Word association

I'm bemused by those fanatical campaigners who think that endless tinkering with the words and phrases we use somehow makes life better for all those groups of people who're discriminated against.

The latest daft initiative from an obscure pressure group reprimands anyone who uses phrases including the word black, because according to them this could be racist. We shouldn't say someone deserves a black mark, or we're feeling in a black mood, or we're in someone's black books, or we bought something on the black market. We should find alternative phrases that avoid the word black.

This seems to me absolutely dotty. If I say I'm in a black mood, how on earth is this linked to racism? Wouldn't people understand it to mean simply that I'm feeling rather grumpy and irritable, with no sense whatever of a racist overtone?

Surely the way to combat racism is not to make umpteen changes to our vocabulary but to treat black people like fellow human beings, with courtesy and respect and fairness. Obviously we avoid the offensive n-words that are clearly abusive, but terms like "black mood" are referring to something quite different.

Yesterday I met my first black bus driver (Yes, Belfast is still mostly white). I would think that treating him as just another bus driver rather than something unusual and surprising is probably more appreciated than no one mentioning their "black mood".

I hope nobody offers him a black coffee or some black grapes. You never know, he might be mortally offended.

Sticks and stones

The old saying goes "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Quite untrue of course, as unkind words can pierce like daggers for months or even years afterwards.

Sticks and stones are unlikely to do any serious injury, but telling someone they're stupid or ugly or useless can be highly disturbing, especially to someone who has little self-confidence in the first place.

I can still remember my father calling me half-witted, or naive, or self-centred, and that was over 50 years ago. Even if I tell myself I'm none of those things, the words still stick in my mind like a splinter in my finger.

A blogger once called me anti-semitic, although I've never been anything of the kind. Needless to say, I stopped looking at his blog, but the insult lingers on.

I've been called smug and self-righteous, which also stings because I'm always open to differing opinions and I know very well I might be misinformed or biased.

Cruel and nasty words can do immense damage. There are regular reports of school pupils who have killed themselves after persistent name-calling by other pupils.

People who were previously happy and bubbly can become mental wrecks in a matter of months when verbal abuse is flung at them day after day.

To realise how destructive words can be, you only have to think of the way they were used in Nazi Germany to dehumanise whole groups of people.

Newspaper columnists are well aware of how much words can hurt, and often seem to take a vicious delight in using the most offensive language they can think of against someone who probably won't be allowed to answer back.

Words can hurt. They can be brutal. They can be deadly.

Scrambled brain

I've had a nasty infection for a week and my brain is scrambled.

I feel like Francis Gilroy in David Park's book The Truth Commissioner:

"Never before has Gilroy felt his life so full of words and so depleted of those that carry meaning. Some days it feels he's wearing a straitjacket or his brain is clamped in a vice. He wants a new way to speak; he wants whatever's still ahead of him to be lived in a different way."

Normal service may or may not be resumed in due course.

Watch this space.