From explicit prohibition to ambiguity in prohibiting

1 From explicit prohibition to ambiguity in prohibiting 1 Pedro J. Chamizo Domínguez Universidad de Málaga (Spain) And as Plain Man he continued to splash solemnly about in the Vocabulary of Ambiguity. (C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards) In the present day mistiness is the mother of wisdom. (Cardinal Newman) Abstract This contribution will deal with two topics closely related and intermingled. I firstly will try to show how one of the salient features of euphemisms is their ambiguity and/or vagueness (Grondelaers and Geeraerts, 1998) to the extent that even sentences in which lexicalised euphemisms are used can become dysphemistic if they are not ambiguous. This means that ambiguous and/or vague sentences play a fundamental, cognitive role (Tuggy, 2006). This is the case of a well-known excerpt from Somerset Maugham in which, in spite of the fact that all the nouns used are euphemisms, the excerpt itself can be considered dysphemistic. Conversely, I will show two instances from two songs in which female pudenda are euphemistically and ambiguously alluded to. Secondly, I will try to apply my previous reflections to politically correct language. In order to do so I will take as a starting point the fact that political correctness spread across the western countries in the same decade (19601970) in which the motto “Il est interdit d’interdire” got also trendy (Hughes, 2006 and 2010). As a result of the fact that the noun ‘prohibition’ (and its cognates, derivatives and synonyms) became “prohibited” as a politically incorrect word, prohibition itself has to be phrased in ambiguous sentences. For instance, instead of the (currently) politically incorrect notice “No Smoking” or “Smoking is prohibited”, we frequently find the politically correct one “Thank you for not smoking”, where the sentence meaning is pretty different from what the author of the notice tries to mean; since the sentence meaning is that someone thanks you for not smoking, while what the author of the notice intends to mean that smoking is prohibited. 1 I would like to acknowledge my friend Keith Allan (Monash University, Australia) his helpful comments and suggestions to the first draft of this paper. 2 Key words Political (in)correctness, euphemism, dysphemism, ambiguity, vagueness, censorship/prohibition. 3 1. Introduction: Key concepts Speakers can get euphemistic effects by means of several linguistic mechanisms such as metaphors, diminutives, learned words, allusions, and many others (Burridge, 2012: 7278). For their part, euphemisms themselves fulfil several relevant social functions (Chamizo Domínguez, 2004 and 2005) such as conveying dignity to a (menial) profession, being polite or respectful, or attenuating a painful topic, typically death (Bultnick, 1998; Crespo Fernández, 2011 and 2013). Vagueness and ambiguity are two paradigmatic mechanisms that, when they are consciously used, allow the speakers to be euphemistic as well as achieve other cognitive effects such as being witty (Nerlich and Clarke, 2001). Among the social functions of euphemisms political correctness nowadays stands out. I will argue in this contribution that most of the political correct expressions or terms become so because they are euphemistic and they are euphemistic just because they are ambiguous or vague. If so, the identification of euphemisms, as well as what political correct language might be, will depend on an adequate contextual interpretation of texts or utterances (Casas Gómez, 2009). Although the borderline between ambiguity and vagueness is not always clear (Tuggy, 2006: 168-172), (lexical) ambiguity generates in the fact that a given word (or syntagm) is polysemous (e.g. lesbian works as a euphemism because this noun may mean either ‘from Lesbos’ or ‘dyke’). Syntactic ambiguity originates in the fact that a sentence can have several different meanings because of the structure of the sentence (e.g. a former President of the Spanish Government, the socialist Felipe González, referred to the two chiefs of the parliamentary opposition as “Anguita y Aznar son la misma mierda”, which, in Spanish, can mean either “Anguita and Aznar are the same shit” or “Anguita and Aznar are the shit itself”). For its part, vagueness originates in the fact that the meaning of a given word (hyponym) is included in the meaning of another word (superordinate term) and people may use a superordinate term for avoiding (inconvenient) hyponyms (e.g. restroom works as a euphemism for loo because the first word can mean any room for resting as well as ‘toilet’ or ‘bathroom’). The concept of political correctness has been used according to many senses (Reutner, 2013). Consequently, the nominal syntagms politically correct language and politically incorrect language cover not only topics related to ethnic groups or sexual options but also 4 many other topics such as toponymy (Wochele, 2013) or diseases (Drescher, 2013). In fact, political correctness may be considered “as a brainwashing programme and as simple good manners” (Allan and Burridge, 2006: 90). 2 In any case, the core of my argument in the following pages will be that politically correct language has to be euphemistic and, as a euphemistic language, has to be ambiguous or vague as well. 2. Instances of dysphemisms and euphemisms To start with, let us consider three excerpts, one quote from a 20th century British writer and two quotes from two contemporary Spanish singers: (1) “The Professor of Gynaecology. He began his course of lectures as follows: Gentlemen, woman is an animal that micturates once a day, defecates once a week, menstruates once a month, parturates once a year and copulates whenever she has the opportunity. –I thought it a prettily-balanced sentence” (Maugham, 1949: 15. My bold type). (2) “Me gusta todo de ti: /tus pezones como lilas, / tu alcancía carmesí, / tus ingles y tus axilas” [I love everything about you: / Your nipples like lilacs, / Your crimson moneybox, / Your groin and your underarms] (Serrat Teresa, 1998. My bold type). (3) “Nada sabe tan dulce como su boca, / tan sólo alguna cosa que no se nombra” [Nothing tastes as sweet as her mouth, / Just something which cannot be named/is not named] (San José Sánchez, 1986. My bold type). All the three texts share the following features: 1. They have been written by males and refer to women; (1) refers to woman in general while (2) and (3) refer to two specific women. 2. They deal with topics traditionally included under the label of taboo, topics such as bodily effluvia and pudenda (Allan and Burridge, 2006: 144-174). 3. Taboo or inconvenient terms have been substituted by their respective, convenient terms which work as euphemisms. 2 Paradoxically, the syntagm politically correct is “politically correct” used to refer to what is “conforming in behaviour or language to dogmatic opinions” (Holder, 2003: 306). 5 In spite of these shared features, (1) can be (nowadays) considered as derogatory with regard to women and even an instance of a macho chauvinist text, as well as factually false, while (2) and (3) probably do not. If so, one can ask about what makes (1) derogatory while (2) and (3) can be considered commendatory, complimentary or axiologically neuter at least. All the verbs used to refer to bodily effluvia or sex in (1) are paradigmatic examples of euphemisms to the extent that defecate and copulate are verbs typically used in (euphemistic) medicalese instead of vulgar shit and fuck, respectively (Allan, 2001: 165); whose “dignity comes from the Greek or Latin roots of the words used” (Allan and Burridge, 2006: 62). 3 This means that the derogatory flavour of (1) cannot be attributed to the use of any dysphemism. Perhaps the aforementioned derogatory flavour of (1) could be explained by hyperboles such as “defecates once a week”, but hyperboles are neither dysphemistic nor euphemistic by themselves; in fact they can be both (Burridge, 2012: 75 and 78). Moreover, the professor’s humorous tenor can be explained by arguing that, given he was teaching his first lesson, he was trying to achieve the captatio benevolentiae on the part of his students. The use of the noun ‘animal’ for referring to women is another plausible candidate in order to explain why (1) has its derogatory flavour. But the professor could argue in his own defence he was speaking as a “scientist” and, as such and from a medical/biological point of view, human beings, whether they are male or female, can be considered as animals. Not even the use of the noun ‘animal’, if one disregards any other consideration, can be regarded as derogatory by itself, even if it is used for naming a woman. 4 In fact, it can be even a eulogy, 3 What is said about the English language can be said about almost any other modern European language. In the case of Romance languages, and given that most of their vocabulary derives from Latin, learned words or expressions work as euphemisms in spite of the fact that both a given learned word and a given common word can derive from the same Latin word. Consequently, one can translate into Spanish Maugham’s quote and maintain all the learned words used in the original English text: “El catedrático de ginecología. Comenzó sus clases de la siguiente manera: Caballeros, la mujer es un animal que micciona una vez al día, defeca una vez a la semana, menstrúa una vez al mes, partea una vez al año y copula cada vez que tiene la oportunidad. –Pensé que se trataba de una frase muy bien equilibrada” (My translation). 4 Since the noun animal is used by our Professor together with the technical verbs micturate, defecate, menstruate, parturate, and copulate, he also could argue he only was aiming “to communicate the vocabulary and syntax of a contemporary scientific language” (Kuhn, 1996: 136) as it is used in lectures and textbooks. 6 as shown in the fact that Ava Garner was defined as “The World’s Most Beautiful Animal” in the advertising campaign of the movie The Barefoot Contessa (1954). In my opinion, what makes (1) derogatory, inconvenient or politically incorrect are three things: 1) its explicitness, since it plainly refers to bodily effluvia and sexual functions; 2) the text itself as a whole and not because any of its parts separately considered; and 3) the intentions the reader attributes to the professor and/or to S. Maugham. By contrast, (2) and (3) can be considered as eulogistic. And what makes eulogistic both cases is that female pudenda are ambiguously and vaguely referred to. Indeed, in (2) female pudenda are referred to by means of a metaphor, which is not usual. In fact, as far as I know, this metaphoric/euphemistic use of the noun alcancía 5 can be considered as a hapax legomenon; so, what allows us to state that it stands for vagina or pussy is the fact that it occurs together with other parts of the human body. In any case, alcancía works as a euphemism in this case because the author of the song converted this word in a polysemous one and, consequently, a sentence such as “Me gusta tu alcancía carmesí” is ambiguous since it can be understood either as “I love your crimson moneybox” or as “I love your crimson vagina/pussy”. As far as (3) is concerned, its euphemistic flavour can be explained by the fact that the periphrasis “alguna cosa que no se nombra” stands for vagina or pussy as well. But now we are not dealing with an instance of ambiguity originated in the fact that a given word is polysemic, but with an instance of vagueness originated in the fact that “something which is not named” is vague enough as to have the possibility of meaning anything. Not to mention that the original Spanish sentence is ambiguous since it can mean both “something which is not named [because it is not necessary since it is well-known, implicit, or assumed]” and “something which cannot be named [because it is forbidden, taboo, or inconvenient]”. 3. Prohibiting is not politically correct On the one hand, although the term political correctness probably originated in the English translation of Mao’s The Little Red Book, in its current conception, the phenomenon 5 In addition, the noun alcancía has some archaic and/or dialectal flavour in Spain, although this is not the case in many American Spanish speaking countries. 7 of political correctness, either as some kind of externally imposed censorship or as selfcensorship about what is socially permissible or inconvenient to say by an individual, became to be widespread throughout western countries in the sixties of the 20th century, the same decade (1960-1970) in which the paradoxical motto “Il est interdit d’interdire (it is forbidden to forbid)” got also trendy (Hughes, 2006: 348 and 2010: 60). On the other hand, and as a consequence of my previous remark, politically correct language has to avoid terms such as prohibit, forbid, censor, prohibition, or censorship. In other words, in the same decade two phenomena, which seem to be opposed and very difficult to reconcile, emerged. This leads to the paradoxical Gordian knot that could be summarized as follows: “in the interests of political correctness it is politically incorrect to prohibit, but political correctness itself demands the prohibition or avoidance of some words or actions”. One of the ways to cut this Gordian knot is by means of some calculated ambiguity and or vagueness of the message, so as to get three 1) the expurgation of terms or passages; 2) the substitution of terms considered as dysphemistic and/or insulting by a given social group by other terms which the social group in question considers more “adequate”; and 3) the avoidance of terms which literally mean prohibition or censorship. The first method basically consists in banning what is considered inadequate. The second method basically consists in the substitution of politically incorrect terms by supposed synonyms which are considered euphemistic just because they are ambiguous or vague. The third method basically consists in using indirect speech acts instead of direct speech acts. 4. Expurgation of terms or passages When the writings of the past are not in accordance with our current criteria of political correctness it is usual to re-write them and/or expurgate passages or words which run counter to the sensibility of a given epoch. This was the job of Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) in his The Family Shakespeare, in one volume: In which nothing is added to the original text, but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family (1818). Indeed, Thomas Bowdler intended to expurgate Shakespeare’s works in order to achieve they do not infringe upon Victorian criteria of political correctness. The result of this is no other than the fact that Bowdler reached the infrequent privilege of converting his family name in an eponym: the verb bowdlerize, which is synonymous with censor, expurgate or clean up (Fergusson, 1986). So that bowdlerize can be found since 1836 with the meaning of “to expurgate (a book or writing), by omitting or modifying words or passages considered 8 indelicate or offensive; to castrate” (OED). An instance of this task of elimination of politically incorrect passages is the disappearance of a hilarious passage from Henry V (III, iv, 52-53), where the character of Alice teaches the character of Katharine the English names of the parts of the human body. And this passage was excised by Bowdler because Shakespearian text “was written in compliance with the bad taste of the age, for the express purpose of raising a laugh at the conclusion, by introducing, through the medium of imperfect pronunciation, the two most indecent words in the French language.” (Bowdler, 1847: vi). Consequently, the bad taste of the age in which Shakespeare wrote and the purpose of making readers laugh seemed to be two solid reasons for eliminating a passage in which, in addition, “the two most indecent words in the French language” are used. Needless to say Bowdler himself neither mentions nor uses these words which are obscene due to the pronunciation of the English nouns foot and count (for gown) according to the French accent. This makes that such English words sound for Katharine like foutre [fuck] and conne [cunt], respectively (Shewmaker, 1996). As a result of this, the hilarious climax – which, according to Bowdler himself, originated in the bad taste of the age – is just reached when Katharine repeats three times both indecent words: “De foot et de count! O Seigneur Dieu! ce sont mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user: je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le count! Néanmoins, je réciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arm, de elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de count.” (Henry V, III, iv, 52-53). And although from our contemporary point of view Bowdler’s qualms seem to be the product of some 19th century bigotry, Bowdler’s precedent had many followers in 19 and 20th centuries to the extent that “it is only fairly recently that school editions of Shakespeare have become unexpurgated” (Hughes, 2006: 45). In any case, the result of bowdlerizing any work – whatever is its author – is some vagueness in it, since the bowdlerized work in question will never say and reflect what its author tried to mean. And what is said about a book can be said about a movie or any other work. 5. Substitution Vagueness in politically correct language is not only achieved by means of expurgating passages from literary or scientific works it is also achieved by means of suggesting the substitution of a given term by another which is considered a plausible 9 synonym of the term which has to be avoided. This leads us to the subject of synonymy. Let us consider two instances of this subject. The English word Negro, both as a noun and as an adjective, were borrowed from Spanish or Portuguese negro in 16th century and originally had a strictly referential meaning as “A member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara.” (OED). According to this referential meaning, the word Negro/negro was used by Charles Darwin, for instance, as shows this quote: “If it could be proved that the Hottentot had descended from the Negro, I think he would be classed under the Negro group, however much he might differ in colour and other important characters from negroes.” (Darwin, 1859: 242. My bold type). This word was used according to its referential meaning until the 1960s, when it started to be considered derogatory or taboo, 6 and consequently and gradually, substituted by other euphemistic synonyms such as Black (Cf. Black Power), Coloured, 7 African, or African-American (only in the United States, for obvious reasons). Now, the nouns Coloured, African, or African-American can work as euphemisms for Negro or Nigger because they are basically vague. Indeed, given that the three first nouns are superordinate terms with regard to the second ones, which are their hyponyms. And so because the set of African people includes the set of Negro people, but not vice versa. This means that one can substitute, salva veritate, any hyponym by its superordinate term, but not vice versa. This is what, in spite of its vagueness, makes literally true “Charlize Theron is an African actress” (because she was born in Africa) or “Charlize Theron is an AfricanAmerican actress” (because she was born in Africa and is living in America), while “Charlize Theron is a Negro actress” is false. Under the influence of English language the noun Negro (and its cognates in various languages) has become offensive as well and, consequently, substituted by terms such as sub6 The noun Negro or nigger (and its derivatives) have been in and out of fashion depending on the different countries and cultures. So, for instance, the noun négritude has been melioratively used by many black writers, politicians, and intellectuals. Nowadays, even in English speaking countries Negro/nigger is used both as derogation and according to its literal meaning (see, Allan, unpublished). 7 I disregard the fact that Black and Coloured can be considered nowadays offensive or derogatory and, consequently, taboo. And so, in spite of the fact that they were originally coined as euphemisms. 16 In (6) impolite and politically incorrect, but precise, “No smoking” or “Smoking is prohibited” have been substituted by a sentence in which both ambiguity and vagueness occur. Ambiguity originates in the fact that, instead of the noun prohibition or any of its synonyms, we find the noun policy. 13 As a result of this, policy works as a euphemism because, in this case, this noun does not mean what usually means, i.e. a principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization, group, or individual, but prohibition or banning. As well as it probably works as a “purr word” (Leech, 1974: 50 and ff.) with regard to regulation or rule. Vagueness originates in the fact that someone thanks the reader for not smoking, instead of an explicit proscription of smoking; that is to say, while the implication of (6) is an act of gratitude, its implicature is the prohibition of smoking. But, since any implicature can be cancelled if the hearer/reader cannot be or wants not to be cooperative (Grice, 1989), the 13 If Yahweh were politically correct when gave Moses the Ten Commandments, he should have said, for instance, “Thank you for observing my no murdering policy” instead of the impolite “You shall not murder”. 17 reader of Figure 3 can interpret (6) according to what it literally means and the implicature will cease to have the desired effect. In this case the hearer/reader will understand that someone acknowledges or shows gratitude for the fact that people do not smoke, not that smoking itself is prohibited. In (7) the ambiguity of the message in order to achieve a euphemistic effect is going beyond any previous examples, if we assume that, who wrote it, tried to politely mean “Smoking is discouraged” (Lee and Pinker, 2010). In (7) not even no smoking is written or alluded to, it only states that benzene can be found in both gasoline and cigarettes. But this assertion is, in fact, an ambiguous euphemistic substitute of an advice, recommendation, counsel, or suggestion. In fact, if someone argues that smoking is inadvisable on account of tobacco smoke contains benzene and this compound is a carcinogen, by using an a pari argument, one can argue that gasoline (or gasoline vapour) is carcinogen as well and, consequently, the use of gasoline should be also discouraged, since, when refuelling, gasoline vapour can be inhaled and it is in fact, even it is in small quantities. Needless to say one can counterargue that smoking is not necessary whereas the use of gasoline is not only necessary but also unavoidable nowadays. But, given I am not speaking about the virtues of tobacco smoke and the hazards of gasoline vapours or vice versa, what is clear is that (7) is an assertion that describes a truth of fact. And, from the truth of fact described in (7), its author pretends the reader understands that smoking is not recommended and not that the use of gasoline is not recommended. In other words, the ambiguity of the recommendation or prohibition under the shape of an assertion is what makes (7) politically correct as opposed to other less acceptable (from the political correctness point of view) or inacceptable signs such as “Smoking is not recommendable” or “Smoking is prohibited”. Sometimes, resorting to polite politically correct signs such as (7) seems to be not enough in order to make clear that something is prohibited probably because of the ambiguity itself of (7). In such cases, messages which are polite and impolite at once can be found, as happens in this sign published by the Authorities of the State of Washington (8) “Smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of all building entrances. Thank you for not smoking”. 18 Figure 5 This sign refers to the Washington Clean Air Act, which establishes that 1) “Smoking is prohibited within a presumptively reasonable minimum distance of twenty-five feet from entrances, exits, windows that open, and ventilation intakes that serve an enclosed area where smoking is prohibited so as to ensure that tobacco smoke does not enter the area through entrances, exits, open windows, or other means” (RCW 70.160.075) and 2) “Any person intentionally violating this chapter by smoking in a public place or place of employment, or any person removing, defacing, or destroying a sign required by this chapter, is subject to a civil fine of up to one hundred dollars” (RCW 70.160.070). 14 Things being so, one can wonder why, if something is obliged by law, someone has to thank for it. And vice versa, one thanks for something that people are not obliged to do or refrain from doing, not for something that people are obliged to abstain from. Furthermore, given the fact that people will be fined if they violate the order in question. Unless the sentence “thank you for not smoking” has become an empty phrase or, at the most, fulfils a mere phatic function. Finally, politeness and political correctness seem to be applicable to the speakers of some languages and not to the speakers of other languages. This is the case of Figure 6 14 RCW is the acronym of Revised Code of Washington. Available at: http://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=70.94. 19 In Figure 6, 15 the ambiguous and polite English version (“This is a smoke-free facility. Thank you for not smoking”) becomes the explicit (and consequently “impolite”) explanation of a prohibition: “En este edificio es prohibido fumar” [literally, “It is forbidden to smoke in this building”]. Should one think that who wrote the Spanish version thought that politeness (or political correctness) had nothing to do with Spanish speakers? 16 Is not this a case of an ethnic and/or linguistics insult? And to add insult to injury even the Spanish sentence is ungrammatical, since, in correct Spanish, it should be either “En este edificio está prohibido fumar” or “En este edificio se prohíbe fumar”. Not to mention that the addition “Gracias por no fumar” makes no sense when joined to an explicit prohibition, as it happens in Figure 5. 7. Conclusions 1. The rise of political correction in western societies has coincided in time (and in all probability conceptually as well) with some aversion to explicit prohibition. 2. As a consequence, explicitness in prohibiting has become out. 15 I do not know whether this sign has been factually used somewhere. In fact, I found it at the website of a sign company: http://www.safetysign.com/products/p7270/bilingual-this-is-asmoke-free-sign 16 This recalls me the case of Friedhof Große Hamburger Straße (the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin), where, among other notorious members of the Jewish Community of Berlin, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was buried. All the historical, religious, or cultural, significant information for understanding what this historical site symbolises is written in Hebrew and German, except the list of prohibitions (e.g. “Men and married women have to cover their heads inside the burial ground” or “It is forbidden to eat, drink, or smoke inside the burial ground”), which is written in English as well. 20 3. It has obliged the speakers to resort to several linguistic means in order to reach both being politically correct and complying with the motto “It is forbidden to forbid”. 4. Among other means, the speakers use to resort to several mechanisms in order to flout the prohibition that forbids forbidding as well as they forbid in fact. 5. A salient feature of these mechanisms is to achieve some ambiguity or vagueness in a given text or utterance. 6. Ambiguity and/or vagueness are achieved by three different ways: 1) by rewriting or excising some texts, as shows the job of Th. Bowdler; 2) by substituting the words that have to be avoided by acceptable, euphemistic (factual or supposed) synonyms; and 3) by indirect speech acts, counting on the fact that the hearer will be cooperative and will interpret assertions as polite orders, rules, or prohibitions. 8. References Allan, Keith (2001). Natural Language Semantics. Malden: Blackwell. Allan, Keith. (unpublished). “When is a slur not a slur? The use of nigger in ‘Pulp Fiction’”. Available at http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/keith-allan/books-and-papers/ Allan, Keith and Kate Burridge. (2006). Forbidden Words. 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