You do nothing - this is a much less likely scenario, but if it did happen, I don’t think you need to do anything - people use different words for the same thing all the time.
If the client made an issue out of it (e.g. “You mean the master bedroom?”), you have a choice between a) deciding this isn’t the time or the place to practise a small bit of ‘anti-racism’ and just responding “Yes”, or b) deciding the principle here is more important than this bit of business (and possibly, your job/career) and explaining why you choose not to use that term. Personally, as much as I support the principle of calling out racism in all its forms, I’d probably go with option a, and not lose much sleep over it, because I’m not perfect. Even if the buyer calls it out, it’s more likely they are simply ignorant of the possible connotations of the phrase, than they are actively racist. IMHO. And if they are actively racist, it’s rather unlikely such a conversation will change their views.
I have heard it used for very young boys, like say under 10. But, yes outside some really old fashioned British social circles (so the Bar) I haven’t heard it.
I don’t think it’s racist. I think it’s awkward, and reflects outdated attitudes. But i don’t think it’s nearly a big enough issue to lose my sale. If the client says, “you mean the master bedroom?”, I say, “yes”. Or if they look confused or curious, i might say, “yes, ‘main bedroom’ is what we are calling it in the industry these days, but it’s the same thing.”
This genuinely surprised me, given the thread title, but I’m not going to reread ~280 posts to check, so I’m happy to accept you’re right. However, in the first paragraph of the OP we find someone (as reported by the OP) who thinks it is. I probably should have typed “potentially racist” instead. A bit like the ‘niggardly’ example.
FWIW, I’m a white British dude, and before this thread (or possibly, the previous one) it had simply never occurred to me it might be a racist term. But now I’m aware, I’m quite happy to play a very small part in the ‘anti-racist’ fight by not using it. Though I may not always remember.
NETA: on re-reading my post that Discourse tells me you were responding to, I see that I didn’t specifically say “master bedroom” is racist. But I suppose I did imply that I thought it might be. In fact, I just think avoiding its use is anti-racist, which is not quite the same thing.
This is a good summation. Dismantling racism can sometimes include little shit that seems pointless on its own. That’s because systemic racism is - along with the big obvious stuff - made of several million little things that might seem innocuous on their own, without the benefit of thought and context.
OK, so you cede the point with niggardly. Then the next week the co-worker has an issue with “niggling.” Which has also been mentioned on the thread. Which is less archaic than niggardly, and farther away from the original word of offense, but you’ve already ceded the point that this is a relevant topic of conversation. So you again yield ground on niggling. Until the next week, when you use another non-offensive word that offends the co-worker. And by the way, the co-worker has noticed a pattern…
I’ve never used the word niggardly, but if I happened to be in this situation, I would defend its usage as not racist. I might quietly drop it going forward because I don’t want the hassle, but I wouldn’t be agreeing with the co-worker here. Accusations of racism should be genuine and taken seriously. So I do think the co-worker is overreaching here. We don’t all live in self-centered worlds where our feelings are constantly validated.
Now if a different co-worker mentioned it, they weren’t offended but thought that using the word wasn’t worth it, I think that’s a more valid take. I do think the co-worker leading with racist here is in the wrong and should take a different approach.
To clarify the “why post at all” part though. It is partly to ensure that I am clear in what I think, to push back against ideas and positions that I see as wrong or harmful and to also to voice alternative points of view to those that don’t necessarily join in the conversations. Doing this in order to get appreciation or favour is not on the the list at all.
That’s all fair enough and I’m not saying I would not defend my usage as not being racist (each and every time a different point of contention is raised, if necessary, and especially if it starts appearing to be in bad faith). But like you say, I would then try to avoid using it again. I doubt the slippery slope would actually play out in real life.
Nope. A master plan governs and controls other plans (zoning plan, transportation plan, public facilities plan, etc.) but a master bedroom doesn’t govern or control the other bedrooms. And comprehensive plan is used a lot more nowadays than master plan.
I work for a good sized company and have watched videos from HR about these sort of issues, about the gradations of behavior that are shown in those videos. Realistically in workplace settings people sometimes do make excessive allegations or false allegations. Had it happen to an old girlfriend of mine who was managing underperforming women.
So a single proper use of niggardly in a workplace setting, accusation of racism is an overstep. That is my view. Niggardly is archaic, but I don’t ever want it “tagged” as racist because its actual meaning has zero to do with race.
This is a bit of a pushback from me on some of the features of the Internet where the discourse tends to reward absolutism in a way that doesn’t translate to real life.
Sorry, AFAICT that ship has already sailed. You’re quite right that the original meaning and etymology of the term “niggardly” have nothing to do with race, but the modern day actual meanings of the word—i.e., what people actually use it to mean—do include racially based pejoratives.
For example, in this comment on characters in a TV show:
We linguistic prescriptivists can pout and stamp our feet about it all we want, but that doesn’t change the reality that associating the word “niggardly” with race is not just a matter of isolated misunderstandings of its “real meaning”. The word has acquired racial-pejorative associations as one of its real meanings in the present day.
It’s a completely different meaning from the original meaning “miserly” or “stingy”, sure. But it is not “a completely different word”. It’s the same word.
And since both those meanings of the word imply disapproval or derogation, it’s extra easy for people to mistake one for the other when used in conversation. Which, again, is why a lot of thoughtful people just choose not to use the word “niggardly” at all.
It’s not really that difficult a choice, either. There are plenty of other terms that mean “miserly” or “stingy” that have no racial associations. So if you prefer to be understood rather than misunderstood, why not use one of those instead?
I’ve heard it occasionally in the context of Hearts and Spades. (And not solely by me!) Apparently we are a lower class of folk than you bridge players!
Just did a quick search, and M/W lists it without qualification.
It is the same collection and order of letters certainly but the two usages of the word have massively different meanings. I don’t think you can make a case for those being functionally the same word.
Is the word “cock” (arm a weapon) the same word as “cock” (a penis) or “cock” (a male bird) and are they all best avoided due to the derogatory usage of the same four letters?
And english is riddled with similar multi-purpose words that have both benign and offensive usage.
Consider “chink”, “slope”, “spade” etc. Are those words best avoided as well? “Tom” “brass” “hooker” (all derogatory slang for prostitutes) Are they out of order if someone complains? “bird” “chick” “honey” “bitch” Is it OK to still use any of those? “fanny” “pussy” “clout” “gash”? the list is pretty much endless.
You make the case that “niggardly” is such an archaic term that it is no big problem to avoid it, and you may be right. But if niggardly is proscribed then why not niggling? niggle? snigger? Sure this is an appeal to a slippery-slope but then this whole thread is suggesting that the word “master” is also now a problem. If that is the case then why not any of the words I give above and many, many more?
Interesting question. Personally, I think it depends on how the word is used, and any surrounding context. Some are ‘acceptable’ (to my mind) and some are not. We can probably carve out which are which on a case by case basis, and words can of course change from one category to the other.
A few examples from my personal experience:
Nearly 20 years ago I was in a casino when a short but fierce argument erupted at another table, the crux of which was that a Chinese person accused a white person of referring to them as a “chink” in a conversation with a third party. The white person claimed he was simply referring to the noise made by the tiles in the game of Mah Jong being played, as they were shuffled together. Then and now I can’t decide if this claim was true, or if it was a convenient excuse. But even if the former, it was a poor choice of words if one wants to not be thought racist.
Jeremy Clarkson infamously got into hot water over a joke on Top Gear involving a rickety bridge they had constructed that was leaning to one side. The camera showed a Vietnamese person walking across the bridge as Clarkson said “Shame it’s got a slope on it”. Clearly racist and unacceptable, then and now, in my view, even though they could claim they were simply describing the physical state of the bridge.
Hooker - fine to refer to the number 2 of a female rugby union team that way, not fine to make jokes about said player that make use of the double meaning.
Bitch - similar to above, fine if it is necessary to refer to a female dog, otherwise generally unacceptable.
Where does “master bedroom” come in? I think one could make the argument it is of a different character to all of the above, in that the unsavoury association of ‘master of the house’ (which until less than 200 years ago probably meant someone who had slaves, or at least servants) is inherent in the term itself, whereas with the other examples, the original meaning is benign and the unsavoury versions only gained currency centuries later. It appears “niggardly” is also in this latter category. However, as already stated, it is as easy to avoid using “niggardly” as it is to avoid using “pussy”, without any great loss of linguistic variety.
My tentative conclusion is that “master bedroom” is less problematic than “niggardly” (which in turn is - usually - less problematic than my examples 1 and 2 above), but again it’s easy enough to avoid. I’ll worry about digging my heels into the potential slippery slope as and when there is actually an issue with losing a significant amount of useful vocabulary.
Most people don’t find “cock” as a verb meaning to arm a weapon problematically ambiguous. But many people do avoid calling a rooster a “cock” in contexts where somebody might mistakenly think they meant “cock” as in penis, because the noun meanings might be more easily confused. Hell, the ambiguity of meaning inherent in “cock” as a noun has been deliberately exploited in many, many comedy sketches. If you don’t want any embarrassed giggles, yeah, you’re better off calling the bird a rooster.
Are you just discovering this or something? I don’t think any of this is news to anybody else here. The semantic ambiguity of many “words that have both benign and offensive usage” is exactly why thoughtful people consider the potential for unintended offense when choosing what words to use.
In contexts where they might be interpreted as slyly “dogwhistling” the well-known racial slurs? I personally would try to avoid them in such contexts.
I talk to my calculus students with no trepidation about the “slope of a tangent line”, but that’s in a very clearly demarcated context of technical terminology. I would never, for example, call on a student of Vietnamese descent and say “So: slope! Tell me about slope!” Even if I meant absolutely nothing other than the mathematical concept, I would want to avoid the possibility of being interpreted as making a teasing double-entendre about a racial slur. Because that would be a really asshole thing to do.
Another poster has already referenced “niggling” as potentially problematic in some contexts, and there could certainly be contexts where I wouldn’t use any of those words. So what?
I don’t see why you’re putting so much effort into whining about what seem to me like fairly uncontroversial and natural concepts of gradual change and subtle nuance in ongoing linguistic evolution. At this point I think your arguments are less rational opposition and more just oppositional defiance.
