Huge difference IMHO. Saying the actual word is meant to inflame or diminish. Saying “n-word” is intended to do neither. Both are simply a collection of letters, but they carry a lot of baggage.
I’m saying that the word carries intent. In part because there is a well known alternative that can be used in almost any situation if intent is not intended.
There are a few exceptional situations, but none have been noted here.
You’re either arguing that we never know intent, ever, so you can’t judge someone. Or that intent can’t be inferred from one word, not sure which one. But both seem like poor positions.
Signal, then? Your intent is irrelevant (& fairly assumed) when you use the wrong word.
It's this kind of thinking that led an ex colleague to wonder out loud whether he shouldn't seek some "desensitivity training" for the entire company (who had just reacted very negatively to a message he'd sent out) rather than communication training for him!
> Your intent is irrelevant (& fairly assumed) when you use the wrong word.
If my intent is irrelevant, why bring it up?
And this is exactly what we're talking about: Is using the wrong word bad in itself, or does there need to be some intent? Can we determine intent objectively? Fairly? Does intent matter? What is a wrong word? Who decides? What consequences do taboo words have for society?
You can't just claim "Your intent is irrelevant ... when you use the wrong word." when that's the entire question.
Your ex colleague thinks people should grow thicker skin. You think we should police language. I don't see that your idea is very developed and it certainly doesn't work very well right now.
I could have sworn I saw a comedy one time in which a uptight racist lady said about some other character something like "I don't want to say anything but they are just a real n-word if you know what I mean" with the pursed lips and nodding that one would assume such a character would do - late 80s early 90s movie.
So obviously one can imagine a scenario where the word is used to inflame or diminish while at the same time trying to make the speaker seem (in their own minds at least) better than they actually are.
True. You can use the phrase n-word with negative connotation. But the existence of the term is meant to be non-inflammatory to discuss the n-word precisely because the n-word itself is inflammatory. Any word could be offensive with context, but some words can be offensive without context — which again is why the term n-word is used.
So why is the actual n-word, outside of context offensive? Because it was often used in contexts that were non-offensive to the speaker but offensive to the listener. For example, “Tom you’re a good n-word, but you know you can’t go with us to the show.” To the speaker this is a cordial use, given the subject.
And then there is the David Chapelle effect, where some people just really enjoy saying it in the “right context” a little too much.
> Saying the actual word is meant to inflame or diminish.
That's an odd accusation to be making. I've gotten so used to reading "the n-word", that at this point it also comes as a more natural thing to me, so it's what I would generally use, but that's a fairly recent thing, and not something I do with any other word (offensive or not).
Claiming that anybody uses a word with the intent to inflame or diminish is both a strawman argument and top tier poisoning the well.
If I tell you the word blah is inflammatory (especially to a marginalized group) just in its mere mention and the word blech is its non-inflammatory substitute to use when you want to talk about the word blah. Then you proceed to use the word blah, I can’t make any assumptions about intent?
You could take your assumptions, but they would be wrong and ridiculous.
If you told me I'm not allowed to say "blah" and should use "blech" instead, why would I care? I'd use "blah" because that's the right word. It's literally the actual word I'm talking about.
And as for the point that it's "inflammatory": that's not my problem. I'm not interested in having any conversation where the invocation of one word or another can detail the whole discussion. If that's the case, then I'd rather leave that conversation anyway.
And why don't I have the right to be offended by the phrase "n-word"? Every time I hear it I feel the implication that my freedom of expression (a human right, mind you) is being slowly eroded. Need I point out that, as an east-German the issue of freedom of expression is historically much closer to me than racism and slavery? I mention that just in case you want to pull the "oh but you're not black" argument.
> If you told me I'm not allowed to say "blah" and should use "blech" instead
I didn't say you weren't allowed to say it, I said it would be inflammatory. "blah" is only the right word if you choose to be inflammatory. So given that this is the word you have chosen to use, why should I assume you meant something different? Now you may not want to deal with the consequences of that word, after you've used it -- that's fine, but I know what you meant at the time.
> I'm not interested in having any conversation where the invocation of one word or another can detail the whole discussion. If that's the case, then I'd rather leave that conversation anyway.
Always your choice to not be in any conversation. I'd argue that most people that use the word are intending to derail the conversation. People aren't that stupid. They know what they're doing.
> And why don't I have the right to be offended by the phrase "n-word"
You can be. You an be offended by the word "the". You can completely remap the English language any way you like. That's your choice.
> Every time I hear it I feel the implication that my freedom of expression (a human right, mind you) is being slowly eroded.
Why? Because we've given you more choices to express yourself? Are you triggered by all euphemisms? In fact there are audiences that will love it if you say the actual n-word -- especially in a derogatory way toward Black people if you like. Enjoy your freedom of expression, you can exercise it.
> Need I point out that, as an east-German the issue of freedom of expression is historically much closer to me than racism and slavery
Racism is still very much alive today, so I'm not sure how freedom of expression is much closer to you today than racism is for Blacks -- but I guess you wouldn't know since you're not Black.
> Why? Because we've given you more choices to express yourself?
1. Make up a new word 2. Give people the choice to use the new word 3. Destroy them if they choose not to.
Sure.
> Racism is still very much alive today
Try criticising the government in china and you will soon realise that censorship is also very much alive today. Not that this makes a difference in either case, of course.
> so I'm not sure how freedom of expression is much closer to you today than racism is for Blacks.
Second, black people exist outside of america, in case you didn't know. So mentioning them as just "blacks" already shows a rather narrow view of the world.
Freedom of expression is closer to me than racism. Racism is probably closer to many black Americans than freedom of expression. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't intentionally misunderstand that just to have a ridiculous strawman to argue against.
Surely meaning is foremost dictated by context? English does not have a context free grammar.
I can say the actual n-word without meaning to enflame or diminish - it is very easy in fact: take a sentence where I would have used the literal n-word, and replace it with the actual n-word.
But the existence of the “n-word” as the less inflammatory alternative always draws into question why you’d use the actual word. In most cases with the example you give, the use of the actual word is probably much more offensive.
That said I think there are a few places where the use is acceptable, but it’s not common and those uses almost never get called out anyways (so it is generally understood).
As a linguist, I can assure you that there is no 'linguistic' concept of a context-free grammar as distinct from the mathematical concept.
A language being non-context-free just means that the string language doesn't fall within a certain class. It in fact took quite a while to show conclusively that English was not context-free; it's far from obvious.
None of this has anything to do with 'context' in the sense we're talking about here.
