Bourgeois Hegemony and the Lexicon

[praxis1966]

After a recent brief interaction elsewhere here, I got to thinking about the ways in which bourgeois mores and cultural norms affect nearly everything under capitalism, not least of which the way words are commonly employed. As someone with a bit of a passion for language, not just the use of it within the modern context but etymology as well, I was wondering what and how certain perceptions, connotations, and definitions of words have acquired either, at the very least, a certain frowned up perception in "polite society" or, at the very worst, have become pejoratives.

Some brief and obvious examples are the terms Luddite, anarchy and redneck. I'm sure all of us are aware how the implications of these words have changed over the years... What I'm wondering is are there any other examples in which this seems to have occurred? I'm curious about English words as it's my native language, but I'm almost more interested in other languages since, though I have a background in Latin and have passively acquired a bit of Spanish over the years, I am for all intents and purposes monolingual.

[Susurrus]

Cracker is one I can think of off the top of my head. The original old english term referred to a braggart, and eventually became a term referring to poor white farmers in the colonies. Nowadays, it's a slur for whites, with the incorrect assumption it comes from the cracking of a whip.

[praxis1966]

Cracker is one I can think of off the top of my head. The original old english term referred to a braggart, and eventually became a term referring to poor white farmers in the colonies. Nowadays, it's a slur for whites, with the incorrect assumption it comes from the cracking of a whip.

See, I'm not so sure that "cracker" is quite the same thing. Sure, it's taken on quite a negative connotation by and large over the years. However, I'm not sure how much this has to do with specifically bourgeois influence.

Anyhow, for what it's worth there are still small farmers, mostly cattle ranchers in Central Florida, who use the term to refer to themselves for reasons that don't have anything to do with race AFAIK.

[blake 3:17]

Do you know Raymond Williams' work? His Culture and Society and Keywords are two very important and quite accessible books for leftists exploring the English language.

[praxis1966]

Do you know Raymond Williams' work? His Culture and Society and Keywords are two very important and quite accessible books for leftists exploring the English language.

I don't, but it definitely sounds like something I'd interested in. As I'm sure we all do, I have a couple of things on my list ahead of it but I'll definitely check them out.

[Susurrus]

Orwell's probably written something on the subject.

[Rooster]

A possible reason for why some words are frowned upon is because they're foreign (well, different from the ruling classes'), especially with the case of English. I believe that most swear words in English are from Anglo-Saxon or Old English, which went out of fashion when the French speaking Normans came into power. Many terms for Gaelic speakers became insults for them because the ruling classes were making English the official language. So, I guess, historically, the language of the lower classes got turned up into rude words in polite ruling society.

[blake 3:17]

Dave Roediger, best known for his Wages of Whiteness has done some interesting work on "redneck" and various racist slurs.

I just finished Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman, a pretty lurid and fun read about the Oxford English Dictionary. Lots of very interesting stuff on the history and processes of dictionaries, all wrapped up in a tale of murder and madness!

[Mr. Natural]

praxis1966, others,

You touched upon a real sore point of mine. In the US, at least, the word, "radical," which used to mean getting to the root or fundamentals or deep relations of something, has now come to mean "extreme" or "fanatic."

I don't know of any effective alternate term for "radical." It's as if the very concept of looking beneath the surface of life and society has disappeared, which is true in the US.

I view this as but one more example of the capitalist system's effective mental as well as physical capture of the human species. We gotta do something about this.