Archive for Taboo vocabulary

What did Rich Lowry say?

Yesterday, Alejandra Caraballo tweeted:

The editor in chief of the National Review just said the N word in regards to Haitians and Megyn Kelly ignores it.

Andy McCarthy responded:

Ridiculous. @richlowry (not tagged here, natch) obviously got crossed up between 'immigrants' (short i) and migrants (long i) — started mispronouncing "migrants" with short i; instantly corrected himself with no embarrassment because it was patently a mispronunciation. Geez.

And Rich Lowry agreed:

Yep, this is exactly what happened—I began to mispronounce the word “migrants” and caught myself halfway through

Ben Zimmer emailed me:

Got sent this from a friend, who was hoping to see some analysis of whether the initial consonant on the misspeak here is /m/ or /n/. (Since the previous consonant is the final /n/ in "Haitian," there may be some gestural overlap.)

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Gender, dialect, and taboo vocabulary in court

In case (like me) you haven't been following the murder trial of Karen Read, this article provides the background: Kim Stelloh, "Karen Read is accused of killing her Boston police officer boyfriend. Here's what we know about the murder trial", NBC News 6/7/2024. The current media fever focuses on the testimony of (Massachusetts State Police investigator) Michael Proctor, forced on the witness stand to read some text messages that hit a trifecta of gender, regional, and vocabulary biases:

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Frociaggine

Angela Giuffrida, "Pope Francis allegedly used offensive slur during discussion about gay men", The Guardian 5/27/2024:

Pope Francis allegedly used an offensive slur during a discussion with bishops over admitting homosexual men into seminaries, several Italian newspapers have reported.

The pontiff, 87, is alleged to have made the remark during a closed-door meeting with bishops in Rome last week, where they were reportedly discussing whether out gay men should be admitted to Catholic seminaries, where priests are trained, a topic that the Italian bishops conference (CEI) is said to have been pondering for some time.

During the discussion, when one of the bishops asked Francis what he should do, the pope reportedly reiterated his objection to admitting gay men, saying that while it was important to embrace everyone, it was likely that a gay person could risk leading a double life. He is then alleged to have added that there was already too much “frociaggine”, a vulgar Italian word that roughly translates at “faggotness”, in some seminaries.

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Data Science graphic of the month

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Half-vast ideas

A CNN interview with former National Security Adviser John Bolton about the January 6th hearings is getting lots of attention for his casual observation, "As somebody who has helped plan coups d'état — not here, but, you know, other places — it takes a lot of work."

Shortly before that (about 40 seconds into the above video clip), there was another notable line, in which Bolton dismissed the idea that Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results constituted "a carefully planned coup d'état":

That's not the way Donald Trump does things. It's rambling from one half-vast idea to another. One plan that falls through and another comes up.

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Tabar(nak|ouette)

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Changing times

Changing norms about public display of certain words, as exemplified in the display windows of a local store:

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Pretend dog

Zabrina Lo has a new article in Zolima CityMag titled "Pop Cantonese: 裝假狗 – Installing a Fake Dog" (10/24/19).  It begins thus:

In film sets in Hong Kong, one often hears the phrase zong1 gaa2 gau2 (裝假狗) – literally “installing a fake dog.” It isn’t too implausible to associate the first two characters with installing props or faking an act for filming purposes, but surely not every movie is about dogs, and what does it even mean to install a fake one?

Dogs have long had a pejorative connotation in Chinese culture, as University of Pennsylvania sinologist Victor Mair notes in his paper “Of Dogs and Old Sinitic Reconstructions.” There are many derogatory expressions associated with dogs, such as zau2 gau2 (走狗, “go dog,” a traitor), keoi5 hou2 gau2 (佢好狗, “the person very dog,” the person is such an asshole), gau2 naam4 neoi5 (狗男女, “dog men and women,” awful men and women) and gau2 ngaan5 hon3 jan4 dai1 (狗眼看人低, “dogs’ eyes look people down,” powerless people looking down on others). In all these cases, dogs are frequently referred to a person’s vulgarity, unworthiness or lack of integrity.

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Hong Kong anti-China graffiti

Graffiti painted by protesters in the Liaison Office of the PRC in Hong Kong:

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The birth of obscenicons

Back in 2010, I went in search of the earliest examples of cartoon cursing characters — those playful typographical symbols that have been called "grawlixes" (a term coined by "Beetle Bailey" creator Mort Walker) but which I prefer calling "obscenicons." I detailed my quest in two Language Log posts: "Obscenicons a century ago" and "More on the early days of obscenicons." (The posts were later adapted for Slate's Lexicon Valley blog: "How Did @#$%&! Come to Represent Profanity?") I was able to find obscenicons going all the way back to Dec. 14, 1902 in Rudolph Dirks' pioneering comic strip "The Katzenjammer Kids," followed shortly thereafter by Gene Carr's "Lady Bountiful" comic starting in Feb. 1903.

I was pleased to learn that my obscenicon posts inspired Phil Edwards of Vox to do his own searching on newspaper databases, and the results can be seen in an entertaining new video, "How #$@!% became shorthand for cursing." Turns out obscenicons can be pushed back even further, to 1901.

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Was it "getting" or "gay"?

Patrick Redford, "There's Nothing To Say About What Andrew Wiggins Said That's Not Conditional", Deadspin 1/9/2018:

Andrew Wiggins went off for 40 points on the Thunder last night in a lively game that featured 32-year-old interim coach Ryan Saunders getting his first win and Thunder guard Dennis Schröder getting ejected for shoving. Wiggins was asked about Schröder’s ejection after the game, and he either said, “He was getting—he was acting crazy,” or, “He was gay. He was acting crazy.” Those are obviously two very different quotes, and as much as I think he’s mumbling “getting,” the tape is ultimately inconclusive.

"Andrew Wiggins: Would never disrespect LGBTQIA community", ESPN 1/9/2018:

Hours after he called Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schroder "gay," Minnesota Timberwolves forward Andrew Wiggins sought to clarify his remark, saying early Wednesday morning that he wouldn't use "any term to disrespect" the LGBT community.

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Taking shit from the chancellor

Well, shitstorm, anyway: Melissa Eddy, "Some Words Defy Translation. Angela Merkel Showed Why." NYT 12/6/2018:

Some words can’t be translated easily. But they can cross national borders, lose their original context along the journey, assume different meanings and crop up in unlikely places.

This week, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany proved that point — memorably.

Speaking at a technology conference on Tuesday, Ms. Merkel, known as a staid, no-drama politician, told a self-deprecating anecdote about being widely mocked online five years ago after she described the internet as some mysterious expanse of “uncharted territory.”

She chuckled at the memory of the digital blowback.

“It generated quite a shitstorm,” she said, using the English term — because Germans, it turns out, do not have one of their own.

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Insults, insults, and more insults

What's going on?  Lately everywhere you turn, especially in China, people are getting insulted — big league:

"‘Ask the Chinese people’: China calls for understanding in Dolce & Gabbana insult row"

  • Fashion house suffers high-profile resignations after ‘country of s***t’ storm
  • D&G attempts damage control as Communist Party weighs in to row

Zhuang Pinghui, SCMP (11/22/18)

"Dolce & Gabbana cancels show in China after celebrities and models boycott over founder Stefano’s ‘racist online outburst’ and controversial ad campaign"

  • Designer Stefano Gabbana says his Instagram account was hacked and apologised following screenshots of him apparently calling China ‘a country of s***’
  • That followed an ad campaign that featured a Chinese woman struggling to eat pizza, spaghetti and an oversized cannoli with chopsticks

Zhuang Pinghui, SCMP (11/21/18)

"Controversial adverts: racism, sexism, abusive relationships and disrespect towards chickens"

  • Insensitive and offensive adverts attract huge numbers of complaints online and in the mass media
  • Advertisers say they are easy targets and people will complain about anything

Elaine Yau, SCMP (11/20/18)

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