are inferior because of their race and therefore worthy of contempt. It’s to say something both false and uncalled-for. On the other hand, some people really are assholes. They deserve to be called what they are.

Of course, though ‘asshole isn’t as harsh name to call someone as the N-word, it probably still shouldn’t be used in polite speech. Suppose Barack Obama found himself thinking that Mitt Romney was being an asshole during one of their debates. Obama wouldn’t have dared call Romney an asshole in that context, even if Romney really was being one. Still, despite its impoliteness, ‘asshole’ is sometimes a perfectly apt word. That alone makes it different from the N-word – which is never apt, in any context.

这可能有助于区分三种不同的东西——三种不同的软贬义词，我将它们称为“混蛋”，比如“混蛋”这个词和更严厉的贬义词——比如“黑鬼”这个词。首先，像“琼斯是一个真正的混蛋”这样的陈述可以是完全正确的，也可以是完全错误的。单凭这一点就能区分“混蛋”和“黑鬼”。你永远不能把黑鬼这个词用在别人身上。那是因为要成为真正的N，一个人必须仅仅因为他的种族而可鄙。但是没有人会因为他们的种族而被鄙视。所以，当你用n字称呼某人时，你总是在说假话。至少我是这么认为的。可以肯定的是，发“S”的人可能会真诚地表达他们对被侮辱对象的蔑视，因此可能会觉得这种侮辱是适当的。但这并不意味着说话者说了一些真实的事情，报告了一个关于诽谤对象的事实。 Moreover, if I don't share your contempt for the target of your slur, you and I have what philosophers sometimes call a disagreement in attitude, not a disagreement over facts.

Now I maintain that the very act of calling someone the N-word is not just factually incorrect but deeply morally problematic. That's because to call someone the N-word isn't just to express one's individual contempt for that person, but also to buy into certain racists practices and stereotypes. Indeed, in the very calling one further perpetuates and endorses those practices and stereotypes. That’s part of why being called an N, stings so much -- because it's backed not just by the contempt of one person for another -- but by a whole institutionalized history of opression. (Notice I am setting aside appropriated uses of the N-word, which we talk about a great deal during our episode on Forbidden Words.) By contrast, though being called an asshole may certainly sting, it’s a different sort of sting. It's a sting entirely tied to another's assessment of your own character as an individual. For better or for worse, there is no history of institutionalized and socially sanctioned oppression against assholes. Moreover, unlike the sting of being called an N, the sting of being called an asshole, may be well-deserved. The sting of being called the N-word is, I think, never deserved.

Finally, there is the curious fact that even if it’s true that someone is in general or is just being on this occasion an asshole, it’s often just plainimpolitetocallsomeone an asshole. Apparently, some perfectly true things just shouldn't be said, at least not in every circumstance. This takes us back to an earlier point. The fact that ‘asshole’ is not a polite word, that can be uttered in any old context, is part of what gives it such power. Suppose you’re mistreating a student or an employee. Your wife pulls you aside and tells you face to face, in a firm but loving tone, to stop being such an asshole. You shouldn’t be offended; you should be grateful. Of course, if she said that same thing openly and in public, in front of all the people to whom you were being such an asshole, you might feel a bit differently.

That's because it’s one thing to lovingly admonish someone you care about, in private, with that word; it’s another thing to openly hurl it at somebody in the heat of an argument or in front of others. That’s likely to make things worse, not better. But that just shows how flexible, powerful and useful the word ‘asshole’ and other expressions of soft derogation can be. They are words that for good or ill, get people’s attention. They are really marvelous bits of language. They can be dangerous and coarsening, though. Rush Limbaugh habitually calls feminists “Femi-Nazis.” Some democrats habitually call republicans “Repugnants.” Who would deny that the use of such words has greatly coarsened our public discourse. The more we think and talk about each other in such terms, the less we’re prone to listen to each other respectfully. Unfortunately, though, the barrier between impolite speech and public discourse came tumbling down a long, long time ago. There’s probably no way to put it back again.

From a philosophical and linguistic standpoint, though, that may not be such a terrible thing. For it gives us a lot more to talk and think about here. Name-calling is clearly a fascinating thing, philosophically, linguistically, socially, morally, and politically. We’d love to know what you think about it. But do express your views in a civil way. No name calling please. That is, don't be an asshole about it! Okay?

Photo byJerry ZhangonUnsplash

Comments(21)

Guest's picture

Guest

Sunday, January 20, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

"On the other hand, some

"On the other hand, some people really are assholes. They deserve to be called what they are." This is why I love this show ;) lol!
But on the topic, these two words are very well contrasted by Prof. Taylor!
one word tied to your own character as an individual, the other, is tied to a history of institutionalized and socially sanctioned oppression!

Guest's picture

Guest

Sunday, January 20, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

In honor of Martin Luther

为了纪念马丁·路德·金和所有为自由而战斗和牺牲的人，我将称人类，不管它的颜色或贪婪是平等的，狮子是他的尾巴，宇宙是简单的，最美丽的，就是一个。
=

Fred Griswold's picture

Fred Griswold

Monday, January 21, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

As far as I know, no one's

As far as I know, no one's ever proven that the name-calling KT talks about has ever actually damaged anyone, in the sense of keeping anyone from getting housing, or getting a job, etc. I doubt if it ever has, and as a matter of fact, I don't see how it could. So I don't think that any convincing scientific case will ever be made against it. To me, the real question here is, if these epithets are in fact so harmless, then why do they draw such a strong reaction?
然而，对于任何正派的人来说，都很难接受这样的冒犯之词，无论他们的论据是赞成还是反对。所以，也许这应该被列入内森的科学之外的事情清单。

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Guest

Monday, January 21, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

The oft-spoken abbreviated

The oft-spoken abbreviated version of the A-Word was too much for some listeners on KUCR, or maybe just one UC administrator. Your show today (Jan 22) was cut off 5 minutes after its start, and replaced by a musical interlude.

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, January 21, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

Ernie is right; Michael lost

Ernie is right; Michael lost me after his first sentence; and Fred should do more some more research. "As far as I know" and "I doubt if it ever has" are unconvincing statements in any discourse where some level of enlightenment is at least a hope; if not an expectation. Derogation, whether it is profane (he is an asshole) or more benign (your mother was a chimpanzee), is essentially a tactic of distraction---used when the detractor has run out of relevant input and/or neutral witticism. Name-calling is probably about as old as language itself: detractors have always ran out of relevant input, etc. It is, further, linguistic artifice, intended to elicit reaction: the object of derogation must decide how he will respond to the asshole confronting him: walk away (asshole wins); deliver a snappy retort (50-50, or better for the object); or, beat the detractor senseless (positive outcome

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

Though Joe was getting on in

虽然乔年事已高，但他从未放弃年轻时的鲁莽。他吃错误的食物，抽烟，不需要锻炼，喜欢在酒吧消磨时间，仍然单身，继续追求年轻的女人，这些女人在很久以前就变得太快了，他追不上。乔身体的某个部位或其他部位反叛的情况越来越多，但每当这种情况发生时，乔只是去看医生，拿了一颗药丸，或者更严重的是打了一针，那让人讨厌的身体部位就安静下来了。
One night, while Joe was asleep, his body parts held a meeting. Noting how disastrously Joe was neglecting them, they quickly agreed that drastic action was urgent. They all agreed that they would all do their individual utmost to keep Joe functioning. They also agreed that they should make someone the boss to ensure that no body part was slacking off while the others were toiling, and they agreed that the body part with the most important function should be the boss.
Then the body parts began to make the case why they should be boss. The right hand made a particularly good case but then the heart spoke up and made an even stronger one. But then the brain spoke up and pointed out that it was the communication center of the body and sent out the messages that kept the hand and heart and other body parts operating in harmony.
Just when it seemed the brain was certain to be the boss, the rear end, who had been fuming because it had been ignored, piped up with, "I'll show you who's boss!" With that it plugged up so that nothing at all would pass.
Within a few days the right hand was swollen and unable to work; the heart was beating faintly and irregularly; and the brains messages were going astray or being largely ignored. An emergency meeting was held and the rear end was made boss.
Moral: You don't have to be a brain to be the boss; you just have to be an asshole.
And might not that say much about the state of the world today?

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

One of my favorites is

One of my favorites is "Pusillanimous Pile Of Protoplasm."
)))((((((
(·)...(-)
....u....
[____]

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

Oh yeah, I always attempt to

对了，我总是想把"屁眼"换成"痔疮"因为如果我们否认有肛门我们很快就会想念那个生物特征。混蛋很重要。
I also use, rather than "I don't give a rat's ass-hole," ...a muridaes' sphincter.

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

Thanks Arvo. I had forgotten

Thanks Arvo. I had forgotten that story. And, it is as true now as it was before.
Respects,
The Carpenter.

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, January 23, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

I only heard the last few

I only heard the last few minutes of the show but it seems something important was skipped over. Language is self-expression and it is through expressing ourselves in any manner that we form our self-concept or identity. So if we use the F-word, the A-word, the c-s-word, the s-b-word often, what are we saying about ourselves? That we are s-heads? Rather than raise our consciousness to moral, empathetic, feeling people, we stay as neanderthals, because what we express reciprocally affects how we behave and think-or don't think if we are so limited in our self-expression.
这也是一个语义问题。如果我们诉诸于谩骂或经常使用粗俗的语言，我们并不能真正表达出任何东西。是的，我们发泄了一些烦恼，甚至可能是愤怒，但你的妻子说你是个混蛋，即使是在私下里，也不等于“你当着那么多人的面问特朗普要他的品牌的发胶，你对他不敏感”。你不能理解"混蛋"这个词，只能对你的妻子生气。一整句关于你向特朗普提出的愚蠢问题的句子，可以让你了解其他人可能会如何看待你。这种重新定位让丈夫更好地面对现实。
So, if we are a nation that more openingly uses vulgarity and name calls, who are we? Are we regressing culturally?

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, January 24, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

A simple Way to clean up One

A simple Way to clean up One's life is to clean up One's own vocabulary,
美好的生活就是这样。
=

Fred Griswold's picture

Fred Griswold

Friday, January 25, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

That kind of discourse is

That kind of discourse is used all the time by scientists, Dave. Not to mention lawyers, politicians, and yes, philosophers. At least I use my participles right.

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, January 26, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

Yawn. I'll let my comments

Yawn. I'll let my comments stand on their own. Inasmuch as writing is not my profession, I would not expect kudos for sentence structure or participial prowess. If some find my ideas/comments inane or poorly expressed, I take solace in the knowledge that other people find them interesting. Occasionally, insightful. No worries here.
(note to Ken: I have tried, sincerely, to not be an asshole. Thanks for your tolerance.)
The Carpenter.

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

To John, of the Big River:

To John, of the Big River: Culture is difficult to track, in terms of progression or regression. In any traditional sense, we might say that our culture IS regressing. However, given the ever-present influence of popular culture, traditionalism is rapidly evaporating. We have enabled and embraced popular culture, while also adhering to racial and religious biases and stereotypes. It is a deadly mix. And, mostly, we do not even notice. I could say more, but if you agree, you can connect the dots. If not, you may (or have) construct(ed) your own model.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, January 31, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

(1) Remember the good old use

(1) Remember the good old use-mention distinction? It applies here. We should be able to mention "nigger" in quotes without being thought to be using the word. This "N-word" stuff seems childish.
(2) There's a purely descriptive sense in which one can speak of --these days metaphorically--"field niggers" and "house niggers." If the "one-percent" are running the show in this country, then the rest of us are niggers in the descriptive sense. The question then would be:
who's in the field and who's in the house? And then it occurs to us: "OMG, Obama's in the house, the White House, that is, and he (in George Carlin's sense) "happens to be black" (well, more like mulatto, but let's not put too fine a point on THAT).
And, like, almost everyone gets offended at this line of talk!

Guest's picture

Guest

Friday, February 1, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

Having read and re-read the

Having read and re-read the comments on this blog topic, and having called upon past knowledge and experience, I decided to say something about "the totality of the circumstances"---a quasi-legal term employed by associates of mine when I worked in a quasi-legal environment. I'll try to keep this brief, and, non-confrontational. Quite simply: words are weapons when employed as such. On an individual level, they have recently led to suicides among children who have been bullied, either face-to-face or over that modern wonder we call the internet: social networking soon becomes anti-social in the hands and minds of indolent, indulgent morons (oops). Long story short, if you can't say something nice, keep your trap shut. And don't try to convince the rest of us that words do not matter. History is not on your side.
The Doctor.

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Monday, February 4, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

PERIPHERAL ISSUE:

PERIPHERAL ISSUE:
While looking at another website a day or so ago, I noticed an advertised site which sounded interesting. So, I clicked it and got onto the opening page, which used the words publick and privat. Clearly, intentional misspellings. Being intrepid, and sure, nosy, I sent a comment to the grammatical offender, suggesting that he/she/they might consider cleaning up his/her/their act, linguistically speaking of course. Apparently, the site has no privacy guarantee---I must be more careful, I guess. Today, I opened an email from one Patrick Zimmerman, which read: Fok Yew. How quaint. And M. Zimmerman still cannot spell worth a damn!
Is this part of what this blog post has been about, or am I just psseng inn thee wynd?
Assholes do not offend me. I find them ignorant and pathetic. Well. Guess I'll just mined my ouned byzneez.
Deer mee---whot wood Stephen Pinker sey?

Fred Griswold's picture

Fred Griswold

Tuesday, February 19, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

I don't know if anyone's

我不知道是否有人会看这个，因为这个节目已经播出了很长时间，但我注意到这里有一两个我认为值得评论的事情。首先，要回答博士的帖子，我认为你必须区分霸凌和政治错误。Ken在介绍中给出的例子都是单独的词汇项。语言的单位是句子，而不是单词。肯给出的一句冒犯性的句子实际上可能是欺凌，但单个的词语不能——词语可能被视为政治不正确，也可能不被视为不正确，但它们只是词语而已。这两者的另一个区别是，欺凌案件只涉及一个受害者。政治正确的支持者希望数百万说英语的人改变他们的语言用法。对于这么多人来说，要做出这样的改变，就必须有一个相当可靠的论据，因此，反对政治正确的功利主义案例并不难。而政治正确的愚蠢之处，在变革到来时最容易看出来。几个月前，在某种程度上，“黑人”变成了一个禁忌词。 It wasn't taboo when I was a kid. I'd like someone to explain to me how this advances civilization.
There's another way to argue this. Back in the FDR days the left cared about things that mattered - labor unions, Social Security etc. Since then it's been a succession of things, from Vietnam, to feminism, to gay marriage, to political correctness etc. They've had varying degrees of importance and varying degrees of success. Meantime, look what's happened to unions and entitlements - there's not much left of the unions, the conservatives keep trying to privatize Medicare, Medicaid is a joke, etc. And the top two percent have had tax cuts since Eisenhower like there's no tomorrow. The left took its eye off the ball. Being able to add one more word to the taboo list doesn't seem like much consolation.
最后，我不记得以前在这个博客上看到过Laurent Beauregard这个名字。任何想发这样的帖子的人都应该愿意用自己的真名。

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

I am fascinated by the

I am fascinated by the etymology behind name calling as it's, very often, not what one might expect. I also think it's very interesting how an offensive word may be mundane several years later... A very interesting topic for most people who are interested in languages.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, February 21, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

"(1) Remember the good old

"(1) Remember the good old use-mention distinction? It applies here. We should be able to mention "nigger" in quotes without being thought to be using the word. This "N-word" stuff seems childish."
Unless the memory of your grandafther's lynching is still fresh.
That argument cuts both ways, i.e., it could easily be seen as childish to refuse to alter a single word to a more palatable form, one that does not invoke the potential dialogue distorting effect of the word-concept being alternatively signified - is it that big a strain?
我用了更多的词语来描述它，而不是去做它。
It's just a word, but it is associated with a fairly predictable negative emotional response in certain contexts.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, February 28, 2013 -- 4:00 PM

Everyone has an opinion about

Everyone has an opinion about this issue. Clearly. And that is where we are, culturally: because we are educated differently, seeing the world in a multitude of contexts---we are thereby compelled to react, based on those educated contexts. Some old yahoo said: The pen is mightier than the sword. A recent case here was driven (pun intended) home when a state law, effective today, said that texting while driving is unlawful. Oddly (to me, anyway), the application/enforcement of the new law will be decidedly unequal. Teenage drivers who are apprehended and convicted of driving while texting will face a $150 fine and six month suspension of their driving rights. Adults convicted of the same violation face a different, "secondary offense" punishment---which would appear to say: do like I say; not like I do. Kids recognize and hate hypocrisy. I know I did.
这么说，这条评论和谩骂没有直接联系?不，我想没有。但是，我们希望我们的孩子叫我们白痴吗——比他们现在更频繁地叫吗?我们在现代社会遇到的许多问题都是紧密交织在一起的。复杂性,我猜。我们写什么，说什么，会影响我们周围的人。总之，任何否认这一点的行为都是不合情理的。或者更糟:愚蠢的。