In the comboxes below on one of the eugenics threads, there was a discussion over whether it is proper to use the verb "to breed" to describe human reproduction. I say it's inappropriate, because the use of a term more closely associated with animal husbandry frames the question of human reproduction in a way that diminishes, if not eliminates, what is uniquely human -- even sacred -- about human life. We should not accustom ourselves to thinking of human reproduction as merely a biological process, no different in kind than animal breeding, because that conditions us to think of humans as nothing more than animals.
Take a look at how President Theodore Roosevelt used the term in this letter of support to Charles Davenport, a prominent eugenics advocate:
I agree with you if you mean, as I suppose you do, that society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind. It is really extraordinary that our people refuse to apply to human beings such elementary knowledge as every successful farmer is obliged to apply to his own stock breeding.
Cows, people, the slaughterhouse, Auschwitz...the language we use to discuss these issues matters immensely, because it frames them philosophically. It's not for nothing that in the 1920s, the German press was awash with the use of the word "parasites" to describe human beings that were socially undesirable from the overclass point of view. Once Germans became accustomed to seeing human beings as a biological pest, it wasn't hard to take them another step...and then another.
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Euphemism is the last refuge of cowards.
"Marian, you see why I personally ignore political correctness. I believe in being polite, but I don't believe in lying."
Exactly what "politically correct" terms are "lying"? Most such formulations simply tell as much of the truth as seems relevant to the speaker. Kind of like calling a spade a spade instead of a bloody shovel (which I think is Chesterton.)
I'll concede up front that "lying" is hyperbolic. The principle remains, to wit:
The pejorative connotations of any term are in the ear of the beholder. I do not deny the valid lexicon shifts that take place over time, in response to groups desiring to assuage or mitigate the pejorative "damage". I partake of it myself. I no longer use the term "gypsy", and I have replaced it in my mind and usage with "Rom" or the grammatical equivalent.
That is not, in my mind, a consequence of political correctness. It is an aspect of the evolution of language.
On the other side are essentially arbitrary shifts in usage and meaning. Take the term "black", in the US most often used to refer to a person of African descent. It is a literal translation of the older term "negro", the corrupted form of which being the infamous "n" word we all must not use. I can and do support the removal of the "n" word from any connection to polite discourse. I do not support the arbitrary removal of "negro" or "black" because both were or are valid words in the lexicon of the past or present. They obtain pejorative connotation because someone decided they did, not because they were used that way.
Besides, not all blacks come from Africa, at least not within a few enough number of generations for it to have any semantic significance.
I will use African-American when asked to by anyone who has a personal connection to the term. I will not use it as a general term, for the same reason I will not use Irish-American or Italian-American with the kids I grew up with, because they neither used them or thought of themselves in that fashion. I am first generation. I am as close to my ethnic heritage as I can be for not having been born in the country of origin. However, calling me a Yugoslav-American would be a meaningless exercise.
In the meantime, I will continue to refer to my black neighbors and black coworkers, and I will read or hear "negro" as a valid term that can place the user in a certain age group at the least. No other connotations need apply.
The "lexicon shifts" FE refers to can also be characterized as the difference between exonyms and endonyms (I admit to coining these terms for an anthropology paper some years ago.) An endonym is what the members of a group call themselves. An particular exonym is what members of a group are called by outsiders. A general exonym is what members of a group call anybody outside the group. So Rom is the endonym for the people known from the outside as gypsies; their general exonym for everybody else is gajo (or, among the Spanish gitanos, payo.) Some particular exonyms are ethnic slurs; some are neutral.
I too have a preference for "black" over "African-American," mainly because I like monosyllables generally. Aside from which, "African-American" in its current usage is not comparable to "Italian-American." Barack Obama is a REAL first-generation African-
American, but there aren't too many of those in the US these days.
Damn, Marian, I just fell in love with you. "Endonym" and "exonym" are excellent terms that deserve to be formalized; they are semantically evocative and elegantly simple and direct. Are you aware of the Wiki entry for these words? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exonym_and_endonym
I agree that my hyphenation example is flawed. It was the best way I could think of to make the point.
I'm also impressed that you are familiar with Rom culture. I don't generally find it outside the small ethnic music and dance subculture.
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