The Language We Use

I have been thinking a lot about language lately.

My mother hated to be called "lady." As in, "Hey lady, you forgot your grocery bag!" or something. She said that lady was the name of a dog.

I rather like being called lady. For one thing, it doesn't have "man" in it - as in "wo-man." My Shorter Oxford says "woman" is now frequently used pejoratively, as in, "Woman, bring me some more bacon." It is an old word, dating back to Old English and beyond, and mostly refers to "wife."

I think "lady" denotes a better since of personhood, a human being of the feminine (I also like "feminine" better than "fe-male" for similar reasons). It is also an ancient word, but of higher status than "woman."

Okay, so I am being picky. But language is important, in spite of those who are now eschewing education and other forms of higher learning.

For example, our illustrious curse-word-user-in-chief called a bunch of football players sons-of-bitches.

That particular bad language is a throwback on women. Because bitches are female dogs. And bitch is the word most often used with women. Misogynists like to talk like that.

I mean, he could have called them dickheads. Or penis brains. Or assholes. Everybody has one of those; sex is irrelevant there.

There is also that nice word "bastard," which again is a throw-back to the mother. This is Old French, and it refers to someone born out of wedlock, an "illegitimate" child. Which in an of itself is a freaky thing to think, that a person is "illegitimate" for any reason.

Other words like fuck or screw, also refer to violation of a woman.

Think about it. Can you name a curse word that doesn't refer back to the female? I can't, except for maybe "damn." I suppose the curse-word-user-in-chief could have called them dickheads. Or penis brains. Or assholes. Everybody has one of those; sex is irrelevant there.

Our words matter. Language matters. It is being dumbed down every day and we have limited our sentences to 140 characters (that is now 280 as of November 2017 - somebody at twitter decided we needed to be able to complete a sentence, perhaps. Or maybe they hoped it would help the twitter-in-chief write more legibly.).

I am a writer, and when I misuse the language, 999 times out of 1000, it is intentional. I'm doing it to achieve a specific goal. But many people misuse language without thinking about it. Sometimes it turns out ok.

But then other times, you're calling the mothers of football players doggies, and that's just not the thing to do.