SFWA, Mercedes Lackey, and taboo words 3
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) named Mercedes Lackey a Grand Master at the Nebula Awards ceremony, then almost immediately turned around and removed her from the Nebula Conference. The stated reason was that she “used a racial slur” while on a panel.
English has long had taboo words. At one time, the strongest ones dealt with religion. Later on, ones relating to bodily functions headed the list. It’s still illegal to tell people on broadcast television what the Supreme Court’s seven dirty words are. How do you avoid breaking the law when you can’t be told what the law forbids?
The Lackey situation is similar. The File 770 article doesn’t tell us what the alleged racial slur was. Readers are likely to imagine the worst words possible (which I won’t mention, since they may lower my search engine visibility). In fact, the word she used was “colored.” If that’s a slur, then the NAACP commits it every time it gives its full name, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
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Kiev comes from the Russian name for the city, Kyiv from its Ukrainian name. Both Russian and Ukrainian use the Cyrillic alphabet, so any version of the name in the Roman alphabet is a transliteration. With the current situation, using “Kyiv” is especially satisfying, since it rejects Russia’s claim to the nation. (So far, thankfully, I haven’t seen any claims that criticizing Russia is “red scare racist.”) We can safely say it’s the new standard spelling. For similar reasons, we now talk about “Ukraine” rather than “the Ukraine.” The latter suggests a region rather than a nation. A few other countries have a definite article in front of their names, but they’re ones where the name is a phrase (e.g., “the Netherlands,” “the United States”).