How far must we take political correctness?
Written by Anh Nguyen| Edited by Sadhika Raj, Sobh Saeed | Designed by Jasmine Shek
Are words like “woman” and “female” sexist? Or is the word “blackmail” racist?
Should we rewrite “woman” as “womyn” or get rid of “black-something” because it can be considered to have a spiteful impact on the Black population?
In times where sensitivity surrounding language seems to have become heightened, things can be taken a bit too far, distracting us from the real issues.
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For a better understanding, here are a few key definitions.
What is morphology?
Morphology is the study of “forms” of words concerning meaning.
What is semantic narrowing?
Semantic narrowing is when words are narrowed to mean a specific thing.
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For instance, in the forms of words such as ‘woman’, the changing language sensitivity has imposed a morphological interpretation that says:
Woman= ‘wo’ + ‘man’, with ‘man’ referring to the gender.
However, the etymology of ‘man’ shows that it initially means 'person in general'. And the ‘wo’ came from ‘wife', which was used to refer to ‘female’ in Old English.
So, in short, this word’s construction is not inherently sexist. Woman = female person.
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However, the fact that the word ‘man’- folk has evolved to mean specifically ‘male’ - gender proves that the semantic narrowing favors male dominance?
Right?
Well...no, not really. One has to understand that in the evolution of language, there is a whole lot of luck and arbitrariness that factors in. Although culture might play a role, it is not the decisive factor in determining the fate of a word’s meaning.
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All of the previously mentioned points bring me to the title: yes, although, understandably, ‘female’ or ‘blackmail’ can be interpreted as sexist or racist respectively, semantically they are not inherently ‘bad’.
Yes, there are going to be words that sound offensive. Yes, language is a messy business, and it will always be. But it would be unproductive of us to try and erase all the ‘bad’ words because of the pejorative connotation that its morpheme may carry.
Even though words are like loaded guns, we don’t always have to pull the trigger.
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This has been only a short overview, so if you want to look into this, here are some suggestions for further reading/listening:
‘Words, For Her’ - Lexicon Valley, hosted by John McWhorter
(the etymology of words for females, and do check out his other episodes if you are interested in linguistics. He also touches on semantic evolution.)
‘Defining What Matters’ - Silence is Not an Option, hosted by Don Lemon
(questioning the productivity of some activism, in regards to language)
‘Mythologies’ - Roland Barthes
(about the arbitrariness between meaning and form)
Sources:
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Vintage Classic, 2009
McWhorter, John. “Words for Her - Lexicon Valley”. Lexicon Valley, Spotify,2018: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5DPOH7GFsmW9b1SZgTbhNK?si=IpydcwCVRlyRyqehEGIB6A
Lemon, Don. “Define What Matters- Silence is Not an Option”, CNN, Spotify,2020:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6PbBYd4sxJx82cVddAyt2b?si=2XzT1I5gShOZDkDaoO9Hng