"Nigga" untrademarkable?

[Alice Faber]

Charles Doyle wrote:
> A few years ago, after discoursing with a Shakespeare class
> about The Merchant of Venice, I was informed by a student
> that she found offensive my using the noun "Jew."  Taken
> aback, I asked what designation she would prefer; she
> replied, "Jewish person."
>
> How widespread is that sentiment?  (Though it isn't quite
> parallel, the Yid/Yiddish pair reminded me of my student's
> distinction.)
>
> Of course, many derogatory epithets for
> ethnic/racial/national/religious categories have originated
> as neutral designations (as was the case with the
> unutterable n-word, with its untrademarkable cognate), the
> pejoration of the words resulting from the oppression--dare
> I say denigration?--of the groups to which they refer.

I encountered variations of this attitude several times when I lived in
Texas. When I first went to Austin, in 1974, on my flight down I was
sitting next to a woman who was most intrigued (and pleased as punch)
that a New Yorker thought that the University of Texas was the ideal
place for graduate studies in linguistics. When the conversation turned
to their offerings in Hebrew--one of the attractions of the school--she
asked if I spoke Hebrew and then, to my utter befuddlement, she asked if
I was an "Israelite".

A few years later, when I was teaching the intro to linguistics for
non-majors, in a classroom discussion of taboo and politeness, a student
from Houston raised the issue of "Jew" and "Jewish" as ethnic
designators. Her childhood best friend, who was Jewish, had been
instructed by her parents to tell them immediately if anybody described
her as "a Jew" or "as Jewish". The kids were confused by this (after
all, the friend *was* Jewish), but the parents obviously found such
language potentially offensive.

At this point, it occurred to me that the woman on the plane who had
asked me if I was an Israelite was struggling for a polite, inoffensive
way to ask me what was a totally natural question in the context of our
conversation.

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Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                        fax (203) 865-8963

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