The President Packer Postulate (Part II)
Missed Part I? Check it out here.
In the last few decades, our society has grown increasingly tolerant of homosexuality. Despite the best efforts of various (primarily religious) organizations, none have been able to fully stem the tide of this acceptance. This failure stems partly from a lack of knowledge: since most religions don’t even know why homosexuality is wrong, their arguments against it are generally along the lines of “because God said so,” with no further explanation—in other words, fairly useless. Unfortunately, this is not the most significant problem with fighting this battle.
In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
, the government—best known to the masses by the omnipresent “Big Brother”—takes control of the people using an extremely simple, yet amazingly effective, tool: the English language. By slowly removing words from the language, these words likewise retreat from the public consciousness. What few words remain, the government subtly changes to meet its own, rather nefarious purposes. As the people lose the ability to articulate certain thoughts (even to themselves), their thoughts become more and more in line with what “Big Brother” wants them to think. Mind control is achieved not solely through omnipresent technological dissemination, but more fully through controlling the people’s ability to express themselves.
Why am I bringing this up? Well, let’s take a step back and consider the current state of the English language. We’ll discuss various actions and our words for people that perform said actions. We’ll start with a simple one:
The problem is that, somewhere along the line, somebody decided to take a perfectly good adjective—homosexual—and turn it into a noun. Judging by my 1971 Webster’s Dictionary, I’ll assume this was sometime before then. However, I can’t help but notice that in that same 1971 dictionary, “heterosexual” was not a noun; it was an adjective meaning “Of or relating to relationships between persons of the opposite sex,” with no nounal definition whatsoever. Not so, in my 1980 Webster’s, where a new definition has been added: “n. a heterosexual individual.”
Other adjectives have also been hijacked, either before or after “homosexual”: gay, Lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, etc.. Where else in the English language do we see this? When is the last time you described an individual as an adulterous? a speeding? a gigantic? Yet at some point, somebody decided to make “homosexual,” et al, into nouns. By simply changing the part of speech of a pre-existing word, anything previously described by that adjective—from thoughts to deeds to anything in between—immediately became that adjective. And thus, an individual that is born with homosexual tendencies becomes a “homosexual,” a “gay,” a “Lesbian,” or whatever, even if they never act on that tendency!
But wait, there’s more. We’ve already seen that the word “heterosexual” was changed at some point—as far as Webster’s was concerned, between 1971 and 1980. By creating an alternative word to describe what previously had no word—that which was once so normal that it didn’t even require a word to describe it—what was once a linguistic and de facto aberration is now just one of several possibilities. Then the ’90s brought us the term “cisgender”—a word that didn’t even exist, twenty years ago—in an attempt to normalize transvestitism and transsexualism (which have themselves been changed to the more palatable “transgender”).
Stay tuned for the third and final installment!
In the last few decades, our society has grown increasingly tolerant of homosexuality. Despite the best efforts of various (primarily religious) organizations, none have been able to fully stem the tide of this acceptance. This failure stems partly from a lack of knowledge: since most religions don’t even know why homosexuality is wrong, their arguments against it are generally along the lines of “because God said so,” with no further explanation—in other words, fairly useless. Unfortunately, this is not the most significant problem with fighting this battle.
In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
, the government—best known to the masses by the omnipresent “Big Brother”—takes control of the people using an extremely simple, yet amazingly effective, tool: the English language. By slowly removing words from the language, these words likewise retreat from the public consciousness. What few words remain, the government subtly changes to meet its own, rather nefarious purposes. As the people lose the ability to articulate certain thoughts (even to themselves), their thoughts become more and more in line with what “Big Brother” wants them to think. Mind control is achieved not solely through omnipresent technological dissemination, but more fully through controlling the people’s ability to express themselves.Why am I bringing this up? Well, let’s take a step back and consider the current state of the English language. We’ll discuss various actions and our words for people that perform said actions. We’ll start with a simple one:
- What do we call the unlawful taking of life?
- Murder.
- What do we call someone that commits murder?
- A murderer.
Pretty simple, huh? But here’s the kicker:
- What do we call a person that only thinks about committing murder, but doesn’t actually do it?
Well, the answer is: unless you actually commit the murder, you’re not a murderer. In fact, you’re so unremarkable that we don’t even have a word for what you are. With respect to murder, you’re… well, nothing. So let’s continue:
- What do we call taking something that doesn’t belong to you?
- Theft.
- What do we call someone that commits theft?
- A thief.
- What do we call a person that only thinks about committing theft, but doesn’t actually do it?
- Nothing.
- What do we call riding a bicycle?
- Cycling.
- What do we call someone that’s involved in cycling?
- A cyclist.
- What do we call a person that only thinks about being involved in cycling, but doesn’t actually do it?
- Nothing.
- What do we call bearing and/or raising a child?
- Parenting.
- What do we call someone that engages in parenting?
- A parent.
- What do we call a person that only thinks about parenting, but doesn’t actually do it?
- Nothing.
- What do we call having sex with someone of the same gender?
- Homosexuality.
- What do we call a person that engages in homosexuality?
- A homosexual.
- What do we call a person that only thinks about engaging in homosexuality, but doesn’t actually do it?
- A homosexual.
The problem is that, somewhere along the line, somebody decided to take a perfectly good adjective—homosexual—and turn it into a noun. Judging by my 1971 Webster’s Dictionary, I’ll assume this was sometime before then. However, I can’t help but notice that in that same 1971 dictionary, “heterosexual” was not a noun; it was an adjective meaning “Of or relating to relationships between persons of the opposite sex,” with no nounal definition whatsoever. Not so, in my 1980 Webster’s, where a new definition has been added: “n. a heterosexual individual.”
Other adjectives have also been hijacked, either before or after “homosexual”: gay, Lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, etc.. Where else in the English language do we see this? When is the last time you described an individual as an adulterous? a speeding? a gigantic? Yet at some point, somebody decided to make “homosexual,” et al, into nouns. By simply changing the part of speech of a pre-existing word, anything previously described by that adjective—from thoughts to deeds to anything in between—immediately became that adjective. And thus, an individual that is born with homosexual tendencies becomes a “homosexual,” a “gay,” a “Lesbian,” or whatever, even if they never act on that tendency!
But wait, there’s more. We’ve already seen that the word “heterosexual” was changed at some point—as far as Webster’s was concerned, between 1971 and 1980. By creating an alternative word to describe what previously had no word—that which was once so normal that it didn’t even require a word to describe it—what was once a linguistic and de facto aberration is now just one of several possibilities. Then the ’90s brought us the term “cisgender”—a word that didn’t even exist, twenty years ago—in an attempt to normalize transvestitism and transsexualism (which have themselves been changed to the more palatable “transgender”).
Stay tuned for the third and final installment!
So, a few things.
ReplyDelete1. You do know, right, that English uses adjectives as nouns all the time? Consider: the wealthy, the old, the wicked, the righteous, the ludicrous. All adjectives. So the transition from adjective to noun is not surprising. (Also, speeding, btw, is not an adjective, it's a verbal form functioning as an adjective. See how slippery this language is?)
2. Your example of murder is incomplete. We do (thanks, English!) have a word for someone who thinks about committing murder: murderous.
3. Also, your example of cycling, most native speakers of English would understand, without too much thought, what I meant if I said "armchair cyclist". Or, even better "a cycling enthusiast". Both of those think about cycling without, necessarily, doing any of it themselves. It is not one word, no, but it is one concept that we are actually totally capable of explaining in English. (I guess the mind police are failing!)
4. The question of there being a noun making a person feel they ARE something is an odd leap to take. For instance, assume you really enjoyed making food, but the word "cook" did not exist in English. The fact that we did not have a word for the item would not alter this aspect of your personality. Thus, you'd be a "cook" even if the term didn't exist. Language has a knack for describing reality so the reality exists and then the language catches up.
5. But, you'll cry, that example is still about doing something, not about being something! Let's look at a racial example, shall we? The term "Latino" (a resident of the United States with Latin-American heritage) doesn't enter the language until 1946. But there were certainly Latinos before then. Calling them Latinos has implications, sure, but it does not, in fact, change their identity at all.
Alea,
ReplyDeleteYou’ve made some good points, some of which are dealt with in my original post. The rest, I will deal with here:
1) You are correct that English uses adjectives as nouns, but they’re still adjectives. You will notice that every one of your examples consists of two words: an adjective preceded by the word “the.” In each case, the noun—people, person, what have you—is implied, but it’s still an adjective. Thus, “the homosexual” would be perfectly in keeping with this—but that’s not what we say.
2) A good point as well. So by that argument, the person contemplating homosexuality is not homosexual, but homosexuous. Again, I would have no problem with that.
3) So… armchair homosexual? The term I most often hear is “closet homosexual.” Unfortunately, the “closet homosexual”—note continued nounal form—is still considered “a homosexual,” just one who is not actively engaged in homosexual acts. Thus the need for a different term.
4) Yes, I could be a cook even if there were no word for “cook,” but I’d feel like I was unique, that there was virtually no one else like me out there. If I eventually learned that there was a clinical word for “cook,” unfamiliar to the hoi polloi, I’d then recognize that I wasn’t alone. However, this “cookness” wasn’t something normal enough that most people would know about it.
As I already pointed out, this is the problem with coining nouns like “homosexual,” “heterosexual,” “cisgender,” etc.: they add an air of legitimacy to the problem.
5) The “Latino” example is good, but rather pointless. Before the word “Latino” entered the English language, Latinos were “Hispanics.” Before that, they were “Indians.” I’m not sure there was a point at which there wasn’t a word for them, but if there was, it would have been because they were just “people.” This is exactly my point: “homosexuals” are just people, and if we got rid of all these stupid racial terms (e.g. Caucasian, African-American, Latino, etc.), I think we’d go a long way toward curing the world’s racism problems.
Honestly, though, thanks for taking the time to both read and comment! That’s more than most people do! :-)