Racial epithet makes news

[Charles C Doyle]

Nicely put, Jonathan.

And would the usage have been less or more offensive if the phrase were spelled or pronounced "Honest Indian"?  Is the spelling/pronunciation "Injun" separately lexified--and if so (presumaably it is), when and how did it get that way?  (Cf. the presumed distinction between "Negro" and "Nigra.")

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 8:56 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
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If I may play the devil's advocate, "Injun" may be rightly offensive in
ordinary discourse for obvious reasons. That does not entail that the phrase
"Honest Injun" is meant to be or should reasonably be understood as
offensive.  For critics to jump on Steele with both feet for saying "Honest
Injun" and for CNN implicitly to endorse that reaction (when it could have
reported it without comment) strikes me as disproportionate to the offense.
(Like that matters.)

By the way, not every member of a given ethnic group is honest.  So what?
Nobody is claiming, AFAIK, that Steele is an anti-Indian racist, despises
Native Americans, or used the phrase in anything other than a spontaneous,
humorous way - humorous because children appear to me to be/ have been its
primary users; an adult's saying "Honest Injun!" implies to me a rhetorical
assertion of truthfulness and lack of guile. It is not a way of saying, "Oh,
I almost forgot!  Never trust an Indian! Now where was I?"

Of course, intention and reason have only limited application to discussions
of and reactions to language.  The fact that "Honest Injun!" *can* be
understood to imply by  contentious, hyperanalytical persons, that not all
Indians are honest does not mean that Steele intended it to imply that or to
imply anything at all about Indians. What it means is, "I'm telling you the
truth."

And of course the number and proportion of Native Americans who actually
felt offended or outraged by Steele's phrase, or would have felt that way if
they'd heard of it, is unknowable.  The logic of the critics seems to be
that all Indians and right-thinking others *ought to be* outraged.

I'm not sure just when Steele uttered the fatal words, but the reaction is
comparable to the programmatic outrage at Harry Reid for alluding
indelicately to Barrack Obama's manner of speech.

I'm not recommending the use of "Honest Injun!"  Obviously, the entire
incident suggests that one should not use it. I'm condemning self-righteous
knee-jerk reactions and gotcha politics.

Silly me.

JL

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