Christopher M. Fairman's 'Saying It Is Worse'

The disadvantages of regulation and elimination of the language

In the modern society, millions of people realize that several offensive words with insulting taboo meanings heavily disturb their daily lives and break some special groups of people’s respect to push them to feel like outsiders of the whole society. As a result, more and more people join some underway movements to eliminate the use of these offensive words in people’s everyday speech and writing. However, these offensive words themselves are not the culprit, the bad meanings people attach are the problems and some other functions of the words are useful in the society. Christopher M. Fairman the author of “ Saying It Is Hurtful, Banning It Is Worse” also argues that although

the insulting meanings of some words will lead to several hard hurtful influence in people’s lives, the disappearance of these words actually will cause even much worse effect. Fairman mentions that some offensive words contain the culture of certain history and have some functions in academic aspects. Oscar Hijuelos, in “ Lost In Time And Words, A Child Begins A New” has the negative point when he was young. Hijuelos thought that Spanish language brought him a lot of loneliness when he was a child, but after he grows up Hijuelos realize that the culture and history contained in Spanish bring him a sense of belonging. And he turns to refute the regulation of language which will destroy his intimacy feeling with hometown. These offensive words and language indeed bring some damage such as insult and loneliness to people but the elimination and regulation of the use of these language will remove the cultural marks and some functional meanings of these words, and even will deprive the public’s freedom of speaking the language they prefer to use.
Some “bad” languages actually contain several cultural marks and history stories. In the past, people usually had some misconstruction about mental disability, that thought the mental disaster those patients endured are the retribution for their crimes. To avoid these misunderstand mistakes from happening again, people remember the academic explanation, academic words and the history stories contained in the words such as “retard”. Fairman also agrees the point that people should not regulate these offensive words that contain several essential history stories and he says that “it’s precisely the new enlightenment and openness about mental disabilities that allow Palin to launch the controversy over “retard”. In ancient ages, people saw some mental illness as the punishment or incarnation of demons and evils. As a result, many common people treated retarded patients pretty bad such as throwing them in prisons or even hanging them. To prevent this condition from keeping contagious scientists started to explore the mental illness and explain their origins to the masses using some academic words such as R-word and then the words like “retard” can remind nowadays people of these stupid mistakes and keep away from them in the future. At the same time, although some integrated people insist in speaking their first language and it heavily prevent them from fitting into the local lives, they actually can remember and retain their culture from the mother language. Hijuelos also thinks that keeping using Spain prevents his family from losing their own culture, and he says “it was the language that I identified with the comforts and security of home”(132).
For keeping their Spanish culture, Hijuelos’ family insisted in speaking Spanish because Spanish ,as their first language, contains a variety of Spanish cultural marks which can bring them who live in a strange country, an intimate feeling of hometown. The familiar cultural marks in the first language give these immigrant people thoughts that they are still protected by their culture and don’t need to worry about the unacquainted environment around them. So people should not regulate and eliminate these language which can use their history stories inside to prevent people from making same mistakes again and use the cultural marks to provide people with comforts and securities.

Although the regulation of words and language can limit the bad influence from evil meanings of offensive languages, it also removes a variety of useful functions of those “bad” languages such as academic use and the sense of belonging.

It is true that retard people will feel uncomfortable and insulting when they hear the word “retard” because retard people deem that the word “retard” contains mock, disdain and discrimination from others. However, actually most of people only see “retard” as a word to describe a kind of mental sickness. Fairman, the author of “saying it is hurtful, banning it is worse” also argues that some bad words such as “retard” mostly are used as an academic word, he says that “he found nothing wrong with ‘calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards”(168). R-word is used to describe an academic mental illness most of time, and people do need a word like “retard” to functions as the name of this kind of mental disability. Before the appearance of “retard”, “idiot”,a word with worse meaning, did the same job and after the death of “retard” there must be a new word which also may be attached similar insulting meaning, accepting the same duty. Not only academic functions, some bad languages also can bring people senses of belonging. Although using new language more often instead of people’s original language can assist people more easily integrate into the new country, only motherland language contains an intimate feeling because original language

is closely connected with the hometown. Hijuelos, the author of “Lost In Time And Words, A Child Begins Anew” also agrees that his first language can make him warm and have a feeling of returning home. He says “ when I heard Spanish, I found my heart warming”(133). Actually, Hijuelos was hurted by Spanish, his first language when he was young because his family members all use Spanish to communicate without talking to Hijuelos in English and it leads him to feel lonely and hope to prevent others from using Spanish any more. However,after Hijuelos grew up, he progressively found the outside world is full of indifference and loneliness and only his first language,people using his mother language can bring him the sense of belonging, drive apart the solitude and give him the warmth of home.
Indeed, bad words and language bring people a lot of damage such as insulting feelings and loneliness but regulation or elimination of the use of these offensive languages will actually deprive people’s right of freedom, that will have a much worse influence on people’s lives.

people should have the rights to use any words and any languages they prefer to use, which can make them more comfortable. Fairman mentions that the censorship of the offensive words which deprives the freedom of the public is totally wrong and he say “The risk of direct government censorship of the word ‘retard’ is real”(171). Freedom is the basic requirement of living and history confirms that people are willing to fight with any power for protecting their freedom. At the same time, any law in any country clearly mentions the freedom of any individual is divine and inviolable because people have fighted for achieving the freedom generation by generation. Hijuelos also thinks that freedom is pretty essential and people should have the freedom to use any language they want, and when he was young, his family actually insist using Spanish in the United State. He says that “ Spanish, rather than English, is what I heard day in and day out” (132). Although using the first language in foreign countries may cause the isolation and loneliness, the foreigners have the freedom to choose still insisting in speaking the first language to achieve the feeling of belonging and these choices should be respected.

Although resisting first language have several disadvantages, others can not directly push these integrant people to give up speaking their first language because it is their freedom to choose what language they want and freedom is the most important and basic staff people must own.
As a result, people should not regulate and eliminate the use of offensive words and languages because relative to the damages produced by offensive word, the regulation and elimination of these words and languages will cause much worse result that the elimination will remove the cultural marks and other functions these offensive words contain and the regulation will limit people’s basic freedom of using the language.