I deeply believe that the words we use both flow from the way we think and help to shape the way we think. Words carry associations, and careful word choice can affect both your own state of mind as well as the impressions of those who hear or read your words. One example of this is my choice to avoid the term delivery, a passive term which can evoke images of a woman on her back, being treated (for a non-pathological condition) by hospital staff who assist in the removal of her baby from her body, in favor of giving birth and other terms which restore agency to the mother as the main actor in the passage of her baby from her body into the world. (Same song, second verse: an OB or midwife attended my births rather than delivering me or my children.) I have at least one friend who will heatedly argue that my word choice and hers have nothing to do with her birth. Please note that I am not arguing that a particular person was passive because they use the word delivery to refer to birth. I am, however, arguing that as a society, we have some baggage about birth, and that the passive and pathology-oriented language we use both reflects this and aids in reinforcing and perpetuating it.
Another example: I avoid using the term nazi when referring to a very strict person. The English language is full of other words I can use. I do not need to use a word that derived from the name of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. Using the word in this colloquial sense trivializes the atrocities committed by the Nazi party. Casual use seems dismissive not only of its historical context, but also of the modern subject, painting the strict person as a cartoonish and unreasonable figure worthy of an eye-roll, rather than recognizing their right to a principled stance, regardless of how strongly we might disagree with it. It paints them with a broad brush rather than addressing the particular complaint we might have about them in the moment. Again, not arguing that anybody has to agree with a fanatic, or that a fanatic isn't fanatic (although sometimes that's a matter of perspective), just that perhaps we can choose a word other than nazi, avoid offense, not trivialize anybody, and get our meaning across just as well, if not better.
A few days ago I overheard an art teacher telling a colleague that she resists use of the word awesome when referring to students because she feels strongly that the word should be used to refer to people and situations that literally inspire awe. While I am an unrepentant awesome-spouting product of the '80s, I can see her point, and respect her linguistic opinion. She recognizes that her words mean something, and she is making a conscious and well-reasoned choice.
When it comes to parenting, I make a number of choices regarding how to speak both to and about my children. How I label them and their behaviors can become a self-fulfilling prophesy as patterns form in my concept of them and as their own self-awareness is shaped. What words - and associated ideas - do I want them to have in their own life story? How do I want to think of them now and remember them later?
Coming from this point of view, it was with great interest that I read the R-word site today. The Special Olympics supports the idea that language and beliefs are linked, and is asking people to pledge not to use the words retard and retarded in a derogatory sense in their everyday language. I've waffled on my opinion of retarded in the past, torn between linguistic idealism and a sense that maybe sometimes people can take things too seriously, but ultimately I think I'd put the R words somewhere near nazi in their tendency to be used in ways that are dismissive both of their history and of their current referent.
Take a look, see what you think. What's your take on the R-word? What words and their meanings are important to you?
UPDATE 3/7/2012: Two beautiful new posts have brought me back to this entry. I'd like to share them with you. Please check out Tanis Miller's thoughts about her fantastic son and the "R" word, and then watch this:
