Don't Ever Call Me Stupid

Otto is not, I repeat, not stupid.

Thanks to Stephen Fry on Twitter, I read Alec Baldwin's Final Word on being a homophobe. This is based, apparently, on what he shouted at people who annoyed him. He relates, convincingly, how much harder it is to be a celebrity in the age of technology. Anyone can take a photo and paste it up on the internet for everyone to see. Even New York City has changed. Celebrities could walk down the street, eat at restaurants, go about their daily routines without being bothered, or bothered much. I saw this myself as a newcomer when the entire cosmetic section of Bloomingdale's emptied out so that Yoko Ono (and her enormous bodyguard) could walk through in peace.

And, let's face it, when has Alec Baldwin ever given the impression that he was a pussycat?

Then I started thinking about what we call people when we are angry with them. I'm not the sort that resorts to namecalling when angry, but I'm sure I think bad thoughts about someone. All that does is keep them from hearing the name, if I have one for them. More than likely, what has annoyed me is someone being stupid. I know only too well that this is my own greatest fear: being stupid. So, "stupid" is the worst generic thing I could come up with.

I get the impression that when we call people names, we use whatever we fear most. I have a framed print-out over my desk of Protagoras and Yehudi Menuhin on this subject. "One of the principles I have learned in life is that when people speak of others, 99 times out of 100 they are describing themselves ... I have found so often that people that people describe others as they would have to describe themselves if they were really honest and self-aware, that I have almost accepted it as axiomatic." So they also project themselves onto others.

Also other young people trying to be more "adult" have tried lashing out with new vocabulary. There's probably a learned habit where you use language that your peers bandy about. When I was in college, "slut" and "bitch" were names we used on each other playfully and only on people we knew and liked really well - both male and female. It was part of that showing independence and peri-adulthood bravado. Being well brought up, I had to practice saying "shit" quietly while walking in order to be able to wield it proficiently in context. If only I'd worked as hard for class ... But I can see where the vocabulary specific to a social group becomes ingrained. It's difficult, in fact, for those within a group to not fall into that group specific vocabulary. I was involved with a community theatre that latched onto an example of idiolect by one member and repeated it endlessly. Because this was a conspiracy to mock that member, I tried to refrain from using it, which took considerable effort.

I have been called names, mostly by my sister, which I've tried not to analyze. "Squirt" was one, varied by creative adjectives and adverbs. And there were many alliterative variations on "The Modest Maiden" because I wanted to pee without someone bursting into the bathroom to comb her hair or would rather not hear about sexual escapades I was too young for. Why I should be harassed for perpetual virginity in my teens is something I will never understand and it totally put me off any experimentation.

As an adult, I was called "The Yankee"* one too many times by another teacher at an in-service day and I was at a total loss of what to call him back. I gave it some long, hard thought until I remembered a particularly local epithet related to the ubiquitous textile industry. "They used to call us 'lint-heads,'" someone told me - with a certain amount of surprising pride. So I rolled it out the next time my colleague suggested that "The Yankee" do something. I felt really awkward about it, but it actually worked. He stopped calling me "The Yankee."

So we  have three possibilities of why a person uses a particular name to express their anger: fear, projection, and peer pressure. Are there more? This isn't excusing anything or offering extenuating circumstances, but if Alec Baldwin really wants to get past this, maybe he needs to ask himself where he first heard the words he uses.

Oh, and I just remembered that a friend's brother called me a "faggot" for reasons neither I nor his sister could figure out. Now, however, I have some possible leads.

"I offer a complete and utter retraction ..."

*I suppose down here in the south, "Yankee" is a bad word. I would think "carpetbagger" would be worse, but there you are. It grated on me because I am from a mid-Atlantic state, not New England. What's more, I've lived in the south more than half my life. When I head back north, they think I sound southern: "Marf must be talking to her parents; she's got her southern accent on!" I also find this annoying. My mother would have been horrified if she heard me commit some southernism ... other than calling all women "Ma'am."** She threatened to send me back to New York just for saying it was "a quarter till" instead of "a quarter of."


**A tour guide told us about how she preferred being in France, where everyone called her madame, to her home in Switzerland, where she was called mademoiselle. I immediately understood the notion of demotion in the difference. Vive la différence?