The Birth of "Celebration of Life"

I got curious after my post yesterday and decided to look at the usage of some of these phrases and terms over time. Here are some Ngrams:

"Celebration of life" does indeed seem to be a neologism, showing up just before 1960 and increasing fairly dramatically in use just before 2000. There doesn't seem to be any noticeable decline in the use of "funeral." "Celebration of life" does, however, seem to be correlated with the rise of "positive thinking."

More "Dirty" Words That Soil Identities

I posted previously about how we often stigmatize labels like "Jew" and "Puerto Rican" when we confuse the structural racism and implicit bias (as well as lingering bigotry) that befalls these groups for the supposed derogatory nature of the terms associated with the groups. In other words, we mistake words to be dirty if they belong to identities we've been taught are themselves dirtied.

I caught a new example recently as I was revisiting The Office on Netflix. It falls at about the 14:46 mark of episode 2 in season 1, titled "Diversity Day." Here is my transcription of the exchange:

MICHAEL: Um, let me ask you, is there a term besides "Mexican" that you prefer? something less offensive? 

OSCAR: "Mexican" isn't offensive.

MICHAEL: Well, it has certain connotations. 

OSCAR: Like what?

MICHAEL: Like--well, I don't--well, I don't know.

OSCAR: Well, what connotations, Michael? There must have been something? I'm just curious.

PC Bashing Is Not a 'Diverse' Idea

In the interest of collegiality and civility, this post may seem somewhat disconnected and vague. (No context for you!) I just wanted to get these ideas down for future reference.
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"Political correctness" is a strawman invented by conservatives to more easily dismiss the people and ideas that they associate with the political left. I once wrote in a book chapter:

To be "politically correct" is to avoid offense and the semblance of injury or ill intent. The problem with both the practice of political correctness and the framing of this issue in terms of political correctness is that it ignores the structural nature of racism and the subtleties of unrecognized individual racism.

I tell the frosh in my critical thinking class to ask questions of themselves and ideas. What assumptions are you making? How do you know you're right? Do you have evidence? I have no doubt that one would be able to note isolated incidents in which coworkers and organizations "overreacted" to "misunderstandings." The more important question, though, is Is this widespread and systemic? (Spoiler: the answer is, no, it's not.) You know what is widespread and systematic? Sexism. Sexual harassment. Sexual assault. Implicit bias. Institutional racism. Structural racism. By framing "political correctness" as a problem, we actively negate the calls of those who strive to rectify actual social problems.

It is one thing to engage in discussion that seeks to interrogate the concept of political correctness, but the taken-for-grantedness that "of course political correctness is a threat!" is doubly dangerous in its insidiousness.

Opting Out of 'Optics'

OK, I promise to stop with these little pet peeves postings soon. Stop using the neologism "optics." Unlike "impact" and "proactive" which are business-speak, "optics" seems to be political-speak. The more appropriate synonym is "perception" or perhaps "impression." It's true that languages are in constant flux, but it behooves us to know the cultural and structural push and pull from whence these changes arrive.

Be Proactive with Your Language by Avoiding 'Proactive'

While I'm at it, stop using the neologism "proactive." (See my previous rant against "impact" here.) The synonyms "active" and "preemptive" are almost always adequate. Like "impact," "proactive" is business-speak and reflects the creeping, hegemonic influence of capitalism. Resist these intrusions.

The Impact of 'Impact' is Impactful

Seriously, stop using the neologism "impact." An asteroid impacts the surface of a planet; your idea affects or influences other people. There are indeed many instances when neologisms serve an important function, say for naming new technologies or for labeling new social identities. However, neologisms like "impact" serve a more devious function. "Impact" is business-speak. The creep of business-speak into our everyday language, particularly when perfectly apt synonyms for a sentiment already exist, is both a reflection and driver of the hegemonic influence of capitalistic/consumeristic/business interests more broadly. Resist these intrusions.

Stop Saying 'Gyp'

If you ever find yourself inclined to use the term "Gypsy," "gyp," or any related form of these words, perform this simple test first: replace the term with "Jew." For example: "You just gypped me out of $5!" becomes "You just jewed me out of $5!" Sound offensive and inappropriate? That's exactly why you should never say it. Like Jews, Gypsies (more formally the Roma) are a historically mistreated ethnic group. Hundreds of thousands--and possibly even more than a million--Roma were killed in the Holocaust, and the everyday and institutional persecution and marginalization of the Roma continues today in Europe.

Period: Reports of My Death…

Everyone seems to agree that technology has killed the period. (See here and here.) I think this is probably just a wee bit premature, but I get their point. (Get it? Point? [Rim shot.]) One of my colleagues and best friends, Jeremy, worried on Facebook that such claims could make like difficult for us educators if our students ever catch wind of them. I've not yet had such an encounter with a student, though I have had students who have complained that my expectations for their writing (e.g. "proper" grammar, no spelling errors, etc.) are excessive. Here is my teaching philosophy/advice to students on the matter: Master the standard rules first. Once you've proven you understand those, then you can break them. I'm reminded of something that a blogger I follow (and highly recommend) wrote recently:

There was so much about art I never considered. I was one of those people who looked at paintings and wondered how they got in museums when it looks like a kid could do it. I was wrong…. Of course, Van Gogh could paint a realistic looking animal. He chose not to. Duh. (link)

For the record, I've never had a student who has mastered grammar/punctuation. Hell, I'm not sure that I've mastered it

Parenting as a Sociologist: "Big Girl" vs. "Big Kid"

As I have noted before, I am a new parent. My daughter is now a bit over 18 months old--and she's wonderful! As she is becoming more verbal, though, my wife and I are now starting actively to think about the language we use around her. One place where we work is to avoid the fallback compliment that she is "a pretty girl." We do indeed want her to have a healthy self-concept; we just don't want her self-concept to be tied up in her attractiveness, to think of herself as an object. Instead, I try to compliment her intelligence, physical ability, and happiness whenever possible. A second issue, however, is more contested between my wife and me: whether to say "big girl." My argument against it stems from an article that I first read in grad school and still assign when I teach undergraduate social psychology.[1] Here is the relevant section from that piece:

…[A]dults commonly associate behavioral standards of social maturity with sex identification in an attempt to control children’s behavior, as when a preschool aide lectured a 38-month-old girl who had struck another child: "You're a big girl. You don't need to hit." While a sex-neutral expression such as "big kid" could conceivably be used in these ways, adults seldom do so.

In short, the language of social identification which adults employ when interacting with young children conveys to them that "bigness" is associated with sex identification, that social maturity is directly associated with "boyness" and "girlness." By implication, therefore, adults' language practices serve to implicitly instruct children that "boy" and "girl" are alternative identities to that of "baby," identifying categories from the same membership categorization device. It appears that as far as adults are concerned "babies" do not mature into "big kids" but into "big girls" and "big boys." Clearly…our society is populated not by persons, per se, but by sexed persons (302).

…

In short, the practical necessity of claiming positive social value and the constraints which languages of social identification impose on individuals' efforts to do so may have a profound influence on both their definitions of self and their behavior. In a sense, therefore, identifying categorical terms do motivate behavior (308).

It is surprisingly difficult to avoid saying "big girl." I have been thoroughly socialized to feel it as "natural." It come out of my mouth without me consciously thinking about it, which makes it very difficult to avoid. I'm working on it, though. That is my bigger point: it is one thing to sociologize in a classroom, on a blog, in a research report, or at an academic conference, but putting such ideas into practice is decidedly difficult, even for a person highly trained in the discipline with an intellectually sympathetic spouse.

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[1] Cahill, Spencer E. 1986. "Language Practices and Self Definition: The Case of Gender Identity Acquisition." The Sociological Quarterly 27(3):295–311.

Wonder Woman Would Kick Supergirl's A$$!

Lisa Wade reminds us today that:

The practice of pairing the word “men” (which refers to adults) with “girls” (which does not) reinforces a gender hierarchy by mapping it onto age.... This type of language often goes unnoticed, but it sends a ubiquitous gender message about how seriously we should take men and women.

Case in point: Superman vs. Supergirl






That's why I'm super-stoked that we're dressing my daughter up as Wonder Woman this year for Halloween!

Wording on Peer Evaluation Forms

Over the last few years, I have been incorporating a lot peer evaluation into my courses. The purpose and scope varies between courses, but generally, I set up a Google Form with questions that measure very specific criteria for assignments and group work. I've found that it helps me in my grading, but it also has proven to be quite helpful for the students, as it gives them an opportunity to see firsthand how their work compares to that of their classmates.

I did, however, run into one fairly major problem last spring with this system. In my frosh-level Critical Thinking class, I had a near-mutiny on my hands when several students realized (even though it had been explicit in the syllabus which they'd had for several weeks) that they were required to rank the members of their groups. Here were the possible answers for this particular measure:

• single best member of group
• not the best but in the upper half
• not the worst but in the lower half
• single worst member of group

Though I stood my ground on that first round of evaluations, I did decide to change the language for the possible answers for the subsequent three rounds of peer evaluation to the following:

• 1st best
• 2nd best
• 3rd best
• 4th best

The students were doing the exact same thing, but no one complained about it after the change of language. Evidently, it doesn't feel as bad to label someone "4th best" as it does to name them the "single worst."

I'm making another change on several of my peer evaluations this fall. I had noticed in the past, not surprisingly, that students tend to grant inflated grades to their peers if asked directly which grade they think was earned:

• A
• B
• C
• D
• F

I'm currently trying out this language, though:

• excellent
• above average
• average
• below average
• failure

Preliminary, I can already say that the modal grading given this small change is lower and that there appears to be greater variation in the grades as well. In short, this means that there is more differentiation and students are getting better feedback on their work. It seems to be less difficult to judge someone's work as "below average" than to give them a "D."

Frankly, I thought that the students would see straight through these changes, but they haven't. For me, it's better to keep them happy, anyway.

More Evidence against the Passive Voice

This post is more than seven months late, but I wanted to get it out, regardless.

Saw this:

For those who would argue against me about the passive voice, think about how many other news organizations wrote this headline:

Admittedly, this could have been because there was simply no information yet about the shooter. However, it stands nonetheless as evidence about what the passive voice hides.

The Strange World of Academic Lingo

We academics have a knack for using terms that normal human beings use in fairly mundane ways in odd and confusing ways. Take for example two common terms used in the journal manuscript submission process.

"Conditional Acceptance" does not mean that we are somehow less than giving with our love of other human beings.

"R&R" does not mean "rest and relaxation"; ironically, an R&R typically means that one will have to forgo a great deal of rest and relaxation.

Take Me to Your Followers

Just a brief thought today. So, the computers are grading student essays now. How can we honestly tell our students that we are preparing them for a future working with other humans? On the other hand, it's good to know that there will be a labor force ready to serve our robot overlords.

Can You Please Stop Using That Word Incorrectly? Thanks.

A (fairly boring) story showed up in my Religion News Service RSS titled "Stopping radicals before they start." It caught my eye because of its misuse of the term "radicals." "Radical" is not a synonym for "extremist."[1] "Radical" traces back to the same etymological root as the word--well--"root," as in "getting to the root cause of an issue." "Extreme," on the other hand, means "the utmost" or "the furthest out." It's understandable why some have confused the two terms. After all, the solutions that address the root causes of problems almost invariably seem extreme from within the context of that system.[2] Take this story about a "radical Evangelical." The term "radical" in this case is used very differently. Shane Claiborne argues that the core (i.e. radical) message of the Christian Gospel(s) should inspire some pretty whacky behavior (that some might even describe as "extreme"), but that is not the same as arguing that the faithful should take up arms in a Cosmic War. Violent rhetoric is not core to any religion.[3] Words mean things, and we should take care to keep those meanings precise lest we perpetuate misunderstanding and conflict.

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[1] I'm sure you can find several thesauruses that list them as synonyms. They are wrong.

[2] Take poverty, for example. Radical solutions proposed for poverty challenge the very basis of our economy and, thus, seem extreme from the perspective of those of us existing in that economy who may find it difficult to imagine any other kind of system.

[3] More accurately, violence is perhaps central to all religions. For more on this argument, see René Girard's Violence and the Sacred.

Go Forth and Singlify

An interesting thing happened while I was at the dentist's office a couple weeks ago. Both the hygienist and the dentist independently asked me if I had "children." It's a common enough thing to ask, particularly of a person of my age (mid-thirties for the record). It occurred to me later, though, that it is decidedly uncommon for people to ask if one has "a child"; it's virtually always in the plural. Of course, asking if one is a parent at all is itself normative and hegemonic. (See this hilarious take.) But, even beyond that, there are consistent normative assumptions that people will have multiple children, not just one. The most sociologically interesting part of this to me is not just that there are cultural values about whether and how many kids to have but that the power of these values is hidden in plain sight in the seemingly innocuous manner in which we phrase an everyday question.

Why "the African American Community" Is Dangerous

Oooo! Such an incendiary title. Of course, I don't mean that the African American community itself is dangerous; I mean that the term "the African American community" is dangerous. (In fact, I don't even think that it is a thing.) We all need to stop saying "the African American community" (AAC). It's a hypercorrection, one order worse than people saying "African American" because they mistake "black" as a derogatory term. It is not. "Black" is, however, a racist term--although, it is no more racist than any other term denoting racial identity. All such terms reify and perpetuate the structural racism that permeates our society. That, however, is not to argue that we should do away with all racial terms. Race is a social construct and, thus, not "real," but inasmuch as race is treated as real, we need a way to talk about it so we can address it and mitigate its negative consequences.

The term AAC assumes the existence of a distinct culture (and linking race to culture can often lead to "culture of poverty"-type arguments, dangerous because they obfuscate the structural racism that is so harmful). AAC assumes that blacks are a monolithic people without internal diversity, and this is the land of stereotypes. I, afterall, do not belong to "the white community" or "the German-American community" (unless my membership card somehow got lost in the mail), and I find myself to be a few standard deviations away from the typical white person in many ways, so why would I assume that people of other races or ethnicities are different?

There certainly are "African American communities," though. For example, I work in Milledgeville, Georgia, where there is an AAC. In this case, AAC would be appropriate because there is a community built on institutions (e.g. the Black Church) and connected by a social network. Talking about local AAC's highlights the prevalence of segregation, which can be useful, but this notion of community cannot--and should not--be ramped up to the national level.

In closing, I must admit that I write this from a place of extreme privilege so everything I argue above should be tempered by that. The imposition of labels is the imposition of power so I am certainly open to arguments from those who would presumably be members of "the African American community" that the term is in some ways preferable.

Friday Music: "Money for Nothing" - Dire Straits (trigger warning)

I give you Dire Straits' (edited version of) "Money for Nothing":



And now, I give you the original, unedited version of the same song (NSfW/trigger warning):



You'll note that the verse that begins around the 1:52 mark of the unedited version includes several uses of the pejorative term "faggot." I don't know the entire history of the song. (Wikipedia has a brief discussion of the controversy.) However, these versions could be A/B'ed in a classroom--with ample warning--to show the changing nature of the acceptability of terminology as well as changing definitions of deviance, both in terms of language and sexual practice/identity. Interestingly, though the F-word declined after its coinage and remained fairly scares mid-century, its use in books seems to have increased since the 1980s.

In addition to the anti-gay and homophobic themes, this song can be used to discuss work, class, and conspicuous consumption.

Spelunking and Debunking the "Man Cave"

We really need to stop using the term "man cave." I want to highlight just two reasons that the term is problematic.

First, the term casts men as evolutionary throwbacks (read: "cavemen"), whose behaviors are biologically determined. Women attempt to domesticate men by limiting their animalistic urges--so the logic goes--but men need an outlet, a place to indulge their masculine predispositions to violent video games and sports. This is belittling to men, and as a man, I personally find it offensive.

Second, the "man cave" as a designated masculine space implies that the rest of the home is inherently feminine. Women control the house: they cook; they clean; they decorate; it is theirs, so we tell ourselves. While at first blush, this may seem empowering, it actually reinforces patriarchy, restricting women from the public sphere to the domestic sphere. As women now make up essentially an equal proportion of the workplace as men, this also give a handy excuse for men to limit their share of the household labor.

Adjectival or Possessive Use of "Color?"

While the term has shown up occasionally over my last three years of teaching in the Deep South (though, never when I taught previously in the Midwest to my recollection), this semester, several students (8/64) have been non-critically referencing "colored people" in their papers. It's quite off-putting. I explained in my comments in their essays that the term is generally considered offensive and that "people of color" is preferred. Admittedly, it's an odd distinction. Unlike other terms that are preferred over alternatives because they are endonyms (e.g. Native American vs. Indian), there doesn't seem to be an obvious reason to favor "of color" over "colored" aside from convention. It got me thinking about usage. Here are the related ngrams:

"Colored" starts to fall out of favor around 1970 and is replaced with "of color" beginning around 1990. Initially, though, "of color" declined with "colored." It was only later that it gained acceptance and became a replacement. While "of color" solves some problems when trying to reference those who are not white (as if white were the absence of color), it is relatively imprecise. I encourage students to say "black" when they mean black. If they mean "those who are not white," non-white is fine.