Appropriate terminology

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 89465

kathryn:
> > I'm replying to my own post because I wanted to add that I agree 
with 
> > the original poster regarding the use of mudblood. it's a deadly 
> > insult, we shouldn't be using it (especiallyy if we're using it 
about 
> > characters we like). If we start throwing the term around in 
everyday 
> > language it uses all it's impact.
> > 

Kneasy: 
> From henceforth I shall use it on site at every appropriate 
opportunity.
> 
> I  refuse to be censored in the use of a manufactured word for a 
type 
> of imaginary fantasy person. IMO your attitude shows an unfortunate
> tendency for confusing fiction and reality and is exactly the sort 
of
> obsessive PC thought control and lack of a sense of proportion that 
> my original post was intended to hold up to ridicule. 


Oh, Kneasy, my dear old Muggle!

I've been watching this thread with interest, wondering if it was 
safe to jump in, but I think that Kathryn's got to the crux of the 
matter here.

For me, it's *not* about confusing fantasy with reality or excessive 
political correctness or anything like that. It's to do with the fact 
that when we read a work of fiction, we are expected for a time to 
suspend disbelief, to enter into that world.

*In* that fictional world, we are told that Mudblood is a vile 
epithet. It enrages Ron. It enrages James. We are supposed to be 
enraged similarly. Kathryn is right that if we just start to use it 
as a synonym for Muggle, then it loses that impact (an impact it is 
hard enough to establish in the first place). We don't hear it as 
vile, because it's just part of our vocabulary. This is especially 
the case if we apply it to characters we like. Not double standards, 
just recognition of a psychological effect.

So I think we diminish our own experience of the books by adopting 
the vocabulary of the fictional racists within them. 

(With the possible exception of some of those readers who identify 
with Slytherin House, of course.)

I personally agree with those who say that Muggle is not a term of 
abuse, although it may display an attitude of the WW towards non-
magic folk. These are two different things. I was intrigued by those 
who object to it because of the supposed similarity to other words 
containing a double 'g'; I should have thought it was pretty clearly 
derived, if anywhere, from the word 'mug', being slang for one who's 
a bit stupid or who doesn't understand, something which is consonant 
with the WW's rather patronising attitude towards Muggles. 

~Eloise