As the song says:
You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray
You may call me anything
Just in case you don’t know the song
I got an email recently where somebody attached the way they wanted to be called “she, her…”. I’ve seen it several times. Me with my devil’s advocate mind on started to think about changing how other people speak.
Well actually it came to focus when I heard about the country star Morgan Wallen and his language problems. He was fired for using the n word. Part of my thinking was around SLJ.
In some circumstances the choice of language will offend one of the people involved. Some people will find it offensive if they have to use gender language other than that related to biology at birth – while others will find it offensive if they don’t.
So who’s offense should have priority. Is it acceptable for SLJ to use the n word but not for a white film star to do so? Is the offense of the speaker unimportant, but the offence of the spoken about most important.
I know many people that would clearly fall on the side of using the language that the person being talked about thinks is appropriate. But many of those people would also say it is acceptable to describe God as he or she – whatever makes the speaker happy.
Do we set our values in a consistent way? Or are we just consistently anti-establishment?