Language and Respect

“Not too long ago, all the talk was about exotic securities backed by crappy [sic] mortgages, inadequate bank regulation, excessive CEO pay and burdensome consumer debt.”

—“Who changed the financial crisis narrative?,” Matthew Goldstein, Reuters.com, Aug 14, 2011

And not too long ago, serious newspapers did not permit street language to appear on their pages. “Who changed the narrative” indeed!


Media policy about not using street language—even in quotations—sprang from editors’ and publishers’ sense of respect for their paper and for their readers. It was not that such words would set our virgin ears to blushing—we had certainly heard them all before, and many of us had even used them before. It was just a matter of appropriateness. . . .

Just as people in some cultures choose not to bring the dirt of the street into their homes and so remove their street shoes as soon as they come in, so did we at one time, out of respect for ourselves and our families, not bring street language into our homes. When one attended the theater, then, or read a novel, and street words were used, they still had impact, often serving to characterize their users (or their users’ emotions) far more than the swear words or body parts or functions to which they were referring. If Rhett Butler's “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” didn’t still have a lot more impact than all the four-letter words used in films today, it wouldn’t continue to be quoted so frequently.

Street language probably began making its way into our homes at about the same time that Americans began calling one another by their first names. The expression “on a first-name basis” was coined during a time when saying “Please call me by my first name” represented a kind of milestone in any relationship, an incrementally greater degree of intimacy, akin to the French progression from vous to tu. 

First-name address seems particularly inappropriate between children and adults. Indeed, when Ms. Picky was a child, she didn’t even know the first names of her friends’ parents, because she always addressed them by their titles, “Mr.” or “Mrs.” There were a few rather intimate family friends of course for whom titles would have been too formal, and those became “aunty” or “uncle,” regardless of whether or not they were blood relations. People whose names one did not know were “sir,” “miss,” or “ma’am.”

Once, when Ms. Picky had a doctor’s appointment, a young gentleman in a white lab coat appeared in the waiting room, a manila folder in his hand. He smiled, introduced himself as “Dr. Stethoscope,” and, with a question in his voice, addressed Ms. Picky by her first name.

“Yes, Robert?” responded Ms. Picky. The doctor flushed and immediately turned his embarrassment and indignation into a little cough. Perhaps he hadn’t realized whom he was dealing with. Ms. Picky didn’t mind at all addressing the young man as “Dr. Stethoscope”—so long as he addressed her as “Ms. Picky.” 

Ms. Picky remembers with great fondness a particular Sunday morning many years ago, when her mother stood at the kitchen doorway, spatula in hand, and asked, “Henry, would you like your eggs fried or scrambled?”

Her father, engrossed in the Sunday paper, responded automatically: “Yes.”

“Yes? Yes, what?” her mother asked exasperatedly.

And, in a delightful throwback to his own upbringing, her father responded, again automatically, “Yes, ma’am!”

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Journalism Wall of Shame

“As an aside, I bet Dow Jones really wishes they would have kept Altria over Bank of America.”

—“Why Apple Should Replace HP In The Dow 30,” Paul Zimbardo, Seeking Alpha.com, Aug. 22, 2011

The conditional mode is expressed in the “would” that is understood, but does not appear, between “I” and “bet.” The conditional is required because the writer is not actually betting, but, rather, implying something like “if I were a betting man,” and, since he is already expressing the conditional mode in his subordinate clause, he should not then also use it in his independent clause (“they would have kept”). Correctly, the sentence would be written:

“. . . I'd bet Dow Jones really wishes 
they had kept Altria over Bank of America.”

* * *

“Brazilians Wax Philosophically About Underwear Messages.”

—Headline, “Funny Business” column, Jane Wells, CNBC.com, May 17, 2011

The verb “to wax,” being used here in its literary usage as “to become,” is a copulative, or linking, verb, meaning its subject and predicate nominative are equivalent. The headline sentence means, “Brazilians become philosophical,” in spite of the fact that the writer is playfully alluding to the procedure of a “Brazilian wax” (an explanation of which is not appropriate in this post).

In choosing to use the adverb “philosophically” instead of the adjective “philosophical,” the writer is incorrectly using the transitive meaning of the verb “wax,” to mean “to apply wax to,” as in, for example, “He waxed the floor.” The writer cannot excuse herself by saying the misuse was necessary to provide the pun; the pun would still have worked with the correct usage.

________

Bulletin Board

To J.S.: 

You are right in believing that the words “sensuous” and “sensual” should not be used interchangeably. Although both words refer to gratification of the senses, “sensuous” is used more generically, for both physical and esthetic gratification or appeal, while “sensual” refers only to the physical. 

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