For real? (Head hangs in disbelief of what the world has come to).



While uncommon and probably quaint nowadays, it's not obscure enough that I didn't know what it meant in '99... and English is only something I learned by reading comics. I would argue that this is a typical case where the "offender" would be justified in asking any "offendee" to break open a dictionary or do a quick google search (or to read more Marvel comics penned by Stan Lee)!



(Your examples were pretty funny!) 

I agree that language evolves, and that it is sensible to try and be as clear as possible unless our goal is to obfuscate or to tease the hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobes. I would however not remove "dildo" from a Shakespeare play, because it should be understood that in this context, the word probably means something else than in our modern parlance. However, even allowing for the evolution of language, it should be stressed that at any given time words have a certain meaning. More and more, when told I should not use this word or that word because someone else has decided that it meant something else, or that it carries some new and nefarious connotation, I have the impression of being on the other side of the mirror:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”


Lewis Carroll was a visionary, as I do get the impression that current attempts to control speech so that they correspond to this or that agenda is an attempt to impose power... It was true in Orwell's 1984 too, and Humpty Dumpty called it.

The meaning of words is something that evolves organically, not by fiat, and if a large number of people start using it in a certain way, it will take on that meaning; but a small group can't unilaterally impose its interpretation unless the majority allows it. To pick a recent example from the United Kingdom: yes, a gingerbread man has the word "man" in it, but that name has as much to do with patriarchal domination as «lady fingers» has to do with matriarchal tyranny. They're bloody cookies, for crying out loud. No sense in calling them gingerbread people or people fingers.



That is quite true, and it's clear that seemingly innocuous words can be hurtful in a particular context. It is only the decent thing to do to refrain from using them in ways that could inflict undue anguish when we are aware that such might be the case. Don't talk ropes in a hanged man's house and all that. 

Say, that reminds me of another story. It was during a tennis tournament a few years back, and one of the players angrily shouted at the referee : "are you blind???"

According to the press, some association of blind people was offended. The referee, I imagine, was hurt. Yet the word "blind" itself is quite neutral; it describes the reality of not being able to see.

The offence came from using the word "blind" as an insult, as if blind people were an example of something inadequate. There is however nothing offensive at pointing out that blind people can't see (it's pretty much the definition of being blind), and it would be ridiculous to try to insult a blind person by calling them blind (unless someone is di&kish enough to rub their nose in it, but that's another matter). The referee, on the other hand, is supposed to see things clearly; calling him blind becomes an insult, because it means that his performance is less than it is supposed to be. The adjective "blind", in and of itself, is neither hurtful or offensive; it is its use that will determine whether it is a simple statement of fact or an insult. That is also true of a very large collection of words, and if we were to ban their use because someone, somewhere, sometime, can consider said word insulting, we will quickly lose our capacity to communicate. (Or, more likely, we will indulge in unending shouting matches about how we are all terrible people for using or for refusing to use this word or that one).