Language is a very powerful thing, we understand the functionality of it but really don’t think much about it until we encounter a problem. A rather tired analogy is to compare it to the air we breath, it is necessary for life and is all around us but we take it for granted until it disappears. Todays essay is not about anything so important and central to life but rather a look at the periphery, the small changes that continuously happen around the edges that betray great adventures with language.
I regularly receive a Newsletter which I scan and then consign to the bin. I have written before about that awareness you get when you finish reading but your instincts tell you that you have missed something important. I got the same feeling after reading the current edition. I retrieved it from the recycling bin and re read it. I just couldn’t get rid of that feeling that on the periphery of my vision I had missed something. Then it hit me! Instead of referring to ‘men and women’ in the editorial the writer referred to ‘women and men’. If you don’t instantly understand my interest then I am not sure that I can explain it to you. Perhaps, if I start by saying that in most written description of the two sexes, prior to twenty years ago, the format would have been men and women. Just in that simple sentence there is a whole world of debate but in the latest edition of my newsletter the sexes had been reversed. I checked on line to see whether this was a one off occurrence but it seems that over the last three editions the the format had been consistent ‘women and men’. Therefore the change was as a result of editorial policy.
Why does this matter? You could say that it doesn’t matter at all but then why go to the trouble of consistently making this change? The more likely explanation is that it is in response to the idea that all things stem from a Paternalistic culture and that the reversal of male and female, in this context, is in response to this. If that is the case then I see some logic but little merit in the policy. However, it has succeeded in tweaking my interest but I don’t think that is the intention. Throughout history language has not just been about facilitating normal life but also in encapsulating a culture. At the time of the Roman empire you had the concept of the Pax Romana which exemplified the benefits of being a Roman and was evidenced by the universality of Latin as the language of the ruling classes. To some degree this applied to the Norman invasion of Britain and Ireland with the imposition of Norman French; the imposition of English as the language of the British Empire and of American English reflecting the current empire of the U.S. This can also apply to ideologies, for example, the pronoun ‘they’ and ‘them’ has been pushed as the preferred gender neutral address to trans people. The changes do not have to become all embracing but introduced a little at a time, to be effective. Currently, there is a challenge to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) over the inclusion of two male swimmers, who declared as female and won first and second place in women’s races. The case has been filed in the Federal Court under a Title IX discrimination claim that women athletes have been deprived of of 15 state championship titles and more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher-level competitions since the CIAT allowed the two men to compete.
The Connecticut case highlights the argument that small changes can hide significant cultural shifts. Ten years ago, who would have needed a court to decide who was a woman and who was a man (right way around?). I would be interested to see how the Editor of my newsletter would view the case as I assume that ‘they’ are arguing that woman and men are very different whereas, the CIAC is saying that it is merely a matter of self identification. The reason that we should challenge these changes is that they are insidious and constant usage breeds a familiarity that blunts the normal common sense filter that is even more vital in these times. I hope that I have persuaded you to be ever more vigilant and seek out and challenge things that just do not make sense and perhaps we might have a more open and honest discussion about change as a result.