My usual reading at Language Log, an august institution featuring actual famous linguist contributors, is usually worthwhile, but just today I found an especially interesting entry (by someone I once took a class from) about "the n-word".
I don't really feel qualified to comment on this subject either linguistically or, well, politically, but I personally avoid using the word and I do think it is very offensive in most contexts. But I also find McWhorter's dismissal of the Defense's claims about the changing use of the "n-word" a little hard to swallow, whatever the linguistic precedence.
The issue, it seems to me, is not whether it is right, proper and common for some words to be appropriate when uttered by some people in some situations and inappropriate in others. Leaving aside competing claims in the case, what seems important is that the use of this particular word is changing fast now and that it is no longer safe to assume that its use by a person of whatever race is intended either as a racial insult or a replacement for "dude". To the extent that the Defense is trying to suggest this, I think they have a point.
Posted by Alan Hogue at June 1, 2006 05:29 PMIt seems to me that McWhorter is trying to argue the ambiguity of meaning here, rather than simply rejecting the Defense's claim as incorrect. That insofar as either side is claiming "X is the only meaning this word has now", they're wrong.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at June 2, 2006 12:23 PMI took the article to be a defense of the idea, from a linguistic point of view, that a word can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on context, and that this context can and sometimes does include the identity of the speaker and the hearer. That's fine and good, but notice that if this is your argument the ambiguity evaporates again. There's nothing ambiguous about the Japanese words he talks about, so far as I know.
Perhaps the real issue hinges on whether you look at the intention of the speaker or not, which, being no lawyer, I think must be very important in a hate crimes case. And if you're talking about intention I do not think you can just assume that the word was meant as a racial epithet.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at June 2, 2006 03:25 PM