There's A Word For It

When we got the comic book home we devoured it. It had cost ten cents, a significant piece of change for us at the time, and we weren't going to miss a thing. It was good guys against bad – supergood versus superbad. There was no subtlety. Sure the girls read comic love stories, but they weren't very subtle either. And superheroes were mostly for the boys anyway. Archie and Jughead, Betty and Veronica, provided some of the laughs.

Sometimes we sat on the floor in the back of the candy store as we read them; sometimes we devoured them on the subway train. Our parents weren't thrilled by the idea, but we were reading. It wasn't all bad. Especially considering some of the other, less civilized, activities of youth about which they read in the newspapers. They urged us to do our homework before reading the comics, but they knew we'd read them sooner or later.

After all, they read the comics also. They were in the newspaper and could be better hidden – even when they were in public. But no adult would read a comic book on the subway. It was evidence of childish ignorance and fantasy.

It's different now. Now there are comic books for adults. We've made them acceptable and you now see people (usually women) reading them on the subway.

What accounts for this change in behavior? Well, it doesn't hurt that they're the size of pocket books and look less like the childrens' variety. Nor that they're a little less subtle and a little more “sensitive.” They also cost more which puts them in the adult range.

But the real reason for their newfound popularity is that they're no longer “comic books.” Sure they may look like them, but they're “graphic novels.” That's all it takes. Now it doesn't sound like something for kids. They're adult fare. It's just a commercial application of something we've been doing for years. We think that words govern the nature of matter – that words matter.

Well, they do. It's not far-fetched. Consider the Sapir-Whorf (or Whorf-Sapir – it depends on whom you read) Hypothesis. Their view was that if there's no word for a particular concept, you can't really think about it. So, they conclude, the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view. Perhaps you suffer from yokomeshi. You'll never know. Perhaps when you try to speak Japanese you get anxious. Still you'll never realize that you're not alone and there's a particular syndrome of stress induced by trying to speak a foreign language (and the Japanese have that particular word for it). So you just suffer through Spanish and Russian classes without knowing why you're nervous. Or, perhaps, you felt satisfaction, when your neighbor's prior success went down the tubes. It's actually Schadenfreude, an ailment from which we all suffer – or which we all enjoy. And the shades of meaning of unfamiliar concepts in unknown languages is one of the main causes of yokomeshi for translators, though they view our discomfort with Schadenfreude.

Words do mean something. But it may not be what we think. They're flexible. They change over time. So “nice,” which is derived from nescio, the Latin word for the idea of not knowing – ignorance – is now more positive. I suspect that at one time a “nice distinction” was one without a difference, but now it's one that makes an important point. Quite the opposite. Over the millennia, “nice” has gone from a pejorative to a word of praise and compliment.

That, however, is evolution. Revolution takes place as well. It may be the invention of new words and phrases that takes place with slang, but there may be more sinister intent. Thus Orwell, in 1984, introduced the use of “Newspeak,” which both limited the meanings of words and, sometimes, gave them connotations, opposite to what we understood them to be. Or, as with “blackwhite,” contradictory meanings depending on the circumstances.

Readers, though, understood Orwell's intent and the word usages. It was all part of a story. It was imaginary even if it was threatening. But we've gone further, by changing the meanings of words to rid our language of ideas we don't like – and it's not fiction. We use euphemisms to disguise ideas that may “offend” others. (Actually, most of the time we're the ones offended. Not those we claim to protect.) We no longer have “retarded” children. They're “special” now. For a while they were “slow learners,” but even that was too harsh. There was a time when some children were diagnosed with “minimal brain dysfunction,” MBD, but parents didn't want their offspring so labeled – partly because it reflected on the kids, and partly because it suggested that they may have passed on a defect to them. With a change in the label – though no change in the cause – the process not only became acceptable, but was accepted with joy as a justification for a variety of problems. Indeed, ADD, attention deficit disorder (or ADHD which often accompanies it, especially in boys), is in fashion and over-diagnosed, to the great benefit of the drug companies.

Having noted the scent of “hurtful” words, we now smell them everywhere, whether or not they are present. “Niggardly” is misunderstood to be derived from the “N word” (we shudder to go beyond the first letter – to spell out what we think) even though there is no relationship between them, and the idea of “trigger” words and “microaggressions” is limiting our right of free speech, especially on college campuses where the exchange of ideas should take precedence over “sensitivity” and the eager adoption of ignorance rather than learning.

Our efforts to “reach out and touch somebody” have all the subtlety of a comic book graphic novel. We're sensitive to the point of non-communication. Even our superheroes have matured. It's a laugh.

September 20, 2016