[HPforGrownups] Re: Appropriate terminology

[Taryn Kimel]

No: HPFGUIDX 89272

Kneasy:
<snip>
>>
> But to  impose real world ideology onto fictional make-believe
> can lead to mis-apprehensions. I would point out (as I have 
before),
> that the people at the bottom of the heap in the Potterverse are 
not
> mudbloods - they are muggles; us in other words.<snip>

> So why not complain about the term 'Muggle'? It  would be more
> apposite to do so, don't you think?
>

Frost: 
  Actually, I do.  If someone were to call me a Muggle, I would take 
offense.  I have heard people use this term as an insult. Behold the 
power of JKR!

  Even so, in the WW world, it is an insult, just one that they 
don't think about. It's a pejorative. They look down on Muggles as 
silly, childish, stupid, handicapped, and lacking, all because they 
don't have magic.  They do not see or respect the many great and 
terrible things non-wizards do and have done. (Face it, when wizards 
have to be told that a gun is a sort of "Muggle wand" they are 
really ignoring a lot of what Muggles can do.)  Even Arthur, who has 
grasped that Muggles have done a lot more than the WW gives them 
credit for, can't help but be patronizing.

Taryn:
There's a very definite difference between a word that is defined as being a horribly insulting term and a word that, in the wrong tone or intent, can BECOME an insult. Muggle is not an inherently insulting term. From people like the Malfoys, who sneer it out in an obviously derogatory manner, it is an insult. But from other Wizards who don't happen to be prejudice, it can simply be a defining term. (i.e. A muggle is a human without magical powers. The end.) Mudblood, on the other hand, is formed only as an insult to those Wizards who are muggle-born. There's no nice/neutral way to use it.

--Taryn

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