A dictionary entry citing ‘rabid feminist’ doesn’t just reflect prejudice, it reinforces it

[niyad]

A dictionary entry citing ‘rabid feminist’ doesn’t just reflect prejudice, it reinforces it
Emer O'Toole

Objectionable phrases may be widely used, but the Oxford English Dictionary has a responsibility to define them by other means.


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‘Oxford Dictionaries has explained that these sexist sentences reflect common usage.’ Photograph: Denis Closon/Rex Features



A Canadian anthropologist, Michael Oman-Reagan, tweeted Oxford Dictionaries last week to ask it why “rabid feminist” is the OED’s usage example for the word “rabid”. Oxford Dictionaries responded by suggesting Oman-Regan may be a rabid feminist. It has since apologised for the “flippant” response and is reviewing the example sentence. Other sexist OED sample sentences, according to Oman-Regan, include those for words such as shrill, nagging and bossy. Oxford Dictionaries has explained that these sentences reflect common usage – which I do not doubt – and do not represent the views of the publisher Oxford University Press. But they also, of course, reflect an editorial decision.

According to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life”. The example “rabid feminist” is possible because of its relationship to our form of life – a life in which women are caricatured as shrill, bossy and nagging, and caring about women’s rights is extreme and fanatical.

Wittgenstein believes that “the meaning of a word is its use in language”. Explaining words is not simply a matter of defining a discrete object or concept. Rather, it’s a matter of locating that object or concept in the complex web of usages that we share. In fact, as Wittgenstein shows, for a word to function in language, it does not actually to have to refer to any specific thing. A word’s meaning can exist entirely in how it is used. He explains this abstract idea with this delicious thought experiment:
“Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a ‘beetle’. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word ‘beetle’ had a use in these people’s language? If so, it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No one can ‘divide through’ the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.”
Sexism row prompts Oxford Dictionaries to review language used in definitions
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As the above illustration of an abstract concept suggests, and as the editors of the OED should recognise, giving examples, to quote Wittgenstein again, “is not an indirect means of explaining … For any general definition can be misunderstood too.” Examples are as important to our understanding as definitions – they connect the threads of that shared web of usages.

. . . .

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/26/rabid-feminist-language-oxford-english-dictionary

The best way to know how someone has “taken” a definition, according to Wittgenstein, is seen in “the use he makes of the word defined”. It’s telling that Oxford Dictionaries’ reaction to being questioned by Oman-Regan was to label his considered feminist action “rabid”. Clearly, definition and example in tandem have led to an understanding that any feminist query – no matter how gentle – is extreme and unwarranted.

[whatthehey]

1. I wonder if you'll get the same patronizing explanations of descriptivism...

..which those who care about the misuse of standard English frequently receive.

The issue here sadly is that dictionaries are by intent and...umm, definition, descriptive. If they were not there would be no need for so much as a second edition, ever.

Now every "prescriptivist" I've ever encountered, including myself, knows full well that languages adapt and change in lexicon, syntax and grammar, and that cataloguing these changes is a worthwhile endeavor. It's not hypocritical that I rail against "fifty thousand less plastic bags were used than last year" at a grocery store but do not talk about books being "stacked" with two syllables. Both are incorrect in the standard English of my time, while the former no doubt will be correct in the future and the latter was in the past. The whole point of prescriptivism is to say that a language is more precise, more effective and more aesthetically pleasing if it has a standard form understood by all and capable of nuance. We fear becoming dragged into a Newspeak dystopia where only simple jargon-laden declarative statements will be universally understood. Hell, we are already getting there. I was rebuked not too long ago for using the word "lest", a long and complex mouthful of a word, in an email.

The relevance to your point? Dictionaries must, to be useful, contain wide usages however sloppy or objectionable or biased. It would be laughable to claim that "rabid" or "shrill" are not words used as you describe and dislike. We are both then asking for some prescriptive editorializing. Whereas I would hope for prescriptivism of style, saying that "less" when used to refer to quantifiable nouns is a slang or nonstandard usage, you are seeking prescriptiveness of inherent bias, where words like the above should be described as potentially misogynistic when applied to women.

It's a fair enough point as it stands but then you potentially get into a prescriptivist pissing match because words like "shrill" developed and have long been used to describe a tonal quality which is not unique to but more prevalent in female voices. If we decide it can not be politely applied to women, then "piercing" would inevitably become misogynistic in its turn, no doubt followed by "penetrating" and then even "high-pitched". We would face a language intentionally impoverished of its array of subtly-differing synonyms if they could ever be used to distinguish male from female attributes.

This is not a hypothetical suggestion. "Stench" and "stink" both began as neutral words. "Smell" is quickly losing its neutral status. People still talk about the "smell of fresh-baked bread" but if you walk into someone's home and ask, in a level neutral tone, "what's that smell?" you are far more likely offend than be seen as simply trying to ascertain whether they use lavender or talc spray in the restroom. Within two generations at the most no-one will ever say "you smell wonderful" in a romantic situation any more than they would use "you stink wonderful" today. I fear this kind of diminution and restriction, no matter how nobly intended.

To me it's not difficult to tell whether "shrill" is being used in a neutral or misogynistic way. "Rabid" outside medicine is an intensifier implying overwhelming and unreasonable attachment. It's as possible to be a rabid feminist as it is to be a rabid right winger or a rabid Packers fan. The latter two seem to be quite cheerfully accepted, with potentially even a positive connotation. It's not to me a positive term, but to those who value loyalty over rationality it can easily be seen as such. Neither are terms I'd be likely to use to describe women in general in a positive light, so I understand the initial distaste, but unless we can say there are no shrill women or no metaphorically rabid feminists, they are not words I would condemn universally, let alone wish to lose.