So don’t “give in”. Say whatever you want.
And be judged accordingly.
Well, it’s factually true that designating occupations performed by adult working-class males by words ending in “-boy” was an intrinsically classist phenomenon, and frequently racist as well.
Busboys, cowboys, and so on were commonly adult men who were perceived as having lower social status than the people referring to them. Of course it’s “legitimate” to consider such usages somewhat problematic. As people pay more attention to these issues in language use, job “titles” ending in “-boy” will go on sounding a bit “off” to many hearers.
No, of course that doesn’t mean you (generic you) are required to stop using such terms. It just means that “gotchas” such as “Ha ha, this use of the suffix ‘-boy’ actually originated in class prejudice among white people rather than in race prejudice against black people!” isn’t necessarily going to come across as the triumphant vindication that the speaker envisioned.
Whereas I think you’re objectively wrong to use the phrase “objectively wrong” in this scenario, as well as “choosing”.
If someone “chooses” to be offended, they’re a bad actor. Offense is not a choice for sincere actors.
Once someone is offended, they’re no more “objectively wrong” than if someone is surprised by someone and are objectively wrong to be surprised.
That said, I think your use of these terms is telling. It may be that you view communication similarly to computer programming. Within a given computer language, there are lines of code that are objectively valid and objectively invalid. If I code an HTML page with
(minus spaces), that’s an objectively valide bit of code, and a browser that fails to parse that as a link to Google is objectively a bad browser. The rules of a computer language are artificial, formulaic, formal, and rigid; and if the coder codes correctly and the code doesn’t work, the fault is entirely with whatever’s parsing the code.
Human language ain’t like that.
Human language is a subtle, complex interplay between speaker and listener. The rules aren’t artificial, are only somewhat formulaic, are only sometimes formal, and are anything but rigid. A speaker is only effective to the extent that they successfully convey their meaning to their audience, both denotation and connotation, and avoid conveying denotations and connotations they wish to avoid. In order to perform this task successfully, the wise speaker will take account of the shared words and grammar, of course, but will also consider every context for the communication that they can. The listener is wise to do the same.
If you write stories set in 19th century London, the context is that 19th century London was hella racist, in a colonialist way, and a lot of racism was directed at folks from the Middle East. The context is also that modern readers are reading in a hella racist society (although I’d say not as racist as 19th century London), and modern readers are likely to be familiar both with “-boy” as a racist pejorative term, and with “sand-” as a racist pejorative term referring to folks from the Middle East, and with London’s racist colonialist attitudes toward the Middle East, and modern readers are likely NOT to be familiar with the history of the term “sandboy.”
If this were a computer language, “sandboy” would be a term of art that should properly be coded into the language-parser, and the language-coder could use it without worrying about connotations and context. Alas, it’s not, and so a successful communication ought to consider all contexts.
And when a communicator fails to consider contexts, an apology for that failure is absolutely appropriate.
In this case the person is objectively wrong that the word has any racial content to it or that it is being used in a racist way.
Correct or not?
I disagree. Offense is a choice. One can choose to be offended by something or shrug it off. I do it all the time. Even the times when I am offended I realise fully that it is often a “me” problem.
And you are objectively wrong for assuming that most people will recognize that.
If you are failing to communicate effectively, then you are a failure at communication. Whether or not the word you used had racial content or used in a racists way, you have still failed at what you set out to do, to communicate effectively.
And that’s entirely your fault. Not the fault of a listener because they do not know mid 1900’s London slang.
So, were you offended by someone thinking that @WalterBishop used a word with racist connotation? If not, then why do you think that he deserves an apology?
That’s different from being objectively wrong, period. They did not know the history of the term, it’s true; and there’s nothing wrong with fighting ignorance on the history of the term.
But WalterBishop’s story was presumably intended to be read by audiences who weren’t experts in obsolete nineteenth century idioms. (If it wasn’t, his error was in sharing the story at the writing group like he did). As such, he failed in his communication: he used an expression that, not only would his audiences likely not know, but also that some audience members would, rationally if incorrectly, associate with racist terms.
As for your claim that people choose to be offended, you don’t actually back it up. Rather, you say that when you are offended you realize it’s a you problem, which doesn’t remotely address whether you’re choosing to be offended. Did you mean to say that people sometimes choose to speak up when they’re offended?
As a generalization, that’s just not true. If I talk to my cat and it doesn’t understand, that’s 100% on me. But communication is a two-way process. We all have baseline expectations of the perspective, cognitive ability and language skills of people we interact with, and we speak and listen accordingly. It’s a question of whether those expectations are reasonable and appropriate. We can all make mistakes both in the way we speak and the way we listen.
So I’ll repeat what I said above. On the one hand, it is not reasonable and appropriate to expect that everyone else has the same experience of life that you do. If there’s a misunderstanding, the first reaction should always be one of reflection and empathy. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to take the patronizing attitude that someone from a historically marginalized group lacks the cognitive ability to analyze just as well as I can how the misunderstanding came about. And ultimately, when we come to resolve the misunderstanding, either of both of us (the speaker or listener) could have made mistakes of expectation, perspective or proximate “fact”. And those mistakes could fall anywhere on the spectrum from minor and reasonable, to slightly foolish, to incredibly stupid, to malicious pseudo-mistakes.
I make no such assumption. People are ignorant of words, their meanings, their history, their usage, all the time. Once informed they are no longer ingnorant.
Nonsense. Do you think that anytime you come across an unamiliar word, or you make an unwarranted assumption, that it is the author who is at fault? That the author has failed to communicate?
I don’t think he deserves an apology. My point from the start has been in the other direction. That offence does not automatically warrant an apology and that it isn’t necessary to change the words you use just becuase someone else is ignorant.
If I do not research the unfamiliar word and cannot guess it from context, of course the author has failed to communicate in the specific interaction between the two of us. What on earth do you think communication is?
How is jumping to an unwarranted conclusion about the meaning of a word you have never encountered before not also a failure in communication? In this interaction, both parties were managing the communication process poorly.
Good communication skill as a speaker/writer involves explaining or defining obscure words. Good communication skill as a listener involves proactively asking about unfamiliar expressions, not jumping to conclusions.
the history of the term in this case being of a wholly unproblematic nature. Once informed of that it is reasonable for other person to accept it and move on.
How could I ever back up my own internal mental state to your satisfaction? I said that I “shrug it off”. I do it all the time. I just let it go. I’ve sat in countless religious services where people say things that are objectively deeply offensive.
I choose not to be offended by them and I know I’m not alone in that.
Are you saying you need to be able to guess the etymology from context?
“Nature” is not a good word choice, as words have no “nature” outside of the speaker and audience. “History” might be better.
“Once informed” is the key point. The original communicator did not originally inform the audience of that history. That’s what I, as a communicator, might apologize for–for my failure to take context into consideration, and for therefore communicating poorly.
What? No.
I agree, and said as much previously:
FWIW, I have been in Jane’s position before (assumed that someone was acting based on poor motives and said as much, only to find out that their motives were much better than I thought). Under those circumstances, I would, and have, apologized. I have also been in Walter’s circumstance (where I’ve said something that was misunderstood, based on my not providing sufficient context). Under those circumstances, I would, and have, apologized. I’m a big believer in taking responsibility for one’s role in a miscommunication.
The author is under no obligation to explain the history, nor even hint at it. I suggest you never read Shakespeare or Dickens. You’ll find tons of obscure words and little in the way of explanation or hand-holding from them.
Terrible communicators those guys were.
This may shock you but when reading I have sometimes stopped at an unfamiliar word, phrase, term or concept and either asked someone what it means or looked it up myself.
but it was the etymology that was the problem in this case wasn’t it? I didn’t read that the phrase was unclear in its meaning and unable to be understood from the context.
The first rule of public speaking is to know your audience.
If you assume that your audience knows an obscure centuries old reference, then you have broken that rule. Any ambiguity or misunderstanding is on you, not on your audience.
Right, and someone can make a mistake without malicious intent, which still hurts their ability to communicate. I would say that @WalterBishop certainly made a mistake in communicating in this instance.
Right, but that’s not what @WalterBishop or @Novelty_Bobble bobble want. They want an apology to be given in any instance of misunderstanding by the audience. They have no interest in reflection of empathy, only on showing that they are right, and anyone who would dare to question them is objectively wrong.
I don’t think that you should. And if for some reason you have gotten the impression that anyone thinks that you should, then there has been a failure of communication. I really don’t see where anyone made any such implication, but I am willing to reflect with empathy on what it was that made you think that anyone advocated for anything like what you are claiming here. Could you point out what it was that led you to that conclusion?
Right, but that’s not what @WalterBishop or @Novelty_Bobble are talking about. They claim that they are utterly blameless, beyond reproach, and that any failure of communication is entirely on the part of the listener, and that they are owed an apology if that occurs.
If I had heard someone use the word, “sandboy,” I certainly would have thought that there was a racial context to it. That I would be wrong about that doesn’t mean that that puts the speaker in the right. In fact, now that I know what it means, were I to hear it, I would think that the speaker is intentionally trolling the audience in order to pick up an accusation of racism that they can then beat down and prove to be objectively wrong.
At that point, it’s not about communicating, it’s about winning, and communication is intentionally damaged to that end.
speaking for myself, that is absolutely not what I am asking for. Never said it, never suggested it. Quote me or I’ll assume you’ll have the good grace to retract it.
and again, that is absolutely not what I said. Quote me or I’ll assume you’ll have the good grace to retract it.
That’s two completely fabricated positions you’ve assigned to me.
Is it a problem with the words that I’ve used? Are they not clear enough for you?
It is almost as if you are trying to give an example of where a reader is wholly at fault for a misunderstanding.
The very idea that I’d take such a condescending and absurd “suggestion” from you is hilarious. Thanks for the sneer.
The fact that as much as @Novelty_Bobble and @WalterBishop insist that all that matters for absolute exoneration of the speaker/writer is the etymology, you seem equally insistent that “Jane” is blameless in this situation for foolishly jumping to an unwarranted conclusion. That to me carries an implication that we cannot expect anything better from “Jane”, obviously not something we ever want to do.
The tension here is between the virtue of being empathetic to the differences in other people’s lived experiences, and the virtue (in debate or discussion) of treating everyone equally.