Whenever people find a particular word that should not be said, they just mention the first alphabet of the word – like the N-word or the F-word. I find that to be a very convenient arrangement because people can understand what you say without you having to utter the word in a apologetic (but look like constipated) expression.
However, that mechanism can only work if you can clearly pronounce all alphabets A-Z. See, I cannot pronounce “R” because I have a speech disorder called “Rhotacism” – which btw is a weird name. I mean we cannot pronounce “R” and they call us “Rhotacistic”. It’s kind of like rubbing it in our face, don’t you think? Anyway, so it comes to my mind, what if there is an R-word. I won’t be able not to say the word and just refer it as the R-word, cause then people would get more confused. “What? eww word? egg word? erg word?”
So I decided to do a research on whether there are R-words out there and whether I should seriously be concern about this. Throughout my comprehensive research, I manage to find 3 R-words:
1. Relax
In a famous Sex and the City wannabe movie, Cashmere Mafia, the guy who were about to marry Lucy Liu was warned never to mention the R-word. there is a lot of credible body of research supporting this suggestion. To name a few, Men’s Health in the “Five Things You Should Never Say to Her” and the allwomenstalk.com in the “Top Ten Lines a Woman Should Never Hear from You”, rank this R-word in number one list of what not to say to a panic/angry woman. Both articles argue that when you say the R-word to a panic/angry woman, you will anger her even more. You send a message that you think she is irrational – and no one like to be considered irrational. In fact, starting from now on, we should never say irrational. Let’s just refer it as the I-word
2. Racist
Although Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, in the movie Avenue Q, acknowledge that “everyone is a little bit racist“; saying someone racist is considered to be very offensive. That is why we have to constantly strive not only not to be a racist, but also not to be a racist accuser, or someone who accuse people to be racist accuser. Having that said, I am not going to write anything else about this matter as I am getting quite confused.
3. Retarded
There is a massive R-word campaign to stop people from saying “retard” as an insult to someone else. Mental retardation, or a more politically correct term intellectual disability, should not be a bad word. Using the word to hurt someone will only reinforce the prejudice and discrimination against the people with intellectual disabilities. Campaign against this R-word have led a lot of people to boycott the movie Tropical Thunder by Ben Stiller, as it uses lots of the R-word.
So those are the R-words that I found. Finally, I want to close this note by saying something deep and meaningful. But seriously, I was writing this because I can’t sleep and I don’t have any message that I want to send across. So… this is a bit awkward but I am just going to stop writing.
Melanie Melbourne 18 October 2008
