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Thursday Jan 15, 2009

Are we right to use the term 'monging-out'?

If you use the phrases “lynch-pin” or “on the nail” you are using phrases that derive from slavery. You probably didn’t know that, and now that you do, would you stop using those phrases?

It’s an interesting question and one we’ve had to tackle this week. The phrase in question was “monging out”, and it’s appeared in an article on looking after yourself, that has been on the site since September 2006. We received a complaint about the use of the phrase because, as the correspondent points out, “it derives from a perjorative term for people who have Down’s Syndrome, and refers to a sad period of our social history when adults with a learning disability were abandoned in front of the TV, if they were lucky.”

Perhaps it’s my ignorance, but I didn’t know that, and hadn’t made the connection. A quick straw poll in the office suggests other people didn’t get the association with Down’s Syndrome, and took the phrase to mean being a coach potato. Nor do I believe that writer intended to make any connection with people who have Down’s Syndrome. And, having been on the website for two-and-a-half years, with just one complaint, it’s doesn’t appear that large parts of the general population are aware of its origins either.

The correspondent complains that use of the word “only perpetuates negative stereotypes”, and yet if few people actually understand the connection, what negative stereotype is it reinforcing?  Those of a certain age know why the word spastic is generally deemed offensive in the UK, yet acceptable in the US. I remember being hauled up by a teacher for using the word ‘wally’ to describe someone, and then being told that it was offensive because it referred to an individual called Wallace who had been misunderstood. There is no real evidence that this is true (most accounts seem to suggest that it comes from a 1974 music festival in Stonehenge), but Wally is offensive enough that the Where’s Wally books were renamed Where’s Waldo when they launched in the States.

We certainly don’t set out cause offence on TheSite.org, but we’re here to reflect the lives of young people aged 16-24, and that’s as much about the language as the attitude. We’d never use the kind of language Prince Harry used to describe a fellow solider, and equally most likely steer away from the term Chris Moyles used to describe a ringtone he didn’t like. But our language has moved on far less in the last fifty years than at any point in its history, and the notion that a word was once offensive means it shall forever more be so seems is, in my opinion, a backwards step. Stephen Fry has the most excellent argument about why fretting about ‘correct’ language is dangerous.

It’s for that reason we’ve left the term in. But we’re happy to debate it and I’d welcome you comments on whether you think that was right.

Posted by Olly ( 3:38 PM ) Link to this post  |  Comments[14]