Referencing the existence of words that may be offensive

Question

I left a comment on this answer in which I made a reference to a word that many people find offensive (although I didn’t use or even mention the word itself). I referenced the word because it was an example of the type of word that the question was asking about: insults ending in -er.

Another user took me to task, scolding me for referencing an offensive word.

I think this is absurd. Does this user really expect us to pretend offensive words don’t exist? Is that really a reasonable way forward? This is what I imagine the policy someone who was offended by my comment might propose:

Discussion of words that people might find offensive is strictly forbidden. Not only are you not allowed to use or mention such words, but you may not even allude to their existence.

Is there anyone who actually supports such a policy?

Answer 1

Not only do I think that a person should be able to discuss an offensive word or phrase in an academic fashion as appropriate, but I don't even think it should be necessary to disguise the word or phrase in any way. Of course, it is fine to go ahead and disguise the word as nohat did, but even if he had spelled out the actual word in that context I would still defend him.

Certainly, there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to use offensive words on a site like this, but I think we should be mature enough to recognize what constitutes academic discussion and what doesn't.

Answer 2

If you're going to pretend offensive words don't exist you'll need to close questions like that one as "not a real question", as they ask about fictional concepts like curse words. Personally I think people have conflated swearing with the discussion of swearing, and they're quite different -- the utterance of a "swear word" is not necessarily swearing.

I'm going to temporarily break out swearing here, so brace yourselves if you find this offensive:

• If I say "fuck you", that's swearing
• If I say "The word 'fuck' exists in the English language", that's not swearing. It's just not, except maybe in a semantic sense (I'm not familiar with the actual definition of the word)

There's no reason to be offended by the existence of swear words themselves, and pretending they don't exist on a site devoted to discussion of language would be laughable. If enough people have a problem with it, one approach is to have a tag that marks questions that talk about curse words, so people can ignore that tag (similiar to a NSFW tag on an RSS feed)

Answer 3

Does this user really expect us to pretend offensive words don’t exist? Is that really a reasonable way forward?

No, it is not. @Cinque does not have a right not to be offended by perfectly legitimate (though offensive to some) words in an intellectual discussion of English. If merely acknowledging the existence of something like the "N-word" becomes forbidden on this site, I for one will leave. What if someone asks a question about the etymology of the "N-word" and actually spells it out? How are the non-native speakers on the site supposed to even necessarily know which words are offensive?

All @Cinque has done by continuing this line of thought is to now make me curious about the etymology of the "N-word" itself. Also, if we cater to political correctness, how will non-native speakers even know to what we refer? Lots of words start with "N". Talk about the "N" word, the "F" word, and the "C" word. Even spell them out. Just don't call anyone a "N" or a "C" or tell them to "F" off.

Answer 4

When the Laura Schlessinger thing happened, I made a blog post here about why it isn't necessary to use (in the philosophical sense) the n-word in order for it to be offensive. Apparently for @Cinque, even mentioning the taboo avoidance term is enough to be offensive.

I don't want to say that Cinque's offense was illegitimate, but it does place us in an awkward position. The topic of the question was about pejoratives ending in -er, clearly bringing the n-word into relevance. What should be done then? nohat even used the normally accepted form to mention without saying the n-word.

With all due respect to Cinque's feelings, there must be some way to discuss taboo and offensive words when they are the topic of a question. Cinque, you haven't offered an alternative wording of nohat's comment, and not discussing the word at all is not a viable alternative.

Answer 5

I think we can all agree that that word is offensive, but to prevent acknowledging the existence of that word or any word is beyond ridiculous.

I have attempted bodily harm to the one person foolish enough to call me a [offensive word]. That doesn't mean that I'll throw a hissy fit if someone wants to discuss that word's etymology. I probably won't read it, but I won't vote to close unless it turns into a troll-fest.

Words exist. We discuss them here.

Answer 6

I am strongly against censoring ourselves in an academic context. It's the job of the linguist, speaker, and learner to recognize, understand, and dissect these words. I would strongly recommend changing the word in reference to the actual word, if nothing else but to prevent confusion–and hopefully remove some of the stigma involved with it. Further, suggesting that we avoid all reference to a word on a site that is about words is ludicrous. That said, I can understand that some people may not want to read these words. Is a "NSFW"-like tag appropriate?

This brings other, interesting topics to mind. Why do people find words offensive? What are the histories of these words? Also, I'm particularly looking forward to our discussion on fucking-infixation.

Answer 7

I like the the Guardian newspaper's guidelines for swearwords, it may also help us:

swearwords

We are more liberal than any other newspapers, using language that our competitors would not. But even some readers who agree with Lenny Bruce that "take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government" might feel that we sometimes use such words unnecessarily.

The editor's guidelines are as follows:

First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend.

Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes.

Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.

Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a cop-out

They discuss it in more detail here.

Answer 8

I used the word in question in Was the word "nigger" an expletive in Mark Twain's day?