https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/lets-stop-using-the-word-lame
No. Let’s not.
The above is a link to an article by a so-called professor
of English, Ethnic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Platteville.
Acting as if it somehow denigrates people to use the word
lame is completely contrived. Our
erstwhile English professor is correct that the word lame has in the past
referred to a physical condition, typically related to one’s difficulty or inability
to walk. I daresay if tomorrow you interviewed 100 everyday people on the
street what you’d find is most would define lame as per the current vernacular
– it means something isn’t good or worth the time, money, or effort or that
it’s just dumb. Most (likely 90% or more
is my guess) wouldn’t even realize that it had a meaning related to a person’s
physical condition. Agonizing over the current usage as somehow demeaning
creates angst and worry where none is required or even meaningful.
Why do I even care?
Irony. The same English professor would likely be angered if I wrote
that we shouldn’t be using gay to mean homosexuals – she’d argue that’s what
the word means now and that I should just get over it and that words sometimes
change meaning or add meaning over time.
The word “gay” until about 50 years ago still meant happy
or well-disposed. Now it doesn’t. That’s in the nature of words. The word
“texting” didn’t exist in 1980 when I was a teenager. But we now use it as a
gerund (a verb used as a noun typically ending in “ing”) to mean sending a
written message via a device known as a smartphone. It may, or may not, retain
this usage exclusively over time. Neither I nor Professor Wendorff can know. The irony is that it is all-too-predictable that I'd be told to stop being whatever villainous kind of "phobe" or "ist" it is to suggest we go back to gay meaning happy.
One of the most fascinating things about words and usage is
the additions and changes that occur over time. We don’t speak in Chaucer’s Late Medieval English. For that
matter we don’t speak the same English as that of the late 1700’s. Fortunately, many words retain their meanings over long periods of time (we could likely converse
reasonably well with people from the 1700’s but there would be awkward
moments). So why, suddenly, must we stop
using lame in its current form?
To add insult to injury, let me use some clichés to
describe what the good Professor is doing here. She’s finding a cure for a disease that doesn’t
exist; she’s treating everything as a nail that requires hammering; she’s sawing off the branch
while standing on it.
We don’t need so-called do-gooders like the Professor shaming people for their ordinary usage of words because she needs to justify her salary and position at a university teaching nonsensical ideas like not using lame to mean what it has come to mean.
She's being, dare I say it . . . LAME.
