I know there was a question about the word “niggardly” answered by Cecil back in 2000, and more “racist” words addressed in this column back in January, but I just wondered if someone is going to object to the Italian cocktail Negroni (for obvious reasons)?
The exact origins of the drink are not crystal clear but the prevailing story is it was named after the person who first requested it, who was reportedly Pascal Olivier Count de Negroni.
No, it won’t be banned. Niggardly isn’t banned either.
One assumes the nations of Niger and Nigeria are safe.
What I want to know is when will they ban “bird flu.” First it’s gypsy moths changed to spongy moths because it’s insulting to gypsies, then it’s monkey pox changing to mpox because it’s insulting to monkeys. Why isn’t bird flu insulting to birds?
No, and in fact my buddy’s company that makes premixed cocktails is releasing their version next month. It says “Negroni” across the front of the bottle.
Only if it is taken up by racists to be used as a sly way of saying the n-word without saying the n-word.
If middle and high schoolers, landscapers and mechanics, suddenly become very interested in Italian cocktails, look out!
The Negroni may (or may not) be safe from extinction, but many other words have been attacked and eliminated in the interest of political correctness, words pertaining to race, disabilities, and the like. The linguist John McWhorter was on Bill Maher’s show yesterday and strenuously objected to this trend of enforced top-down Orwellianism. I don’t always agree with McWhorter but he’s a smart guy and knows how language works. As Maher said, “woke” politicians or those catering to their woke constituencies seem to be content to force us to change our language rather than actually doing anything about the underlying problem.
To be clear, there are good and valid reasons for changing aspects of our language, such as being more respectful or more inclusive. When Time magazine changed “Man of the Year” to “Person of the Year”, that made sense. When “chairman” became “chairperson” (or just “chair”) that arguably made sense, too, although it’s not hard to envision the word being regarded as having outdated origins and having a gender-neutral meaning, but still, I’m fine with “chairperson” or “chair”. But when “master bedroom” is deprecated as racist when in fact it has a long history of referring to the main bedroom of a house, typically expected to have amenities like an ensuite and walk-in closet, that’s when wokeness becomes a joke.
There was a fairly lengthy thread about that one on the Dope.
But, IMHO, we have to guard against the idea that “master bedroom” invalidates every other discussion about terminology, usage, and potential for offense or harm.
I remind myself that I disagree passionately with a couple of SCOTUS decisions, but that doesn’t negate the overall track record of that august institution.
Now, if you’ll excuse me … I’m out of Campari 
Oh for fuck’s sake. The only “enforced top-down Orwellianism” is the bills that criminalize talking with children about gender. There is no “top-down enforced” requirement to avoid saying, for example, “master bedroom.” That’s absolute foolishness.
I can’t be the only one who thought Negroni was a Doper.
Can I?
mmm
Actually, I believe I started that thread (or at least, I started one such thread on that subject). But I agree with you. Some linguistic changes are beneficial and important (mainly those that genuinely contribute to being respectful or meaningfully inclusive) others are so stupid as to be unintentionally comical. It’s important to distinguish the difference.
McWhorter distinguishes “top-down” linguistic change from “bottom-up” organic evolution. And it is indeed top-down when, for instance, real estate organizations tell their agents what terms to use, or news organizations similarly direct their newscasters, or publication style guides tell you what terms to use if you want to be published.
That’s only true if they are originating the change. A bottom up change will eventually make it into style guides In fact, that is the usual reason they wind up changing—especially when it’s multiple style guides changing at once.
One thing I’ve noticed of Maher lately is that he seems to be very much into this culture war outrage bait stuff. I’m seeing clips of his show being pushed by the same people who push the right wing culture war stuff, and the clips themselves seem remarkably similar. (Maher compared a school disciplining a teacher with a history of inappropriate racial comments with the Red Guard–a state run paramilitary force during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.)
There’s always debate about whether a particular “woke” idea is going too far. But these people still always have their heart in the right place. Those who paint them as evil are doing so just to make people angry. Keeping you angry at people prevents you from considering what they have to say.
I would suggest being very skeptical of anyone who pushes that sort of narrative. Always ask yourself “is the goal of this to make me angry?”
I understood it was because “monkey” is a coded race-baiting term.
The theory, as I understand it, is that some language constructions reinforce the underlying problem, making it harder to fix. And are they really content just to change the language, as asserted? Maybe some politicians who are woke in name only (no need for scare quotes) but all of them?
FWIW I was out with a couple of friends recently and one ordered a Negroni. So… not “banned” (yet anyway)? If you heard such a thing, I suspect it may have been on some bullshit-based media platform.
“Master bedroom” may or may not have something to it, but in the recent thread about it a real-estate professional explained that the current reality is that his or her customers are asking about the master bedroom, master bathroom, everything master master master.
Monkeypox I am not privy to the internal discussions about, but the reality for quite a few years—this is not even news—is that animal names (e.g. Swine Flu), geographic names (eg Ebola), etc. are generally deprecated, which is why they super creatively refer to, e.g., a “novel coronavirus” and then give it a provocative name like SARS-CoV-2 following genetic classification.
As for monkeys, books refer to eg New World Monkeys but in any case all those taxa have official scientific names (e.g., Simiiformes)
This thread makes me kind of giggle, under my breath. 
It’s my go-to drink order. I tend to gulp my booze, leaving me with an empty glass 90 seconds after it arrives, but the Campari tastes so bitter, I have to sip it slowly. A friend mailed me a bottle of pre-mixed Negronis, which I have yet to open, about a year ago but so far I’m still mixing my own.
It is poor use of the language indeed to cavil about so-called “top-down” language, i.e., style guides, when there is the actual “top-down” criminalization of teachers that I mentioned previously.
Oh–did I forget to mention the criminalization of health care advice from health care professionals? McWhorter needs to get on that.
Unless McWhorter is going on Maher to complain about APA’s guidance to capitalize “nouns followed by numbers or letters,” I suspect he’s less concerned about his so-called “top-down” language, and more concerned about having his own biases confronted.
I’m totally with you on this, especially having just recently seen John Oliver’s scathing takedown of the ominously repressive policies of Ron DeSantis. Decrees from fascist authoritarians on what may or may not be spoken about in certain venues is certainly a far more concerning threat than well-intentioned efforts to modify language. But it’s also an entirely different issue. So I guess there are really three issues that we need to keep separate: the rise of proto-fascist authoritarianism in America, the well-intentioned but stupid efforts to modify the language to suit woke sensibilities, and efforts to modify the language that actually make sense because they convey greater respect to the disadvantaged or greater inclusion to the marginalized.
The problem with McWhorter (or at least with your paraphrase of him) is that he appears to be condemning both these items–as well as capitalization and margin guidelines–under the moniker of “top-down” linguistic change. I don’t know if “top-down Orwellianism” is your term or his, but it’s a ridiculous–but not Orwellian–misuse of the term. “Orwellian” refers to the dystopia of 1984, where the government outlawed certain uses of language. To use the term to refer to style guides is a far worse offense against clear communication than “main bedroom” will ever be.
Whoever is using “top-down Orwellianism” to refer to anything other than laws criminalizing speech needs to sit down.