Hello there. It is truly the Ides of March, plus one. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all those celebrating the wearing of the green this week. The term Ides is Latin for full division. Despite the now ominous meaning of the phrase above, it was a festival day back in ye olden times. The Romans, originally used the term to refer to the full moon -- a rather important lunar activity in the Roman calendar for numerous reasons -- for all you word geeks out there -- now you know the rest of the story (Paul Harvey, RIP.)
Seeing it is now the full moon of my academic career at Suffolk (stay with me folks, I'm going somewhere with this, I promise) -- I've rounded the corner and clearly see graduation looming ahead. If only I can stay on target. These last 4 research papers are killing me! Thankfully, I did get my act together in January and kept myself somewhat true to schedule for most of February.
But despite the focus, and approaching graduation, it does'nt mean ER is done receiving her education. No, no far from it my friends. The learning continues up until the very last second! Last week in class, a major verbal blunder of epic proportions. What you say, ER make a vocal faux paus!? Again! Some might mutter...but in all honesty it was completely unintentional and ER is very saddened. ER ultimately learned that there are lots of offensive words which have benign origins. Whether a word is offensive or not isn't based on logic but on history. Most people will make some distinction based on the intent of the speaker -- whether a word is truly harmless in your mind, or if you really meant to offend. ER had no intentions of offending but clearly did so, accidentily. And even after attending a fabulous Suffolk conference, just the week prior, entitled "Multi-Cultural Summit" in which two great instructors from the Coalition Building Insititute held a terrific integrated learning experience! ER bubbling afresh with newly learned sensitivitiy skills and a new outlook on "walking a mile" in someone else's shoes. And, wham! ER offended a peer in class. Thankfully, the class, had a communications contingency policy in place. A code word was spoken and all discussion ceased and a thoughtful journal activity ensued. Afterwards, a very intelligent and enlightening discussion -- albeit occasionally uncomfortable at times -- was held.
However, this is what happens when emotions are involved. Topics of sensitivity can and should be rationally dicussed and it's never an easy process. It's difficult to admit wrong, it's difficult to hang your emotions out for all to see and comment on. No one likes to admit they made a mistake or wants to dwell on something when emotions are raw but, if true education is to happen and learning take place, then these events, when they happen, need to be analzyed and discussed, no matter how uncomfortable it makes either party involved. In the end, it was a great discussion. ER sometimes wishes direct invovlement in these educable moments onto someone else, but despite cheeks flaming red -- ER learned a valuable lesson.
Sometimes an adjective, even something considered an ordinary word and is not in itself an outrageous word,is not an adjective but can be hurtful. Once the offense is made, it's out and dealing with it in an effective and respectful manner is the only way to go. ER doesn't regret the choice of words, as they were not said maliciously or with intent to cause hurt, but truely and deeply regrets the obvious pain caused. ER is grateful for the discussion that ensued and has learned more about common words and their possible offensive meanings than ever before.
The world of etymology is vast and ER is definintely no philogist. However, having personally experienced the few seconds it took to offend someone ER cares about thought this valuable lesson should be shared. Interested to see how easy it would be or take a gander at a list of seemingly benign words which have potential to cause harm or should be avoided? Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid and Val Dumond's "Just Words: The Us and Them Thing", and this is a fun website for all things verbally interesting: http://www.languagemonitor.com/
Verbally wiser and ever yours,
ER
Comments