Subject:
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Re: New Brickbay promotion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 14 Jun 2001 21:51:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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298 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
> > I imagine some will get similarly upset when I refer to gypsum.
>
> Dave, I *know* you're smarter than this. You know well the difference
> between the semantic load of "gypsum" (if there is one, outside of East
> Tawas, MI, where it indicates employment ;) ) and that of "gypping"
> (or "Gypsy").
What if you're overcharged for a low-quality load of gypsum? 8^)
> In the cases you give, there is no necessary semantic load to the term.
> You're missing the indication of intent to demean or devalue, or imply
> something negative. That's the difference.
> Oh, yeah, and in order to be offensive, the word would have to be "füror",
> not "furor". ;) Oh no! I've offended someone! Woe is me!
And here I was afraid you were trying to sneak in some Nazi propaganda!
8^) Anyway, I wasn't able to type the umlaut so it came through the same!
You crystallized it for me, and allowed me to catch the point I'd been
missing--the deliberate negative connotation of "gyp," descending from an
ethnic slur is indeed qualitatively different from a word with a merely
colorful past. But that still leaves "hysterical" as fair game, since
hysteria can have a negative connotation about one's mental/emotional state,
and consider its origin!
It's interesting to me that the reverse logic has been applied here on
LUGNET, too. Every so often the "pirate wench" debate springs into gear,
with camps divided between "it's derrogative" and "it's historical." In
that case, though, a word with a formerly neutral meaning has become
(passively) offensive, while, in the case of "gyp," a word with a formerly
deliberately offensive meaning has become (in the US, at least) more or less
neutral.
Maybe a more relevant discussion would be the issue of whether a word with
locally neutral connotation should be tempered with an awareness of its
offenseiveness to people elsewhere, or if speakers should even worry about
unknown negative connotations in the words they use, or even if they *can*
worry about it.
I was on an elevator recently with several people, one of whom made a
flippant remark about an episode he'd had, saying that he was so
embarrassed, "I could've killed myself." Someone else on the elevator made
it clear that, since a close relative of hers had recently committed
suicide, the remark was offensive and inappropriate, even though the speaker
was entirely unaware of the woman's circumstances, and couldn't reasonably
have been expected to know. Is this not a similar situation? Similarly,
most of us here have probably referred to dollars as bucks, but in some
parts of the US that's a racist epithet.
At any rate, thanks for spelling it out for me--your re-articulation of
the problem helped me form a more solid understanding of the sensibilities
involved.
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: New Brickbay promotion
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| (...) Dave, I *know* you're smarter than this. You know well the difference between the semantic load of "gypsum" (if there is one, outside of East Tawas, MI, where it indicates employment ;) ) and that of "gypping" (or "Gypsy"). (...) What's so (...) (23 years ago, 14-Jun-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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