NPR's Totenberg Drops Quasi Q-Bomb

(MoneyWatch)  There was great linguistic irony on the most recent NPR Weekend Edition Saturday. In an interview with host Scott Simon, legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg said that racism charges leveled at Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor over a remark about white male judges would not "queer" the nomination. In discussing a question of whether attitudes are biased, Totenberg used one of the more emotionally loaded words in the English language.

Before I go any farther, remember that this is a blog about the business of media, and not political correctness. At issue is whether even a linguistically correct use of a word is sensible when the term has enough evocative power to jar listeners, and possibly even antagonize some.

Simon was discussing with Totenberg the "political theater" of the Sotomayor nomination and how, two or three weeks ago, some critics began pointing to a speech she gave when an appeals court judge in 2001:

In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion -- often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O'Connor -- that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama's list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

In response to Simon's question about the topic, here's what Totenberg said:

There were people who said that because, in a speech about eight years ago, she said that she would hope that a Latina judge would, relying on her experiences, reach a wiser conclusion than a white male judge relying on his. I just don't think that that's enough to really queer this nomination.

I suspect that the irony of describing the impact of charges of bias with what is an undoubtedly loaded word in society was unintentional. Nevertheless, it was there.

Now, before anyone starts jumping up and down, yes, I do understand that the word queer has been around for a long time and that the use as a transitive verb that means "to spoil the effect or success of" to can be traced back to around 1812. But, according to the Columbia Guide to Standard American English, 1993 edition, many of the older meanings have been virtually eclipsed:

But all have been nearly overwhelmed by another specialized sense, an insulting slang label that is taboo in most Standard use, meaning "sexually deviant," especially "homosexual," and particularly by its use as a noun meaning "a homosexual," as in According to people who know him, he's a queer. So strong is the effect of this meaning of adjective and noun that you must be careful to use context to make clear and unambiguous any other sense of this word you might use.

Even people who think of themselves as cosmopolitan -- some of their best friends are, of course, gay -- can easily perpetuate stereotypes:

For example, "Queer" is still casually and mistakenly used to convey caricature-like stereotypes as being mainstream gay male behavior. The hyper-sexual, non-stop dance club scene depicted in the British and American versions of Queer As Folk is a fictionalized account of a narrow slice of the lives of certain gay men. The lifestyle coaching program Queer Eye For The Straight Guy is dominated by depictions of the campy, effeminate behavior of some gay males. Both Queer As Folk and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy are stretched and mildly offensive uses of the word. Their entertainment value seems to overpower the negative connotations, leaving most Queer people to decide, again, that any inclusion of us, even if it is mildly offensive, is better than continuing to be invisible in movies and on television.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word has had a strongly derogatory usage since at least the late nineteenth century, meaning that it has a social context that could be jarring. There have been a couple of high profile instances where people were criticized and even reprimanded for using the word niggardly, which has a middle English derivation and means miserly. In 1999, David Howard, an aide to Washington, D.C. then-mayor Anthony Williams, was forced to resign -- although eventually rehired -- because he used the word "niggardly" in a speech and some of the audience incorrectly assumed it to have a racial connotation. Then, in 2004, a North Carolina teacher was reprimanded for teaching her class the word.

Were most people to use the word queer as a verb in the middle of a conversation at a cocktail party, an occasional eyebrow might raise, but likely little more. However, Nina Totenberg is not most people and NPR is no cocktail party. Those who make their living from their use of words should understand the emotional reactions they can potentially stir through a word's connotations. Such attention and intention is part of effective communication.

Forget about trying to dissect personal attitudes. This illustrates not only a clumsy professional use of language, but one that managed to underline a potential weakness in NPR's production process. To appear on the air, it not only had to literally slip by Ms. Totenberg, but also host Scott Simon, the segment's producer, and possibly an executive producer and engineer. Even an intermittent lack of care is something that a media organization cannot afford to overlook.

Image via Flickr user LaMenta3, CC 2.0.