Snow Melt

Banning a word another form of censorship

The July 3, 2013 prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends Prompt Forum"  is
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

I don't think it's possible to ban a word because no matter how derogatory the word someone is going to use that word. Someone will use the word for the shock value. Someone will use the word to start a fight or a riot. Someone will use the word because of lack of education or respect for another human being. Someone will use the word simply because it is a word and other people don't want it used.

I don't think it's advisable to ban a word because words are part of the history of a nation and the planet. If the word is banned then the history surrounding that word is forgotten or pushed aside as unimportant. If humanity forgets history then it is doomed to repeat history. Since that is the case, then the banned word will appear again as history is repeated. Rather then banning a word, we need to learn the history behind the word and why the word is inappropriate to use in a civilized conversation. A person should learn the connotations of the word and the way it's used in all context to understand why the word should not be used.

There is another reason a word should not be banned. If one word is banned, it could lead to the banning of all the books using that word. Since books are made of of words, the banned word is already in many books beside the dictionary. Are we supposed to ban all the books containing that word. What happens to the books that are taken out of circulation because they contain the banned word? A book may be taken out of circulation, but it still exists because it was printed in a book. What are we supposed to do with all the books that contains the forbidden word? Do we put those books in a vault or a library called the Library of Books Containing Banned Words or the Library of Banned Books?

Who makes the decision to ban a word? Do we have a committee somewhere that looks at all the words ever created? Do we give this committee power to decide which words to ban and which to keep in the language? Does this committee have the power to ban the books containing the banned word?

The English language, like every other language on earth, is dynamic and ever changing. Almost every year new words are added to the dictionary because they come into common usage. Just as new words come into common use other words drop out of the vocabulary or at least out of common use. I don't believe it is advisable to ban a word. Instead of banning the word it is better to educate people as to why the word is inappropriate and eventually the word will drop out of common usage.

The answer the questions If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why? No I would not permanently ban any word from general usage because it is another form of censorship. I wouldn't use the word, but I wouldn't ban it either.

Words are tools
which have to be used carefully
because,
like any other tool,
they can be dangerous.

Food for Thought: "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself." - Potter Stewart