"Innocuous" slurs

This is our main forum. Here, anything related to languages and linguistics can be discussed.

Moderator:Forum Administrators

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)
"Innocuous" slurs

Postby linguoboy » 2020-06-18, 21:34

Recently, I fielded a question from an English-learner about the use of "boy" as a term of address. It was a reasonable question, as equivalents of "boy" are used affectionately in many languages. However, because of the peculiar history of race relations in the USA, this word is extremely offensive when used by a white person to a Black male of any age.

This got me thinking of "innocuous slurs". There are many slurs that are simply slurs; they are always insulting, regardless of the context, and have no other uses. But there are a lot of other words which are only slurs when used in a certain way in a certain context. They have other meanings, and they are generally "innocuous" when used with these meanings. Obviously, these types of slurs are going to be the trickiest for learners, since the insulting meanings are often unpredictable and specific to particular contexts. You have to know something about the culture and even the relationships of the speakers to know whether they're being used as slurs and not as ordinary words.

Because of its long history of white supremacy, the USA has a lot of these terms related to race. After blatant slurs became uncommon in "polite society", coded terms started to come into use. Here's a sampling:

  • In some dialects of American English "you people" is an ordinary informal second-person plural. But in the US South, where "y'all" is the usual plural form used, "you people" has racial overtones when used by a person of one race to members of another.
  • It's common in many languages to compare active children to "apes" or "monkeys". But because of an ugly history of racist caricature equating Blacks with primates, these terms are highly offensive when applied to Black children, even accidentally (e.g. when describing a mixed-race group of children).
  • "Thug" can be used generically in American English to refer to brutish, intimidating men. (E.g. "hired thug", someone paid to threaten someone else with physical violence.) But due to coded usage over the years (e.g. "inner-city thugs"), it's become increasingly racialised, carrying the implication that all Black men are intimidating and dangerous. (When Trump recently referred to protesters in Minneapolis as "these THUGS", it was widely interpreted as a coded racist reference or "dog whistle".)
  • The dictionary definition of "articulate" when applied to people is "speaking in a clear and effective manner". However, since white folks have a common stereotype of Blacks as uneducated and hard-to-understand, using it to describe a Black person who speaks without a stereotypical "Blaccent" is considering condescending at best.
  • On the subject of speech, men have often described women as "shrill" when they wish to be dismissive of their opinions and their willingness to voice them, to the point that this is no longer a neutral description of the tone of a person's voice.
I could go on, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what I mean. So what are some similar "innocuous slurs" in your own languages a learner should be aware of?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Car » 2020-06-20, 11:15

The "Uncle Ben's" debate is a good one. Go to Facebook pages of German news sites (I guess it's the same in many other countries) and people write they always thought it was just a nice uncle who happened to be black, people tend to associate lots of positive attributes with him.
BTW: Before the debate started, that's how I felt about it, too. I remember being surprised when I was younger that they actually used a black guy and not a white guy since that simply wasn't common.
Please correct my mistakes!

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby linguoboy » 2020-06-20, 17:55

Car wrote:The "Uncle Ben's" debate is a good one. Go to Facebook pages of German news sites (I guess it's the same in many other countries) and people write they always thought it was just a nice uncle who happened to be black, people tend to associate lots of positive attributes with him.

Are you talking about the familiar use of "Uncle" here? Otherwise there's not much I can see to connect your post with mine.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Car » 2020-06-20, 20:44

linguoboy wrote:
Car wrote:The "Uncle Ben's" debate is a good one. Go to Facebook pages of German news sites (I guess it's the same in many other countries) and people write they always thought it was just a nice uncle who happened to be black, people tend to associate lots of positive attributes with him.

Are you talking about the familiar use of "Uncle" here? Otherwise there's not much I can see to connect your post with mine.

Yes. Since people just weren't aware how "Uncle" can/is/was used in the US, too.
Please correct my mistakes!

User avatar
md0
Posts:8188
Joined:2010-08-08, 19:56
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby md0 » 2020-06-21, 8:45

There's also 'malicious friends' and destructive transfer from L1. You may be shocked to hear a Greek speaker use 'the coloureds' in English. The Greek calque is still considered quite respectful in Greek.
"If you like your clause structure, you can keep your clause structure"
Stable: Cypriot Greek (el-cy)Standard Modern Greek (el)English (en) Current: Standard German (de)
Legacy: France French (fr)Japanese (ja)Standard Turkish (tr)Elementary Finnish (fi)Netherlands Dutch (nl)

User avatar
Gormur
Posts:8190
Joined:2005-05-17, 1:11
Real Name:Gormur
Gender:male
Country:CUCuba (Cuba)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Gormur » 2020-06-21, 9:17

Car wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Car wrote:The "Uncle Ben's" debate is a good one. Go to Facebook pages of German news sites (I guess it's the same in many other countries) and people write they always thought it was just a nice uncle who happened to be black, people tend to associate lots of positive attributes with him.

Are you talking about the familiar use of "Uncle" here? Otherwise there's not much I can see to connect your post with mine.

Yes. Since people just weren't aware how "Uncle" can/is/was used in the US, too.
This is the first I've heard this. What does it refer to exactly?
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Car » 2020-06-21, 20:41

Gormur wrote:
Car wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Car wrote:The "Uncle Ben's" debate is a good one. Go to Facebook pages of German news sites (I guess it's the same in many other countries) and people write they always thought it was just a nice uncle who happened to be black, people tend to associate lots of positive attributes with him.

Are you talking about the familiar use of "Uncle" here? Otherwise there's not much I can see to connect your post with mine.

Yes. Since people just weren't aware how "Uncle" can/is/was used in the US, too.
This is the first I've heard this. What does it refer to exactly?

Apparently, blacks were called "uncle" because they weren't deemed worthy of being called "Mr.".

I found this link in a German article:
Critics have pointed out the problematic use of a Black man to be the face of a white company, noting that Black men were often referred to as “boy” or “uncle” to avoid calling them “Mr.” during the country's Jim Crow era.
Please correct my mistakes!

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby linguoboy » 2020-06-22, 0:15

Car wrote:I found this link in a German article:
Critics have pointed out the problematic use of a Black man to be the face of a white company, noting that Black men were often referred to as “boy” or “uncle” to avoid calling them “Mr.” during the country's Jim Crow era.

See also "Uncle Remus" and "Uncle Tom".
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Linguaphile
Posts:5358
Joined:2016-09-17, 5:06

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Linguaphile » 2020-06-22, 4:49

linguoboy wrote:
Car wrote:I found this link in a German article:
Critics have pointed out the problematic use of a Black man to be the face of a white company, noting that Black men were often referred to as “boy” or “uncle” to avoid calling them “Mr.” during the country's Jim Crow era.

See also "Uncle Remus" and "Uncle Tom".

Also Aunt Jemima. In all cases (Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, Uncle Tom, Uncle Remus, etc) the origin of the "uncle/aunt" part of the name is what Car explained: unwillingness to use courtesy titles like "Mr." or "Mrs." when referring to African-Americans. This started long before the Jim Crow era, but was certainly used during that era.
It does fit perfectly with what Linguoboy mentioned, because "Uncle Sam" does not fit into this category and is not considered offensive - because he (the image associated with the term) is not African American.
I've been trying to think of any terms I know of that work this way in other languages. I haven't come up with any. There are plenty of words that are insulting or used as slurs, but they don't fit the description of "words which are only slurs when used in a certain way in a certain context" in the sense that they would be innocent when said to or about one person but a slur when said to or about another. They are not context-dependent to that extent. (Other than maybe using feminine forms when speaking about a man or vice versa; those would be innocent when said to a person of the mentioned gender and could be used as a slur when said to a person of the opposite one.) Some words I can think of in other languages are innocent when they are used to refer to something other than a person, but insulting when used in reference to any person, regardless of who the person is. Linguoboy, I don't think that's quite what you're looking for? I'm not sure I'd want to list those here anyway. :wink:

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-06-26, 5:15

In Malayalam, നീ [n̪iː] 'you' can only be used with people who are of lower, or possibly equal, social status. Otherwise, it is considered insulting. Similarly with എടാ [ɛˈɖaː] and എടി [ɛˈɖi] for men and women respectively, which is actually unlike Tamil, which throws these words around everywhere.

User avatar
OldBoring
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:6152
Joined:2012-12-08, 7:19
Real Name:Francesco
Gender:male
Location:Milan
Country:ITItaly (Italia)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby OldBoring » 2020-06-26, 6:51

vijayjohn wrote:In Malayalam, നീ [n̪iː] 'you' can only be used with people who are of lower, or possibly equal, social status. Otherwise, it is considered insulting. Similarly with എടാ [ɛˈɖaː] and എടി [ɛˈɖi] for men and women respectively, which is actually unlike Tamil, which throws these words around everywhere.

Imagine if I go to Kerala and say 你 to someone.

User avatar
Jurgen Wullenwever
Posts:2876
Joined:2009-04-10, 19:32
Gender:male
Country:SESweden (Sverige)

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Jurgen Wullenwever » 2020-09-22, 16:42

vijayjohn wrote:In Malayalam, നീ [n̪iː] 'you' can only be used with people who are of lower, or possibly equal, social status. Otherwise, it is considered insulting. .

That is very close to how "ni" [ni:] 'you' was used and regarded in 19th century Swedish. :shock:
Chekhov wrote:I don't know about naive worldviews, but Jurgen Wullenwhatever pisses me off to no end because of his extreme pessimism and cynicism. You'd think the world was going to end imminently when talking to that guy.

Jag är rebell: jag sockrar teet, saltar maten, cyklar utan hjälm, och tänder glödlampor.
(Ovanstående var förut, nu försöker jag minska sockret och saltet, och har gett upp mejeriprodukter.)

User avatar
Gormur
Posts:8190
Joined:2005-05-17, 1:11
Real Name:Gormur
Gender:male
Country:CUCuba (Cuba)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Gormur » 2020-09-23, 14:49

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:In Malayalam, നീ [n̪iː] 'you' can only be used with people who are of lower, or possibly equal, social status. Otherwise, it is considered insulting. .

That is very close to how "ni" [ni:] 'you' was used and regarded in 19th century Swedish. :shock:
Must be the same as Norwegian De, formal you used to address one's elders

I have it in my dialect but now it's only used to address the king, unless you just want to be polite to a stranger and come off a little bit stilted. I also have the word de pronounced the same way as De; something like [di], without capitalization that means you guys (plural you) :)
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby mōdgethanc » 2020-10-29, 3:43

"Niggardly" (which comes from Old Norse and means "miserly", nothing at all to do with any word for skin colour) has had so many controversies over it that it has its own Wikipedia page.
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-03-15, 4:37

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:In Malayalam, നീ [n̪iː] 'you' can only be used with people who are of lower, or possibly equal, social status. Otherwise, it is considered insulting. .

That is very close to how "ni" [ni:] 'you' was used and regarded in 19th century Swedish. :shock:

Wait, isn't ni strictly a plural pronoun in modern Swedish, at least? Was it a plural pronoun in 19th-century Swedish as well?

In Malayalam, നീ is strictly a singular pronoun, i.e. it can only be used to refer to one specific person at a time while talking to them.

User avatar
Jurgen Wullenwever
Posts:2876
Joined:2009-04-10, 19:32
Gender:male
Country:SESweden (Sverige)

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Jurgen Wullenwever » 2022-01-04, 21:39

vijayjohn wrote:
Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:In Malayalam, നീ [n̪iː] 'you' can only be used with people who are of lower, or possibly equal, social status. Otherwise, it is considered insulting. .

That is very close to how "ni" [ni:] 'you' was used and regarded in 19th century Swedish. :shock:

Wait, isn't ni strictly a plural pronoun in modern Swedish, at least? Was it a plural pronoun in 19th-century Swedish as well?

In Malayalam, നീ is strictly a singular pronoun, i.e. it can only be used to refer to one specific person at a time while talking to them.

The 2nd person plural, ir > i > ni, has been used in singular in older Swedish, according to some shifting principles in different times and places. In my own late 20th century speech, it is only the plural.
Chekhov wrote:I don't know about naive worldviews, but Jurgen Wullenwhatever pisses me off to no end because of his extreme pessimism and cynicism. You'd think the world was going to end imminently when talking to that guy.

Jag är rebell: jag sockrar teet, saltar maten, cyklar utan hjälm, och tänder glödlampor.
(Ovanstående var förut, nu försöker jag minska sockret och saltet, och har gett upp mejeriprodukter.)

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-01-13, 23:29

Very interesting, thanks! :)

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby mōdgethanc » 2022-04-20, 1:09

mōdgethanc wrote:"Niggardly" (which comes from Old Norse and means "miserly", nothing at all to do with any word for skin colour) has had so many controversies over it that it has its own Wikipedia page.
Now I think of it, this word isn't a great example because strictly speaking it isn't a slur at all - it just happens to sound so much like one that it often causes offense. But it is a word that is innocuous but can be (and likely will be) interpreted as racist when applied to a black person. Another word like this is "tar-baby" which came from a folktale about talking animals but is sometimes misunderstood as a derogatory word for black children.

Some better example of slurs that are context-dependent that I can think of would be these:

  • Saying Asians are "crafty". Not a word that's used often but it's not a bad thing; however it has some overtones of the Yellow Peril era that stereotyped East Asians as manipulative and a threat to the white race. "Cunning" might be even worse.
  • Calling a Jew "frugal", or worse, "cheap". One of the oldest and most harmful stereotypes in history because of deep-rooted conspiracy theories that Jews are amoral, greedy and control the world through finance; this in turn is closely related to the Nazi portrayal of Jews as parasitic and "bloodsucking".
  • "Yid" is another word for Jews that can be offensive but Jews sometimes use it as a colloquial word for fellow Jews. There is something like this in Slavic languages as well with the word жид (žyd) and its cognates, which may or may not be offensive depending on the context and the language. It is highly offensive in Russian but much less so in Ukrainian and Polish. In fact a Polish word for "antisemite" is antyżydowski.
  • The word "Hajji" حجّي ħajjī is an honorific used for Muslims who have gone on the Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah. During the Iraq War it became used among US soldiers as a slang word for insurgents and then a slur for Arabs and Middle Easterners and/or Muslims as a whole.
  • Calling a trans woman "hon". While a widespread term of address, especially in the American South, when used for trans women it means a stereotype of a trans woman who does not pass as female and presents as a "man in a dress" who is seen as ugly at best and a sexual predator at worst.
  • "Queer" is still used I think as a dialectal word in Britain for "odd" or "unusual". When applied to an LGBT person it can be offensive, though this is also generational and varies a lot. LGBT millennials and zoomers tend to see this word as more neutral and older ones tend to dislike it a lot more.
  • "Polack" is a word used for Polish-Americans who may find it offensive because of the history of Polack jokes that stereotype them as dumb and ignorant. Outside of North America this word isn't offensive and I don't think younger Polish-Americans would feel as strongly about it. My own father was called this word and heard these jokes growing up, but I never did.
  • "Spastic" is a medical term for some neurological diseases that lead to muscle spasms and dystonias, and in this context it is neutral. Calling a person with any neurological disorder (e.g. Tourette syndrome, epilepsy, cerebral palsy) by this word is highly offensive, especially in the UK.
  • "Retard" is a word much like the above which is highly offensive when used for anyone with an intellectual disability or learning disability. It is still used in some other medical and scientific contexts for historical reasons, e.g. "psychomotor retardation" means a slowness of movement that often is seen in depression. "Mental retardation" however has become offensive and is now obsolete.
  • "Female" as a word for women can vary a lot. In most contexts it seems neutral. To me it's a bit overly clinical but not offensive. A man calling women "females" though, when he would not say "males" for men, comes across as weird and kind of dehumanizing.
  • The word "bossy" became controversial in the 2010s and some feminists saw it as a word applied to women as a coded synonym for something like "shrew" or even "bitch". There was even a movement to stop the use of the word called "Ban Bossy". On that note, "bitch" is a word that counts I guess because it has a neutral meaning of "female dog" and still is used that way sometimes.
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-04-20, 1:35

I think the infamous g-word would qualify here. :P Roma themselves have a wide range of opinions on how acceptable it is even for non-Roma to use it, the nuances of using this term, etc. My experience so far has been that Romanian Roma, at least in Romania, consider it just as offensive as the n-word because its Romanian equivalent has a similarly negative, slavery-related history. Nevertheless, Russian Roma do not necessarily feel the same way because the Russian equivalent has romantic connotations (or so I've seen a Russian Romni tell me).

American Roma, even including descendants of former slaves in Romania, may feel indifferent to the term since many of them come from families that haven't lived in Europe in several generations and don't have the same experiences with discrimination that their ancestors did in Romania (but I think there's more debate among American Roma about this). My thesis advisor, who was also Romani (well, he still is, but he isn't my thesis advisor anymore lol), makes a distinction between <Gypsy> and <gypsy> a.k.a. upper- and lowercase "G/gypsy." As far as I'm aware, he considers <Gypsy> acceptable but not <gypsy> as the lowercase spelling implies dehumanization. You can use <Gypsy> (in his opinion) the same way you'd use <German>, <Polish>, etc. but not <gypsy>, the same way you wouldn't write <german>, <polish>, etc.

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: "Innocuous" slurs

Postby Osias » 2022-04-20, 2:50

I've never seen Brazilian Roma complain about the word 'cigano', and a quick tweet search shows some use the word with pride. One example: https://twitter.com/cabaredasmarias/sta ... rWG9ZBPKpg

Maybe it's because here the history was different or maybe because the word is not the same anyway, or maybe... both things are the same after all?

Another opinion: https://twitter.com/ummaximoffdnv/statu ... rWG9ZBPKpg
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.


Return to “General Language Forum”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests