[conspire] Colson's Swim

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Nick Moffitt (nick at zork.net):

> The best comment yet was, of course, this one:
> 
> 	https://twitter.com/TPAtticus/status/1269677226171215872
> 
> And this take had me in stitches:
> 
> 	https://twitter.com/RobOnABike/status/1269679272530268173

Mic drops, both of those.

> But on the subject of language, I will just say that etymology is
> pedantry of the highest order.

Agreed.  For example, it's been asserted that 'thug' has, in this last
decade, come to be used by _many_ (depending on context) as a proxy for
a racial slur (in American English).  This seems improbable to us
language pedants who know it's directly from Hindi and referred for many
centuries to violent gangs of robbers and murderers -- and by extension
to anyone carrying out violent destruction anywhere, not just in India.

However, that's interesting, but the fact is, people either mean things
or they don't, and the words' origin doesn't much signify, in
determining what a contemporary person means by it.  Someone can
referred to as acting like a berserker without being a Viking, and
someone can be called a thug without being Indian or Indian-American.
Connotations are a thing, as is dog-whistling euphemism.

The only way to know what people mean is to listen carefully, which of
course is unpopular because it's work, and going off on what they
'obviously' meant is easier than thinking.

I was recently told that the term 'thug' had become tainted and suspect
(in American English), because around the time of some 2015 riots in
Baltimore, it was being used as a derogatory proxy for 'black'.  I was
pointed to an NPR interview[1] with Prof. of Lingustics John McWhorter of
Columbia where he laid out the case for the usage of that term by
figures including Baltimore's (black) Mayor Stephanie Rawlins-Blake and
by President Obama to refer to the rioters was an ethnic slur, because
they were using it as a proxy for the n-word.  In return, I pointed out
that Prof. McWhorter had substantially walked his view back a few days
later, in a thoughtful _WashPo_ article[2] -- but McWhorter stuck by his
view that, depending on context, on who is using the term and in what
way, it often is nonetheless a proxy racial slur reference.  I suspect
he's correct.

As it happens, my most common use of the word 'thug' for the last few
decades is as a sobriquet for my brother-in-law Michael, who's a
violently inclined and poorly educated hick from the Florida panhandle
-- who conspired with my sister to seize control of my mother's autonomy
and finances after they and their younger son became squatters in my
mother's house in Moraga, and refused to move out when she so demanded.
Their campaign was destructive but ultimately unsuccessful, because Mom,
even though she was ailing and frail, acted to foil the worst of what
they tried.

As either an apparent ploy to scare me away or as a consequence of
mental imbalance, Michael threatened to 'beat [me] up' on a number of
occasions when I drove 90 miles to Moraga to help Mom pay bills and file
paperwork, in addition to spending time with her.  This didn't impress
me even though Michael towers over me and made a point of standing
head-to-head (peering down) and yelling.  I just backed away and resumed
work for Mom, each time.  

But I would return home eventually and tell Deirdre and Cheryl an
account of what the Thug had been up to.  This reference was certainly
not a racial slur -- although my other term for him, 'that cracker',
definitely was.  And, again, people mean what they mean, and words don't
stay still.

[1] http://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/01/baltimores-mayor-and-president-obama-said-thugs-lets-not-get-too-bent-out-of-shape/