Word origin:
late 13c., “person who is the chattel or property of another,” from Old French esclave (13c.), from Medieval Latin Sclavus “slave” (source also of Italian schiavo, French esclave, Spanish esclavo), originally “Slav” (see Slav); so used in this secondary sense because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples
Enslavement of large numbers of Slavs is not just something from ancient times but paralleled export of slaves from Africa to the New World:
For a long time, until the early 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, exporting about 2 million slaves from Russia and Poland-Lithuania over the period 1500–1700.[337]Caffa (modern Feodosia) became one of the best-known and significant trading ports and slave markets.[338] In 1769 the last major Tatar raid saw the capture of 20,000 Russian and Ruthenian slaves.[ (from Wikipedia)
By comparison about 388,000 Africans were brought to the US or the English colonies.
The fact that most people are ignorant of the word origin and/or have no intent to be offensive has not prevented a long list of words to be banned because of modern perceptions and correctness.
Should slave be added to the list banned words?
If so what word(s) should be used as a substitute?
Is this what old white dudes concern themselves with? That it’s considered inappropriate nowadays for them to walk up to black men and call them “boy”?
A problem is when colleges have speech codes that effectively ban anything that is considered “offensive” by the person hearing the speech. Based on rules applied to other situations, a student of Slavic origin could take offense on the use of the word “slave” and force punitive actions against alleged offenders.
If that sounds far-fetched consider some real-life examples:
Reminds me of an incident at college a few years ago when someone in the student government took objection to anther AS representative else using the word “gyp” in an argument. Oddly enough, no one involved was Romany.
Before I retired, I taught courses in data transmission.
Data bridges (ATMs for example) had traditionally used the terms “Master” and “Slaves”.
The bank computer was the Master and the ATMs were the Slaves.
This wasn’t slang, technical documents used these terms.
I was told I could no longer say Master and Slave to a class.
I was also told I could not say “male and female connectors” because it might offend women technicians. If it was offensive, why wouldn’t it also offend men?
I’m not the sort whose lack of issues, either personally experienced or by proxy to what I imagine others experience, mean that I’ve so few real things to be legitimately concerned with that I’ve got time to be endlessly offended by words, place names or inanimate objects.
Is there a movement on college campuses to ban it?
How about ages old, time honored revelations, like the Bible and Qu’ran, which allude, in passages, to slavery? Somehow I don’t think believers of those revelations would be pleased to hear about a modern rewrite of those works.
Yes, that term is similar in many ways to the word “slave”. Both terms appear to come from an unflattering use of a designation for an ethnic group.
Unlike many other disparaging ethnic references, “slave” is still considered acceptable even on college campuses. The term has been in use for hundreds of years; does that make it okay?
Why not “involuntary servant” instead of “slave”? Likewise “thrall” is an Old English word that predates the use of “slave” and is not associated with a particular ethnic name.
Or is there a real problem PC language policing in general?
Can you not think of any words that, if used by a certain race, will get you (the universal “you”) fired from your job, that will result in people gathering at your home with protest signs and trying to force you out of the neigbhorhood, perhaps even signs with death threats, and harrassing on social media any company that may dare to hire you in future?
I thought of this thread when reading the following article at CBS Sports.
Baseball player Ronald Acuna, who is black, didn’t run out a fly ball because he thought it was a home run. He just got a single instead.
In the middle of his article nattering on about this mistake by Acuna, author R. J. Anderson apparently felt the need to protect himself against charges of racism - Acuna didn’t hustle and he’s black -
For as much as hustle-related commentary tends to have questionable intent – studies have found evidence of racial bias in how players are talked about – on some occasions there is validity. This seems to be one of those cases. Watching a home run makes for a fun and cool aesthetic, but it needs to be a home run to avoid these kinds of conversations.
Why even include that in an article about a team losing because one of its star players didn’t hustle? - unless you’re afraid for your job and are attempting to nip any race-based criticism in the bud?