An Adventure in Italics

"What a banana."

"You are cross-stitched."

"I hate it when you're being a total bottom quark."

Being insulted. It's not nice is it? Still, at least comebacks aren't too hard to come-by. You can make anything sound like an insult if you put it in italics.

"You're so gay."

"That's mental."

"Stop being such a girl."

Ah.

See, by comparing being gay to A Thing Worth Insulting, you are saying that all gay people are A Thing Worth Insulting. By labelling A Bad Idea as mental, you are misunderstanding and dismissing the experiences of people with mental health problems. By using 'girl' as a pejorative, you are making 51% of the population feel that they are inferior simply because of their gender.

This might seem petty - and I'll admit that it is more of a consequence of oppression than a cause - but use of language can have a really negative effect on how people from these groups view themselves. This can be hard to explain, so I've enlisted the help of my second favourite imaginary platypus for a little role play. Enjoy.

PLATTYR

"Hey you, what's your name?"

"Cool. It's a shame some people oppose Reason, but you seem like a pretty nice platypus.

On a completely unrelated note - Duck of Optimism, don't you think the Beaver of Half-Truths can be a COMPLETE PlattyR sometimes?"

"Just a bit of banter, Beaver! Urgh, aren't the the tables here totally PlattyRed*?"

"While we're talking about MASSIVE PlattyRs - did you hear about those people who caused the apocolypse!?"

"Oh."

"Oh. But I never meant to insult you. I guess nobody has ever pointed out the effects my words could have. I can see now - if I replace 'PlattyR' with my own name - how it could make you feel like I think being a PlattyR is a bad thing. I'm sorry. I'll try to stop."

Thanks, Platypus of Reason.

More than anything, insults such as 'queer', 'insane', 'retarded', 'spastic' and many more are boring. (See what I did with the italic there?) If you want to be insulting, then at least say what you mean. There are so many words in the English language - be inventive! Arguments and criticisms carry a lot more weight if you use your brain. Or a thesaurus.

Yours fabulously,

(Err, need to stop getting carried away with italics...)

BT x

*At school somebody genuinely referred to the layout of a classroom as 'gay'. I informed them that I thought the it was unlikely tables had a sexuality. I was met with a blank stare.