Semantic Wars

1 December 2006

NBC News touched off a bit of a semantic firestorm on Monday when Matt Lauer, one of the hosts of the Today show, announced that “after careful consideration, NBC News has decided that a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war.”

NBC was not the first American news outlet to use the term civil war in reference to Iraq. The Los Angeles Times has been doing so since October.

Unsurprisingly, the White disagrees with NBC’s assessment and use of the term. White House press secretary Tony Snow responded, “what you do have is sectarian violence that seems to be less aimed at gaining full control over an area than expressing differences, and also trying to destabilize a democracy—which is different than a civil war, where two sides are clashing for territory and supremacy.”

The White House would, lexicographically at least, seem to be on the losing side of this definitional battle. The OED2 defines civil war as occurring “among fellow-citizens or within the limits of one community.” Merriam-Webster’s 10th defines it as “a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country.” The American Heritage 4th has it as “a war between factions or regions of the same country.” The Encarta dictionary says it is “a war between opposing groups within a country.” The key element for a civil war is that it is between groups within a single country, not the reasons for the fighting.

Civil war is not an oxymoron. The civil refers to the citizens of a country, not their demeanor. John de Trevisa’s 1387 translation of Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden uses the phrase civil battle:

A batayle ciuile bygan bytwene Julius and�Pompeus.

John Coke’s 1550 The Debate Betwene the Heraldes of Englande and Fraunce was the first to add the war:

Contencions and warres�amonge themselves or with theyr neyghbours, whiche the Romaynes call the cyvyle warre.

The White House’s preferred term, sectarian violence, has something to recommend it. In one sense it is more precise than civil war in that it denotes the religious factions in the struggle. But it is also euphemistic in that it is very vague about the degree of violence.

Election Jargon

17 November 2006

Elections are fertile source of slang and political jargon and the 2006 US midterm elections were no exception. At least two words came to the fore in this most recent election.

One is change election. A change election is one in which the electorate permanently changes its traditional voting pattern, ousting one party from power and replacing it with another. The term dates to at least 1992 when it was used in the Christian Science Monitor on 27 April 1992 in reference to voter dissatisfaction with the political parties in the Pennsylvania primary election of that year:

"This is a ‘change’ election," says G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Millersville University in Millersville, Pa. His polls also suggest widespread voter disaffection. Like many political observers here, he expects a significant decline in voter turnout.

But of course, the most famous word coming out of this year’s election is macaca. The word was uttered by Senator George Allen (R-VA) on 11 August in reference to S.R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old of Indian descent who was a campaign worker for Allen’s opponent, Jim Webb:

This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is�Let’s give a welcome to Macaca here.

Unfortunately for Allen, Sidarth was videotaping Allen’s remarks (a common tactic of campaigns in case the opponent makes a gaffe). The video appeared on YouTube and, in combination with other allegations of racially insensitive behavior on Allen’s part, touched off a firestorm.

The Allen campaign initially attempted to defend the Senator’s use of the word claiming it was a blend of Mohawk, a reference to Sidarth’s hair, and caca, meaning excrement. In other words, shithead. Not very nice, but at least not racist. Few believed this very strained explanation. Allen eventually lost the election by a mere 7,231 votes out of more than 2.3 million cast. Few doubt that without the macaca remark Allen would have won reelection and the Republicans would have retained control of the Senate.

Macaco, meaning a monkey or ape, has been in English use since at least 1774, when it was used by Oliver Goldsmith in his A History of the Earth and Animated Nature:

Of the monkies of the ancient continent, the first, he describes, is the Macaguo; somewhat resembling a baboon in size.

Hotten’s Slang Dictionary of 1874 contains an entry for the word Murkarker, which is defined as:

a monkey,—vulgar Cockney pronunciation of MACAUCO, a species of monkey. Jacko Macauco, or Maccacco, as he was mostly called, was the name of a famous fighting monkey, who used nearly fifty years ago to display his prowess at the Westminster pit, where, after having killed many dogs, he was at last "chawed up" by a bull terrier.

The word is a borrowing of macaco, either from France (where it had been in use since the late 17th century) or from Portugal (in use since the mid 16th century). It ultimately comes from Bantu kaku, an echoic term for the animal’s call. Macaque is from the same source.

Allen’s mother, Henrietta Lumbroso is French-Tunisian and after Allen uttered his remarks it was claimed by some that macaca is used a racially derogatory epithet in Tunisia. I have not been able to confirm this claim, but the word is a mildly derogatory term in Portuguese, where it has racist connotations if used by a light-skinned person in reference to a dark-skinned one. And of course in English calling a dark-skinned person a monkey is universally recognized as racist.

Another political term that appears to be getting more play now that the Democrats are in control of Congress is blue dog Democrat. A blue dog Democrat is a conservative one, especially a fiscally conservative democrat, not a particularly liberal one. Many of the newly elected Democrats in Congress are more centrist than is the norm for that party, so the term may be heard more in the coming months and years. The term, however, is hardly new, with citations going back to 1995, when it appeared in the Washington Times of 21 April:

They call themselves the blue-dog Democrats—yellow-dog Democrats turned blue by the choke hold put on them by their own liberal leadership.

The name comes from the paintings of Cajun artist George Rodrigue, who is famed for his images of blue dogs. In the early-to-mid-1990s a group of conservative Democrats would meet in the offices of Louisiana representatives Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes, both of whom had Rodrigue’s paintings hanging in their offices. (Both also eventually switched to the Republican party.) The group formalized their coalition in 1994, taking their name from the paintings. Despite the Washington Times citation above, it has nothing to do with turning blue. Nor is it a reference to blue states, as many believe.

The name is modeled after yellow dog Democrat. A yellow dog Democrat is not especially liberal, but is rather someone who will vote party line regardless of the circumstances. The New York Times records this from 11 March 1883:

There is no eagerness shown, however, among Republicans to seek office at this time, when Democrats can see nothing but certain victory awaiting them. "Why, we could nominate yellow dogs this Spring and elect every one upon the ticket by a big majority," said one of the Democratic ward statesmen to-day.

By 1911, the above quotation had been turned into a political buzzword when the Mansfield News (Ohio) had this on 22 April:

He favors a job for every "yellow dog Democrat" to keep him from want, exertion and worry.

Diegogarcity Alert

10 November 2006

In researching this article, I came across the two listed citations from Alfred’s and Chaucer’s translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ. Then, last night while reading a New Yorker article ("Game Master," by John Seabrook, 6 Nov 2006) about video game designer Will Wright, designer of The Sims, I came across another Boethius reference:

The designer must play God, or at least the notion of God in Boethius’ "Consolation of Philosophy"–a god that can anticipate the outcome of the player’s actions and yet allows the player the feeling of free will.

I love The New Yorker. Where else would an article about video games contain a reference to a 6th century Christian philosopher.

(For those of you who are wondering, diegogarcity is a term coined by Aldiboronti on the Wordorigins discussion forum for the coincidence of just learning something new, such as a new word, and then seeing it in several places immediately afterwords. It is a play on serendipity, as Serendip is an old name for Sri Lanka. For this concept, Aldi chose another Indian Ocean island as the namesake.)

Master, Mister, Mistress

10 November 2006

The word master has several different, although related, meanings in English. And it has given rise to a well-known variant, mister. The noun master is almost exclusively used to refer to males, but there is a female counterpart in mistress. These words have also given rise to various abbreviations, Mr., Mrs., and Ms.

The etymology of master is, on the surface, rather straightforward. It’s from the Latin magister. Although if one gets into the details, one finds that the situation is somewhat more complex. Magister was imported into English twice during the Old English period with different vowel sounds. The earlier, mægister, eventually gave rise to the form mister, as well as several other orthographic variants. Somewhat later it was borrowed again as magister, with the vowel a being longer than it is today, but exactly how long is uncertain. The vowel in this second form shortened in the Middle English period, leaving us with the modern master.

The original sense in English is that of a man with authority or control over others. It appears as early as c.897 in Alfred’s translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care:

Thonne he gemette tha scylde the he stieran scolde, hrædlice he gecythde thæt he wæs magister & ealdormonn.

The sense of a teacher dates to around 888 in Alfred’s translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae:

Se unrihtwisa Neron wolde hatan his agenne magister [L. præceptoremque suum]�acwellan.

And that of a skilled workman appears in the Middle English period, c.1300 in Childhood Jesus:

Gwan the maister was i go, Jhus tok alle the clothes tho.

The sense of the head of a business comes about a century later, c.1400 in Burgh Laws:

Nane sal hafe in his ovyn ma servandis na iii the maystyr and twa servandis & aknafe.

Finally, the sense of the head of a household appears rather late. Here’s an early example from 1536 in a letter by an M. Bryan:

Mr. Shelton saythe he es Master of thys Hows.

The use of master as a title goes back to Old English. But the use of master as a title for a boy or a young man is also from the early 16th century. From c.1533-34 in letter by an H. Dowes:

It pleased your Maistershipp to give me in charge not onlie to give diligent attendaunce uppon Maister Gregory.

The variant mister first appears as title. From the Accounts of St. John’s Hospital, Canterbury, 1523:

Paied to a carpenter by grete for mendyng of Myster Collettis house.

Today we normally think of the abbreviation Mr. as standing for mister. But it originally stood for master. From the Letters & Papers of J. Shllingford, 1447-48:

Maister John Gorewyll�Mr William Filham.

Now master and mister are almost exclusively applied to men. For the female equivalent, the English speaker turns to mistress. This word comes from the Anglo-Norman maistresse, and ultimately from the Medieval Latin magistrissa. The vowel shift from ai to i parallels the vowel shift in master.

In English, the original sense of mistress was that of a woman with the charge of a child, a governess. From the manuscript Sir Tristrem, c.1330:

To hir maistresse sche gan say that hye was boun to go To the knigt ther he lay.

The word was also being used to mean a female teacher from a very early date. From Ayenbite’s 1340 Covaytyse:

Thet is rote of alle kueade�thet is the maystresse thet heth zuo greate scole thet alle guoth thrin uor to lyerni.

The use to mean a female head of a household appears earlier than the equivalent sense of master. We see it before 1375 in William of Palerne:

Alisaundrine�attlede the sothe, that hire maistres & that man no schuld hire nougt misse, thegh sche walked�from here sigt.

Mistress has also long been used in sexual contexts. The sense of a woman courted by a man can be found as early as c.1425 in a poem:

Now good swet hart & myn ane good mestrys I dew recumend me to yower pety.

The most familiar use today is that of a female sexual partner other than one’s wife. This sense is also quite old, appearing before 1439 in John Lydgate’s translation of Bochas’ Fall of Princes:

Callid�a fals traitouresse�Off newe diffamed, and named a maistresse Off fals moordre.

And the rather specialized use to mean a female dominant in sadomasochistic activities is quite recent. It doesn’t appear until the 20th century, in F. Savage’s 1921 translation of L. von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs:

"Slave!" "Mistress!" I kneel down, and kiss the hem of her garment.

The use of mistress as a form of address gets its start in Middle English. Here’s an example from before 1425 in Chaucer’s translation of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiæ:

O Maystresse, what demestow of this?

Use as a title for a married woman appears a few decades later, c.1461 in Gnatyshale’s Paston Letters:

To my ryght worchepfull Mastres Paston.

While we’re familiar with the use of mistress as the title for married women, it has over the years also been used as a title for unmarried women. From another of the Paston Letters, this one from 1474:

Myn own fayir Mastresse Annes, I prey you accepte thys byll.

Like the male form, mistress has been abbreviated. But three different abbreviations for mistress are in use today, not just one as in master.

The first of these abbreviations is Mrs., used as a title for a married woman. Use of the abbreviation dates to at least 1485 in Churchwardens’ Accounts:

Item, a pyx clothe of sipers frenged with grene sylke and red,�of Mres. Sucklyng’s gyfte.

The second abbreviation is Miss. We’re familiar with this today as a title or form of address for a girl or an unmarried woman, but the original use of this abbreviated form was in the sense of a kept woman. From Nicolas Breton’s 1606 Choice, Chance, & Change:

If your mistris haue a fine wit, and your wife, but a plaine vnderstanding�if your mis. be kind & your wife dogged: wil you loue your mis. better then your wife?

The use as a title for an unmarried woman dates to 1667 in Pepys Diary of 7 March:

Little Mis Davis did dance a Jigg after the end of the play.

One use of Miss that has fallen out of use in recent decades is as a title for a professional woman using her maiden name. This use was especially common among actresses. From Appleton’s Journal of March 1881:

The invocation of Artemis already spoken of might alone stamp Miss Terry as a great actress.

The third abbreviation is quite recent and is a rarity in that it is one of the few deliberately coined terms that has infused itself into the language to such an extent that we’re not even aware of its politically correct origins only a few decades ago. I’m talking of course about Ms. It’s a blend of Mrs. and Miss and it dates to the mid-20th century. From Mario Pei’s 1949 Story of Language:

Feminists�have often proposed that the two present-day titles be merged into�"Miss" (to be written "Ms."), with a plural "Misses" (written "Mss.").

These are the major senses of master and mistress. There are others, mostly subtle variations on the senses given here. Master is unusual for its flexibility in form, phonetic and orthographic. Many words have as many or more meanings than master does, but few have shown themselves to be as versatile in form.

Pornography, Obscenity, & Indecency

3 November 2006

A discussion earlier this week on the American Dialect Society email list demonstrated that even among linguists and lexicographers there is confusion and uncertainty over the legal status of pornography in America and what exactly constitutes hardcore and softcore pornography. Additionally, some other words are thrown into the fray. What exactly is obscenity and is it legal? And what about indecency and profanity.

While erotic imagery and writing is a practice dating back into antiquity, pornography is a relatively new word, dating only to the latter half of the 19th century. It is a modern formulation from the Greek ?????, prostitute, + ??????, writing.

Determining exactly what constitutes pornography is difficult. It is a word that has defied precise definition. Perhaps the most famous definition is given by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his concurrence with the court’s decision in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). Writing about whether a particular film constituted hardcore pornography, Stewart wrote:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

In 1986 the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, a.k.a. The Meese Commission, issued a highly controversial report on the topic. Whatever flaws exist in that report, and there are many, the report does include a very succinct and apt definition of pornography. That commission defined it as:

Material [that] is predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.

If one attempts to use this definition to determine whether or not a particular work constitutes pornography, one will run into the "I know it when I see it" problem that bedeviled Justice Stewart. But as a general definition this is as good as any.

Pornography is often subdivided into hardcore and softcore material. This use of hardcore dates to at least 1959 when it appears in Ernst & Schwartz’s Censorship:

A work of literature�stands on quite a different footing from hard core pornography.

The term hard core dates to the mid-19th century and originally referred to the interior of a structure, road, or foundation consisting of gravel and other rough refuse material. By the early 20th century, it was being used to refer to something that was tough and intractible, as in this citation from the 12 September 1936 issue of Nature:

Possibly 200,000 would be practically unemployable on any ordinary basis–the "hard core" as it is called.

The use of hardcore to mean harsh or aggressive postdates the pornography sense, appearing in the 1970s.

Softcore pornography appears a bit later that its hardcore complement. From the New York Times of 25 September 1966:

The soft-core pornography of advertisements like "Have you had any lately?"

There are various descriptions and definitions of exactly what constitutes hardcore v. softcore porn. None of them are universally accepted and what one person might consider softcore another might deem hardcore and vice versa. The determination is in the eye of the beholder. About the only universal is that softcore material is less explicit than hardcore.

As far as the legal status of pornography goes, there seems to be just as much confusion as there is in the definition. As far as law in the United States goes, pornography is irrelevant. The law is not concerned with pornography, at least so long as it features and is distributed to adults only. What the law is concerned with is obscenity, indecency, and profane material.

The English adjective obscene dates to the late 16th century. It’s taken from the Middle French obscène and ultimately is from the Latin obscenus, meaning ill-omened, filthy, or disgusting.

According to U.S. law, obscene material or speech is not protected by the First Amendment and it may be prohibited outright by the government. What exactly constitutes obscenity? Unlike Stewart’s "I know it when I see it" doctrine, the definition of obscenity in U.S. law is fairly clear, albeit still open to some interpretation. The operating standard was penned by Chief Justice Warren Burger in his majority opinion in Miller v. California (1973). Burger proposed a three-pronged test for obscenity:

(a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

What this means is that, at least as far as the law is concerned, individual words, phrases, or passages cannot be declared to be obscene. The work must be considered as a whole. Therefore, a novel that uses a certain four-letter word or contains some erotic passages, like D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover to name one that is famous for having been censored for both these reasons, cannot be considered obscene.

The Supreme Court has ruled that obscene material can be banned. Obscene speech and writing is not protected by the First Amendment and can be utterly prohibited by the federal and state governments. This is not the case with indecent or profane material. These are protected by the First Amendment, but can be limited, but not banned, by the government.

The operative legal standard for indecency is FCC v. Pacifica (1978), a Supreme Court case about the broadcast of comedian George Carlin’s "Seven Dirty Words" routine by a radio station. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates use of the broadcast spectrum, fined the station, which appealed the decision to the courts. Justice Stevens writing for the majority determined:

Although these words ordinarily lack literary, political, or scientific value, they are not entirely outside the protection of the First Amendment. Some uses of even the most offensive words are unquestionably protected. [�] Indeed, we may assume, arguendo, that this monologue would be protected in other contexts. Nonetheless, the constitutional protection accorded to a communication containing such patently offensive sexual and excretory language need not be the same in every context. It is a characteristic of speech such as this that both its capacity to offend and its "social value," to use Mr. Justice Murphy’s term, vary with the circumstances. Words that are commonplace in one setting are shocking in another. To paraphrase Mr. Justice Harlan, one occasion’s lyric is another’s vulgarity.
In this case it is undisputed that the content of Pacifica’s broadcast was "vulgar," "offensive," and "shocking." Because content of that character is not entitled to absolute constitutional protection under all circumstances, we must consider its context in order to determine whether the Commission’s action was constitutionally permissible.

The court ruled that this particular broadcast, because it was in the middle of the afternoon when children were likely to be listening and because of other conditions, could be restricted by the FCC. But that it might be permissible to air the offending monologue at another time or in another context and that the indecent words could not be completely banished from the airwaves in all contexts.

To comply with this ruling, the FCC has defined indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.” Note that unlike the obscenity definition offered by the court, this definition does not require the work be taken as whole. Particular words and phrases can be indecent in certain contexts.

The FCC also limits the broadcast of profanity. It defines profanity as "language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance."

The FCC does not permit the airing of indecent or profane material between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. And note that the FCC only regulates over-the-air broadcasts. It has no jurisdiction over cable or satellite television or other privately transmitted mediums. These mediums can broadcast indecent or profane material with impunity–although obscene material can still be prohibited on them.

The US Postal Service has similar rules governing the inclusion of indecent material on postcards or on the exterior of envelopes and packages. Mailing indecent material inside a nondescript package is perfectly legal.

So there you have it. The complete scoop on exactly what types of offensive speech are legal in the United States and in what contexts.