The S-Word

There's an interesting discussion over at Linguaphiles about the word squaw. Short version: squaw is offensive because it comes from a French word for a part of the female anatomy, and was applied to all Native American women as an insult. The flaw in this story is that it's not true.

As pointed out in the comments (by entangledbank, among others), squaw doesn't derive from that anatomical term in any language. For the etymology of squaw, the OED says:

Narragansett Indian squaws, Massachusetts squa, woman, with related forms in many other Algonquin dialects.

This doesn't seem to have calmed the furor over at Linguaphiles, though―read the replies to the posts by co_lum_bus to see what I mean. It doesn't matter that the original meaning of squaw was in fact "woman", or that the only people who think the word refers to a body part are people who have been propagandized with a false etymology. No, the important thing is that people are being offended, and therefore oppressed, and Something Must Be Done.

This reminds me of the similar urban legend about the origin of the word handicap. When I was an undergrad, a very earnest friend of mine decided to raise my consciousness about the linguistic violence I was inadvertently doing when I used that word, which was supposed derived from "cap in hand", i.e. a beggar. As with squaw, it apparently wasn't a defense that I didn't know the word's origin, that I didn't mean anything offensive by it, or that the proposed offensive origin was false. The point was that someone had decided to take offense, and so I should stop using it.

Now, look here:

The etymology of a word is like any historical or linguistic fact. It can't be known with absolute certainty, perhaps, but it can be established very convincingly in a lot of cases. If it's a historical fact that a given word has an inoffensive origin, and it's not being used with intent to offend, why would anyone want to spread around a false etymology that would make it offensive? Trying to stamp out a word on such a flimsy pretext is the worst kind of prescriptivist nonsense, as bad as announcing that we are forbidden to ever split English infinitives. Worse, if enough people actually believe the false etymology, all that's been accomplished is the creation of a new slur. How would that be an improvement?

Comments

[Semantic Compositions]

Remember the flap in D.C. a few years ago over the city bureaucrat who used "niggardly" and ended up resigning because some people insisted it was a racial slur? I know he was reinstated, but it was ridiculous that the agitators wouldn't back down, even in the face of overwhelming dictionary evidence to the contrary. I guess some people just live to whine.

[language hat]

I was extremely irritated when I first learned of the "niggardly" flap, but then it occurred to me that 1) black people have every right to be paranoid about the word "nigger"; 2) most people don't rush to an etymological dictionary before they take offense (and in fact etymology is a fairly dusty science with virtually no relevance to actual usage); 3) it's quite possible that certain white people have in fact used the word deliberately to piss off black people, taking great delight in hauling out a dictionary to "prove" that the black people had no "right" to be offended; and 4) if I made a big deal out of how stupid black people were to be offended by this, I was giving aid and comfort to a crew I normally try to avoid. So I went from a rebellious urge to use the word promiscuously to prove its pure provenance to a sad realization that the word had effectively become impossible to use decently (if one is aware of the controversy), because deliberate use can be taken as a deliberate slap at black people -- and this is not because of supposed ignorance on the part of black people, but a whole stew of historical and linguistic facts and coincidences that can't be separated out into "reasonable" and "unreasonable" strands. Hell, if I were black I think I might take offense if a white person I didn't know to be nonracist used the word around me. So screw it -- there are plenty of synonyms, and it's really not worth nailing the flag to the mast over.

My opinion, for what it's worth.

[Erik Hetzner]

The question of the origin of the word is entirely orthogonal to the question of the word's offensiveness. I can think of one example of a word (call it a) with origins that mean the same as another word (b). (a) is universally considered offensive, while (b) is not (universally). The fact that squaw is considered an offensive word is a fact, and the unfortunate fact that some people have given it a false etymology does not pertain to questions of the word's offensiveness.

In other news, the OED gives the origin of the word handicap to "hand in cap", although not in the sense of a beggar, but rather in the sense of gambling. So the origin of the sense of handicapped (disabled) seems to come from a somewhat crude analogy to horse racing (or, I suppose, any gambling) where the odds are adjusted based on the past performances of the horse and, therefore, its ability.

[The Tensor]

I agree that the origin of a word is orthogonal to it's offensiveness, which is why I mention both above. The problem is that "squaw" doesn't have an offensive etymology *and* it's not widely or exclusively used as a slur. If a small group of people have been deceived into thinking it is inherently offensive, that's an opinion as much as it is a fact, and it's an opinion based on an error.

On the other hand, language change is real -- if "squaw" really did become a common slur, I would understand wanting to discourage that particular use of it (although not to stamp out all historical references to it). But the only way it could come to be used with the pejorative "body part" meaning is if the false etymology is spread. If we're currently in the middle of a language change in which "squaw" becomes unambiguously a slur, I think the right action is discourage that change rather than speed it up. We've got plenty of slurs already.

Keep in mind that just about any word can be used insultingly (e.g. "dirty yankee", or just "you *yankee*" with the right intonation), but that's a poor argument for declaring such a word off-limits. If that were the criterion, just about every national label like "American", "Frenchman", or "Mexican" would have to be outlawed.

[Erik Hetzner]

I've always thought of it as an offensive word, one I definitely wouldn't use. Not as offensive as some words, maybe, but definitely on the level of jewess and negress.

[Keith Ivey]

Two other fake etymologies made up for the purpose of being offended:

"picnic": http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/picnic.htm

"rule of thumb": http://www.debunker.com/texts/ruleofthumb.html

[language hat]

I wonder when this odd use of "orthogonal" became common? I see it everywhere now, but (say) a decade ago it was unknown.

[The Tensor]

It's common geek-speak -- I picked it up as an undergrad in computer science. See this entry in the one-and-only Jargon File:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/O/orthogonal.html

Hmm, actually, that's a pretty opaque definition.

[Gareth Wilson]

"Keep in mind that just about any word can be used insultingly (e.g. "dirty yankee", or just "you *yankee*" with the right intonation), but that's a poor argument for declaring such a word off-limits. If that were the criterion, just about every national label like "American", "Frenchman", or "Mexican" would have to be outlawed."

In SM Stirling's _Island in the Sea of Time_ series, a group of involuntary time travellers are very careful not to call the Bronze Age people they meet by any insulting term like "native". They use "local" instead. And by the end of the series "local" is well on the way to having the same meaning as "nigger".
On the subject of "niggardly", if it's being used as an adjective, not a slur against blacks, doesn't even describe any quality sterotypical to black people, and has no offensive origins, I can't honestly see what the problem is.

[Ray]

I remember being very offended by computer geek usage of "orthogonal" to mean "unrelated," and (I blush to say) I still only use the term myself when I have a clear picture of two lines intersecting more or less at right angles. Not that any of the computer geeks who hear me would hold any such image in their own minds.

From what I can gather from literature, "squaw" was used offensively throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Folk etymology may have attempted to explain the offense as folk etymology attempts to explain most things (directly, wrongly), but the offensiveness came first and the etymology's not to blame.

I don't know of a proper substitute for "niggardly," but on the other hand I don't think I've ever had occasion to use the word in a context in which it might be considered ambiguous.

[Emily]

I know some people believe the word "handicap" as coming from begging on the street is a legend, but where else would it come from? What have you seen as "truth" about it's origin?

[The Tensor]

Emily wrote:

I know some people believe the word "handicap" as coming from begging on the street is a legend, but where else would it come from? What have you seen as "truth" about it's origin?

The OED says:

[A word of obscure history. Two examples of the n., and one of the verb, are known in 17th c.; its connexion with horse-racing appears in the 18th; its transferred general use, esp. in the verb, since 1850. It appears to have originated in the phrase ‘hand i' cap’, or ‘hand in the cap’, with reference to the drawing mentioned in sense 1.]

1. The name of a kind of sport having an element of chance in it, in which one person challenged some article belonging to another, for which he offered something of his own in exchange. (Also fig.)

Gareth Wilson wrote:

From what I can gather from literature, "squaw" was used offensively throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

If that's the case, and squaw really was commonly used as a slur comparable to the N-word, then I think the case is much stronger for asking people not to use it, including changing place names. I wonder what standard of proof would be used to determine whether squaw had reached that level of offensiveness, though. I've never had occasion to use the word, and if I did I'm pretty sure I'd avoid it -- it strikes me as very Old Westy, and if I needed to refer to a Native American woman, I'd probably just say "Native American woman".

Suppose, hypothetically (I have no data, so I'm making them up), you could show that: (a) squaw was often used insultingly by American soldiers during the Indian Wars, (b) it was also used by some Indians themselves around the same time, and (c) the word has basically fallen out of use since then (except in place names). Does the insulting use by soldiers turn it into a slur? Does the intervening time soften its usage in place names?

I don't see an easy answer. I just don't like the idea of someone trying to bypass debate by creating a false etymology of the word -- in other words, trying to make it seem there is an easy answer by fraud.