cultural change and language change

In our last two sessions, my SOC 101 class (the one in the classroom)and I have been focusing on the elements of culture, beginning with language, and talking about changes in culture. Last Thursday we were coming up with examples of words that have come to have different meanings -- both denotations (the direct, explicit, dictionary meaning) and connotations (implied or suggested meaning).

In light of this conversation with my students I find it interesting, that apparently the meaning (both denotation and connotation) of the noun "barracuda" has evidently undergone some changes. According to my Merriam-Webster Dictionary (copyright 2004) the second meaning of "barracuda" is a person who "uses aggressive, selfish, and sometimes unethical methods to obtain a goal, especially in business."

Now my 1941 Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, doesn't even have that meaning, it just defines barracuda as "voracious pike-like marine fish." So the application of the name to humans is one example of the changing nature of language.

Now, it would appear, that the Republicans either like the idea of Sarah Palin being labeled "aggressive, selfish, and sometimes unethical" or they think the word means something entirely different. Certainly the Heart song "Barracuda" that the Republicans have chosen (with out the group's permission) as Palin's theme song, does not use the term in a wholly complementary way --the person being called "barracuda" appears to be a preditory and lying person.

who/what defines a terrorist?

Tuesday July 1, President Bush signed into law H.R. 5690, which "authorizes the Departments of State and Homeland Security to determine that provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act that render aliens inadmissible due to terrorist or criminal activities would not apply with respect to activities undertaken in association with the African National Congress in opposition to apartheid rule in South Africa." In doing so, Bush removes Nelson Mandela, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize from the United States terror watch list.

Does this mean that Mandela and the ANC didn't engage in acts of violence in their fight against apartheid -- of course not. The U.S. government has finally decided to bow to public opinion that view these acts of violence as the acts of "freedom fighters." It doesn't hurt that the ANC is now the ruling party in a country in which many U.S. citizens and businesses have significant economic interests.

Many of us, myself included, never considered Mandela and the ANC terrorists, but our government did. Just as there are some Americans today who do not consider Hamas to be terrorists, but view them also as freedom fighters. The point here is that the label of "terrorist" is not based on some objective measure of the level of violence employed, or the number of deaths and injuries incurred. It is a political label based on prevailing attitudes and sentiments, and it can change when the circumstances and attitudes change.

As sociologists point out over and over again, political, economic and social reality is socially constructed. It is constructed through the process of attaching meaning to things. We humans construct those meanings, and determine how things, people, and events will be defined; because our world is socially constructed, it can be reconstructed and redefined. Power and powerlessness often determine whose sets of meanings will get the backing of governments and military might. When the lines of power shift, things are often redefined to reflect those changes in power.

language, grammar and meaning

My husband, John (also a sociologist), was quite disturbed recently when he heard several conservative commentators/politicians use the phrase "Democrat Party." He thought that the speakers were merely ignorant of proper grammar. "Democrat" is a noun, and should not be used to modify another noun "party" - nouns are modified by adjectives such as "Democratic."

I explained to him that, while the phrase might be grammatically incorrect, that the speakers were making the statement not out of ignorance but rather from a deliberate decision to denigrate the Democratic Party. I don't think he quite believed me, until I found the Wikipedia entry on "Democrat Party(phrase)." However, even I was surprised to discover how long a political history the phrase has. The first recorded use goes back to 1890, but it became a commonly used epithet by Republicans in the 1930's and 1940's. Harold Stassen made the derogatory nature of the label clear in a 1940 statement in which he argued that because of the prevalence of political machines in larger urban areas such as Chicago and New Jersey, the party no longer deserved to be called "democratic."

Grammar, like vocabulary, is not static, but evolves over time, to meet the needs of a living culture. The use of phrases like "Democrat Party" serve a political purpose, and in using them, people contribute to changes in the language as well as subtly affecting perceptions of their listeners.


A different example of changing grammatical usage, the phrase "well paying job." Today one finds that references "well paying jobs" and "well-paying jobs" (226,000 Google entries) some what outnumber references to "good paying jobs" (169,000 entries). Thirty to forty years ago, the reverse was true, and "good paying" was more likely to be heard.

Searching the Internet one finds that arguments for the grammatical correctness of both phrases. The arguments vary. "Good" is an adjective, while in some instances "well" is an adjective also, "well" is more often an adverb. The word paying is a "present participle," a word that can act either as a verb (he is paying her a salary) or as an adjective (a paying job as opposed to one without pay).

Grammar books say that adjectives modify nouns only, while adverbs modify adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. That would suggest that "well paying" is more grammatically correct than "good paying." However, there some that argue that both "good" and "paying" modify "job" (as in "good job" and "paying job" and so both should be adjectives.

There seems to be little difference in the types of websites that use these phrases, both are found on University websites, both are found in newspapers and magazine articles, both are found on websites of organizations and government agencies.

Microsoft, in the Word grammar checker has taken a neutral position: "well-paying," "well paying," "good-paying," and "good paying" are pass inspection by the grammar checker. But that may not be saying much. The grammar checker did not flag "This is a good paid job. " Although it did flag "This job is paid good" as ungrammatical.

The point, there appears to be no agreed upon, clear grammatical reason for choosing "well paying" versus "good paying," but current social conventions appear to slightly prefer "well paying," while the phrase "good paying" was more commonly used in the past.

Language and its grammar is a living, breathing, changing entity.

The Word Police Have Run Amok

Time magazine on-line ran an article yesterday about efforts by the McDonald's corporation to get the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to redefine the word "McJob". According to the Time article

In 2001, the term finally entered the Oxford English Dictionary, which defined it as "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector." And it has remained there ever since. But not for much longer if McDonald's gets its way.

The company is leading a "word battle" on behalf of the wider service sector. The object, according to David Fairhurst, a senior vice-president of McDonald's, is to change the definition of McJob to "reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding ... and offers skills that last a lifetime."

McDonald's reasoning? "[T]that the OED's definition was 'outdated' and 'insulting.'"

This gives me a wonderful idea. Having been called a "bitch" (to my face at least once) by students, I should lobby the OED (on behalf of bitches everywhere) to change the definition of "bitch" which is currently "malicious or treacherous woman;" to something more like "a woman with keen intellect and low tolerance for idiots and fools." Unfortunately I fear I don't have the financial resources of McDonald's to mount the lobbying campaign. The current definition is certainly "insulting" and probably outdated.

Down the other -- scientific ignorance part 2

As I said in a previous posting, scientific ignorance is endemic these days. Moreover it annoys me even more than usual when it comes from some one who identifies themselves with the scientific world.

A month ago, on Earth Day, I had the privilege of being part of a wonderful conference -- the "Campus-Community Partnership for Sustainability Conference." It was held at Berea College, in Berea Kentucky April 21-23. The conference successfully brought together scientists, activists, farmers, architects, planners and other who are deeply concerned about how we can make a transition to a post-Peak Oil world. The term "Peak Oil" was coined by geologist M. King Hubbert more than 50 years ago: "The term Peak Oil refers the maximum rate of the production of oil in any area under consideration, recognizing that it is a finite natural resource, subject to depletion." Hubbert successful predicted that U.S. Oil production would reach its peak (maximum rate of production) in the 1970's. Others have used his methods to make predictions for world wide oil production which vary from 2015 to 2035. The conference which focuses on sustainability (and not the oxymoronic "sustainable development" deplored by many environmentalists) will be repeated again next year, at Eastern Kentucky University.

My comments here in should not be taken in any way as a criticism of the conference itself.

My role, as a sociologist interested in environmental sociology and community, was minimal. I volunteered to moderate a few sessions and some discussion. The topics I choose to moderate where those that about which I had little knowledge with the hope of learning something (which I did). The afternoon session, which will be the focus of this posting, was entitled "Ecological landscapes and 'going native'" by Portia Brown. Ms. Brown is a self educated "native plant consultant, educator and advocate" (as she describes herself in her first prize winning entry in the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro governments 2005 Low Maintenance Landscape Design contest http://www.apcd.org/lawncare/design_contest/2005/brown_Portia/. Portia is an engaging speaker, and she had a valuable thesis, that "by embracing the richness of our regional plant communities in our manage landscapes we can reduce fragmentation and build much needed connections between and within the human and natural communities."

But there was something in her presentation that nagged at me, and which illustrates the same kind of scientific ignorance I deplored (in previous post) in novelist Michael Crichton.

Portia began her presentation by asking those in attendance what a "native" plant was. One member of the audience offered the following definition (with out any facetiousness), saying that a "native plant is one that was here before European settlers came to the Americas." Portia suggested that such a definition was not general enough (too specific to North America) and offered instead this definition: " a native plant is one that evolved naturally (without human intervention) and persists naturally in the wild of a particular region."

As I listened to her talk, and thought about it over the intervening weeks, I realized that the audience member's definition far more accurately portrayed the way in which Brown (and many others) actually use the term "native plants" than her own, more "scientific" sounding definition.

The fact of the matter is, that we have no way of knowing whether or not the various grasses and wildflowers, shrubs and trees, that Portia used as examples of native species evolved in situ without human intervention or not. Human beings occupied north American since some 20,000 to 15,000 years ago. Evidence only beginning to be understood thorough today suggests that the populations of humans in the new world in 1400 just prior to the arrival of Europeans were many times greater than previously believed. North America was in all likelihood a fairly densely populated landmass, that was decimated by diseases of European origin before the settling of Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. Horticulture was practiced though out north America and Agriculture was practiced in various locations.

This definition of "native" is used (although rarely recognized) through out the world. "Native" plants are those that were in existence when Europeans first arrive in Africa, in Asia, and else where in the world. Part of the definitional process is a subtle form of racism. An assumption that no humans other than Europeans had the knowledge and technical capacity to alter the natural world. The less sinister explanation is that we simply have no knowledge of the horticultural practices of humans in regions prior to the occupation by Europeans because most such "indigenous" people had oral rather than written cultures, and the knowledge of those cultures was lost.

Thus Portia Brown considered elderberry with its white fluffy flowers to be "native" and Queen Anne's Lace with similar flowers as not native. But do we know, for a fact, that humans had no role in the propogation and dispersal of elderberry? We do not.

Moreover, Brown's definition which excluded "human intervention" is scientifically specious on another ground. Distinguishing between the role of humans in propogating and dispersing seed and plants across the landscape from the role of other species, seems artificial and arbitrary. Wild roses existed in the Americas before Europeans arrived. Rosa acicularis or prickly rose, is clearly a part of the same biological family as European cultivated roses (and as blackberries and rasberries). According to http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/shrubs/rosaaci.html "Native Americans made medicinal tea from wild roses which was used as a remedy for diarrhea and stomach maladies. They sometimes smoked the inner bark. The Crow used a solution made by boiling rose roots in a compress to reduce swelling. The same solution was drunk for mouth bleeding and gargled as a remedy for tonsillitis and sore throats; vapor from this solution was inhaled for nose bleeding." How did this plant that shares biological ancestors with European plants end up in north American (or vice versa). In all likelihood because of the transport of plant seeds or other germinating matter by animals such as birds.

Plant species arise in one place and seeds, spores, cones, or other means of germination are transported by animals (and the wind) to new places. Birds are frequent distributors of genetic matter. But mammals and other species may help with the disrtribution of edible plants through their feces. From a scientific point of view the difference between the role of human and of other animals is merely a matter of degree, and perhaps intentionality (although not always).

This unscientific distinction between the role of humans animals and the role of other animals in the dispersal of plant species through the world, is frequently accompanied by an equally unscientific view of the landscape as something that is fixed and unchanging that we, humans need to lock into place and protect from any disruptive influences. This mind set worries extensively about the invasion of foreign species that "aggresively" crowd out "native" species. One example in this region is the mimosa tree or silk tree with its long lived prink tasseled flowers. Mimosa is fast growing, and spreads easily. In the past two decades of warmer weather, mimos have spread at the edges of Kentucky forests, generally along roadsides, often claiming the same general niche that dogwood and redbud occupy. In cooler wetter years they die back, and resurge again in warmer drier springs and summers. These trees which originated in central Eurasia, and came to the U.S. as popular ornamental trees. This has earned the mimosa a spot on lists of dangerous and banned foreign species.

But let us consider this more carefully, 20,000 years ago when the last ice age was winding down, the forests of Kentucky were largely arboreal nondeciduous forests. At some point the oaks and maples, sycamores and dogwood that we love so much were "foreign" invaders themselves. What makes that transition "good" and current transitions in forest species "bad"? What ever it is, it is NOT science.