sensitive words
LatchKeyKid
Shipmate
in The Styx
I made a faux pas in a thread when I mentioned the TV program
On another board a while ago the software referred a post to the admins when I stated my mother liked
If, eg, I was to mention the Bob Dylan song Went To See The
Wogs Out Of Work
.On another board a while ago the software referred a post to the admins when I stated my mother liked
Gypsy
Rose Lee. The post did get approved, but it had never occurred to me that
Gypsy
was a sensitive term.If, eg, I was to mention the Bob Dylan song Went To See The
Gypsy
about his meeting with Elvis Presley, should I use hidden text?
Comments
Due to epiphanic considerations, I have occassionally on the ship referred to a certain novel as "that book by Nabokov", sorta like superstitious actors using "the Scottish play" gets used for "Macbeth". I'm not sure that would work as well for the name of a real, historical figure, though.
Apparently, that was the name of the play, and the TV shows spun from it was called Acropolis Now, with Greeks in Australia being the target of the spoofing, and presumably the slur in the original theatrical title, with scripts created by Australians of Greek descent themselves.
But I am aware that it in other places, that word can refer to groups who have suffered a bit more from the colonial misdeeds of the West.
About 20 years ago, I was in an area where there were plenty of such people, settled in houses. I took a funeral service for one of their leading grandmas and shortly afterwards took a wedding for the same family. They were happy and proud to call themselves
After that, I encountered a number of similar people in the north of England and then in Surrey, over a number of years. On all occasions, they were quite happy to own the title.
With regard to other "sensitive" words, it seems to me that a lot depends on the context. If you are quoting the title of a film or book, then it might be very confusing to omit the word altogether. Is it acceptable to use asterisks instead? After all, you are not using the word yourself, but "simply" quoting another person's use.
In the UK it remains pretty common and forms part of the officially accepted initialism GRT for traditionally nomadic communities in these islands.
Is it really on a par with the n-word in the US? I know some of the lyrics from Sondheim musicals have been changed, such as words that are now understood to be offensive to gay people, but I've never heard any talk of changing the name of this musical or the main character.
This from the Wikipedia article on “Romani people” might be helpful:
Meanwhile, there’s a more extensive article on “Names of the Romani People.”
I’ll also note that in addition to the aforementioned musical and its titular character, the word in question is also a term historically used in American theater to mean a hard-working singer or dancer in the chorus who constantly goes from show to show. I believe, though, that over the last 10+ years, Actors Equity and others in the theater community have tried to move away from using the term to mean that.
And I doubt you will, given that titular character (she’s actually not the main character, her mother is the main character) was a real person and that was her stage name.
So wait, does this mean that Ship policy is that we can't, without hiding the text, refer to songs like
by Fleetwood Mac and Cher, and all the others? Can we actually not refer to
without hiding the text?
(Not to mention that we've "reclaimed" the word queer, so if that's one of the words...)
Hiding it here seems rather pointless -- did anyone reading this thread not click at least the first time to find out what the subject of discussion is?
I think it's notable that in the story told by the Cher song, the contested word is shown as shouted at members of the described subculture(*) as if it were, if fact, an a standalone, a priori insult, along the lines of "tramps" and "thieves".
That said, this thread(along with some other real-life uses of the word I've heard) has more or less convinced me that the everyday word for "Romani" is unprobmematuc. I just thought the portrayed negativity of the word in one of the best-known usages deserved mention(**).
(*) A subculture which may or may not be Romani itself, because it's not clear if the townsfolk are shouting the word at the carnies because the carnies ARE Romani, or are just unflatteringly comparing them to Romani. Preaching "a little gospel" does not strike me as a stereotypical enough(as a songwriter would see it) activity for Romani to engage in, so I've always assumed maybe they were just supposed to be hardscrabble rural Americans who took to the road.
(**) And yes, I know the lyrics are not endorsing the bigotry of the townsfolk. But an anthropologist from Mars might interpret the story as reflecting real-life practices.
No, I'm pretty sure we all clicked. Though I think it helps that the thread title pretty much constitutes a trigger warning, which allows the reader to make an informed choice.
In my job I have to work with community groups which means I know they prefer GR&T to GRT (for example) but have no problem with what I'm going to call the G word for the purposes of this discussion as for example: https://www.gypsy-traveller.org/
I hope it's OK to use the word as part of a web address - I can't work out how to hide it.
I've wondered the same thing, about the fact he was gay, and whether the word (beginning with f - same word we Brits used to use for cigarettes) was offensive at the time he wrote the lyrics, and whether he used it more for the shock value of even mentioning homosexuality at all. The song I'm thinking about is 'You can drive a person crazy' from Company.
That's why I was saying my understanding was that it was different for someone's name, but if you see the posts previous to mine, people had been suggesting she just be referred to as Rose Lee, so if that were considered necessary, it may well be extended to the musical.
I actually thought it was the name of the mother, but it's been many years since I saw it. The mum's called Rose, the daughter is Louise, hence my confusion, but yes, Louise then takes on that stage name.
From Reddit.
“I could understand a person
If it’s not a person’a bag”
Which screams 1970s so was perhaps ripe for changing anyway.
The recent version is gender-flipped and has three men singing about Bobbie:
“If she said to go away…
If she actually was gay”
The best thing in that show, though, was Jonathan Bailey’s Jamie (rather than Amy) and his fiance Paul.
I never understood that line. What does it mean?
Feels very hippy to me.
Oh, the other "f word." The one Dan Savage had readers use when asking questions for years in his sex advice column:
https://www.thestranger.com/25-years-of-the-stranger/2016/10/12/24613273/the-first-savage-love
And in the immortal, awesome Romanovsky and Phillips song,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOcdXbTLUJI
Article I found about the Sondheim line here:
https://thebroadwaymaven.substack.com/p/if-a-person-was-a-slur-the-lyric
Relevant bit:
The real Louise’s name was actually Rose Louise Hovick. My understanding is that she was usually called Louise, and of course that’s necessary in the show—you can’t have two characters with the same name. But you can see it’s an easy step from Rose Louise to Rose Lee.
The name of the musical is taken from the title of Louise Hovick’s memoir. It also has layered meaning. On the surface, of course, it refers to Louise’s stage name. But it also refers to the meaning in American theater I mentioned earlier—to the life of those in Vaudeville, to Mama Rose’s dreams of making it big and to all the ways she tried to live that dream through her children, particularly June and Louise.
Ahh - I didn't know that expression. Thanks, that makes sense now, and relates to the next line, if women aren't his bag.
I'd say for the rhyme and musicality, the slur worked better than 'gay,' in that a short vowel ending with a stop consonant is sharper, shows the frustration more. And it matches the other rhymes of that section of the song, which all use an /a/ vowel and stop consonant - mad, had, that, flat. I find the choice of rhyme is important in Sondheim's songs - an intrinsic part of the meaning.
But for the actual words in themselves, meaning-wise, the 'go away' and 'gay' lines are much better. The more recent 'gay' line I have heard, from the first gender-switch version, with Rosalie Craig, is 'If (s)he happened to be gay' (not 'if (s)he actually was gay', which is in the version where Neil Patrick Harris plays Bobby). I like the casual 'happened to be' because it makes clear that it's not a big deal if someone is gay. Leaving 'if (s)he actually was' to the line with 'dead' - the most extreme and ridiculous situation they would understand - is more effective.
There was an in-between time when the word 'drag' was used instead of the f-word: a concert example here.
Or a delicacy common in the North of England.
The difference between
Do they really? Seems a bit old-fashioned.
I also understand self appropriation, so people who are of the culture have the right to use it as they will, similar to how I have just enough legitimacy to jokingly call myself a hick (usually when I'm annoyed) because I grew up in Appalachia.
The re-appropriation of ethnic pejoratives is a tricky thing. And I think each one has its own peculiar history and deserves its own peculiar respect. I kind of like this guy's approach, far as the g-word goes. I think he has enough authenticity to rock it.
On the Ship without spoiler tags?
Thank you. I’ve realized that this is a thread in which I think I have seen more hidden text than any other thread ever lol… And all we had to do was just ask…