More Banned Words

A couple of years ago, I blogged about “Banned Words” on the occasion of the official French ban of “Mademoiselle”, which was replaced with “Madame” for all. Among the reasons some words are being banned across the world are sensitivities regarding gender, race, and religion, as well as national pride. This month, it has been reported that Saudi Arabia has banned fifty names, so it is time for an update on this subject.

In an article entitled “Saudi Arabia Bans 50 Baby Names”, Gulf News indicated that “The names fit into at least three categories: those that offend perceived religious sensibilities, those that are affiliated to royalty and those that are of non-Arabic or non-Islamic origin.” On the other hand, it remains a mystery why some others have been blacklisted: “A number of other names appear that do not necessarily fit into any category and it is therefore unclear as to why they would have been banned”. In any case, one of the banned names, “Al Mamlaka”, means “the kingdom”, so one can imagine why it might have been banned.

It isn’t just the Saudis who are banning words. The feminists are still at it as well. In The Guardian’s Women in Leadership section, Harriet Minter reports on the “#banbossy campaign” (“Open Thread: If We're Banning Bossy, Which Other Words Need a Rebrand?”). Started by Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, and author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, the campaign aims at removing the word from our lexicons because it is offensive when used to refer to women leaders: “…there's a sting that comes with being called bossy. A feeling that whilst you might be running the group nobody likes you for it and that's not something I'd wish on any child.” Minter rightly wonders what other words should also go, reflecting on the following examples: Aggressive. Ruthless. Ambitious. Forward. Go-getting.

She asks the reader to decide whether they see these as positive or negative adjectives, guessing that readers are probably influenced by whether they think they are applied to a man or a woman.

The author ends her article with the important question as to whether it is the words themselves that should go or the way we think about them: “So what would you ban? Or instead of banning words should we be campaigning for their acceptance?”

It is usually easier to remove a word than a mentality. Is that always the best solution though? I’ll let my readers think about it.

Uncertainty About Uncertainty

I recently gave a conference presentation on “Risk Control in the Blended Learning Environment”. My research showed that online teaching and learning were generally viewed as risky in many ways, including the following: possible student cheating; absence of face-to-face cues; retention issues (MOOCs currently serve as extreme examples); technical hurdles; reliance on doubtful or contradictory web sources; and lack of recognition. The problem, however, is that these risks have not been quantified properly, if at all. There is uncertainty about uncertainty. I recommended blended learning as a compromise between the perceived risks of online learning and the assumed safety of the traditional teaching/ learning environment. Yet even when risks are objectively quantified, as in the health field, there are individual and cultural differences in risk perception and uncertainty avoidance. There are also complications concerning definitions; for example, definitions of cheating may vary, and what may be an irrelevant source in one sense may be highly relevant in another.    

By chance this week I came across a Macmillan blog post by Liz Potter on different ways of expressing uncertainty in English (“Life Skills Tip of the Week: Ways of Expressing Uncertainty”). What a coincidence, I thought. It was only logical to connect this to my idea of uncertainty. Here are some ways of indicating uncertainty in English, as expressed by Potter, each with a slightly different pragmatic application. If you are uncertain about the difference between them, check the above site.

• perhaps/ maybe
• possibly/ probably
• apparently
• as far as I know
• to the best of my knowledge/ recollection/ belief
• not to my knowledge 
• I imagine/ suppose  

I hope all this makes sense - or perhaps not!