Holy mother of God *is horrified*

[elspethdixon]

Oh my God, every time I wincingly look back at the ongoing Cultural Appropriation bitchfight of doom, it gets worse. I'm not otherwise going to get involved, but here, I just couldn't help myself.

So, for those, like me, who hadn't seen or heard about Teresa Hayden's post wherein she expresses her anger over people badmouthing her husband (at least, that's what I assume she was doing from the descriptions - I haven't read any of the stuff involving him, either, but apparently he said things that offended people, refused to appologize when called on it, and then deleted his journal because people were yelling at him): Holy fuck, she calls fans of color and those who support them nithings.

In terms of offensiveness, as a former student of old English? Fuck, people, that's, well, not as horrible as the other n-word (which, please God, I hope no one's actually said), but it's pretty god-awful. Like, enough that I was reduced to staring at my computer screen in horror.

She has basically stated that all the people who disagree with her husband (including but not limited to, fans of color) are hateful, malicious, deformed, insane, sexually deviant, possibly cannablistic, sub-human or less-than human things. Because that's what that word means. It means monster. It means Not-a-Person. It means Grendal in Beowulf, the Ring-Wraiths in LotR, the in-bred, cannabalistic degenerate monsters in Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear."

That's what she's saying fans of color are. Maybe she doesn't really know what the word means and implies, but even if she just thinks it's an old spelling of "nothing" that would be offensive all on it's own.

And to think I used to respect her so much...

ETA: Apparently, there are differences between the Old Norse and Old English definitions, with the Norse one being a far worse insult and the Anglo-Saxon version being a little less on the digusting monster side and more on the outlaw side (see the discussion of several people with more expert knowledge than me in comments). Both versions are still insults, though.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Thanks for writing this - I didn't realise the depth of the insult. The sheer vindictiveness (not to mention threats) has really shocked me.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I've seen others translating it to mean "outlaw/outcast," and from tnh's other comments it seems she wants it to mean some combination of "evil lying mob-member" and "person I'm going to snub at parties." What she wants us to act like she's saying vs. what she's actually saying, of course, is the heart of the problem.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I've been doing a lot of silent listening and thinking through this whole thing (mostly because I'm not confident I won't make it worse) but yeah, when I got to that point in her post, I just had to stop and ask "Did she *really* say that?"

Did she really think that bringing in slurs for underclasses from *other* languages would be helpful in any way?

I hadn't remembered just how awful it was until I looked it up more context just now, but just the suffix -ing ought to be enough to tell you it's an insult based on membership in a cultural (sub)group, which is just exactly on the nose for a privilege discussion.

And omg. Yes! Let's use one of the three homophobic insults that's bad enough to give you the legal right to kill the user! That will calm things down!

(Who thought this debate would come around to the point where "Let Us Explain To Ya'll About Anglo-Saxon Culture" would actually be relevant. sigh.)

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

apparently he said things that offended people, refused to appologize when called on it, and then deleted his journal because people were yelling at him

To be fair to him, he said things that offended people in response to a Cryptic Non-Specific Post Regarding Unspecific Stupid Mean People (oh my GOD, one of my major pet peeves during kerfuffles are the Cryptic Non-Specific Posts Regarding Unspecific Stupid Mean People, I *hate* them).

Of course, that's no excuse for not modifying, retracting and/or apologizing for his comments when people tried to point out, "Um, you do realize that in context, 'Unspecific Stupid Mean People' = PoC who are attempting to discuss race-related issues, right..."

Oh, and the other hilariously horrifying antique insult that TNH called her critics was "draggle-tailed," which means an untidy slut. So she actually covered both the racist *and* the sexist axes, just like mac-stone with her "blog-whoring" and "orcing." Nice job there!

[tavella.livejournal.com]

She's been behaving pretty abominably, yeah. I thought it was very telling that spiralsheep's scrupulously polite postings were deleted and she was banned, as were many others that dissented courteously
(or bluntly, in my case), while darkerblogistan was allowed to post things about "PoC Scum" unmolested and is still free to post on her journal.

[axolotl-lan.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is fandom killing.... seriously. I was semi curious because I recognized some of the names from lurking in various places and then wow. <3 I hope it resolves alright for you as a follower of this. (I was curious about the specificity of the fandom though- I am fairly sure I get what it is from the names I am seeing but was curious)

[ymfaery]

You'd think alleged professionals like Teresa and her husband would know by now to not post things while angry, but apparently not. Or maybe they don't really care about their on-line image anymore.

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

I'm a native speaker of a Scandinavian langauge, and I was rather stunned by her usage of 'nithing.' It is not part of contemporary language but 'nidingsdåd' (nithing deed) remains part of everyday parlance. Also, from what I've seen, Theresa is rather fluent in Old and Middle English, so she would know the meanings of the word.

[helens78]

You know, I was honestly afraid of something like that, but wasn't willing to look it up because she was making herself look like enough of an ass as it was. But that? That's horrible.

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

I've read Beowulf. I've studied Beowulf. I knew what she meant.

And I'm grateful that TNH revealed herself so eloquently. TNH is why I don't believe that prejudice and racism can be ascribed to ignorance. Pardon me, to be clearer, the likes of TNH are why I don't believe that prejudice and racism spring from ignorance.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

I really would advise everyone to calm down and check your facts. "Nithing" merely means a person whose actions have made them an outlaw. It has nothing to do with monsters, sexually inclined or otherwise.

Likewise, "draggle-tailed" merely means untidy it's an adjective, not a noun and has never been a term exclusive to women, nor does any meaningful definition of it include the word "slut".

Maybe, if people can stop becoming hysterical over words they don't fully understand, this discussion could leave the realms of playground bullying and tackle some of the issues that all the drama queens pretend to care so much about.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I found this via rydra_wong's links. As a current professor of Old English, I was very interested to see what you did with the word.

I don't know what Teresa Hayden thinks the word means. I don't know if Tolkien used it, or Lovecraft. You are mistaken about the Old English, however.

In Old English, "niðing" or "niþing" means "a villain, one who commits a vile action" (Bosworth-Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary). I looked it up in the Old English Corpus, and these are the only results (the Corpus contains almost all extant Old English):

LawWal B14.37 [Roughly: Law about Plundering the Slain]
1. [0001 (1)] Walreaf is niðinges dæde: gif hwa ofsacen wille, do þæt mid eahta & feowertig fulborenra þegena.
[My trans: "Robbing the slain [see Bosworth-Toller again] is a villain's deed: if one wants to exculpate oneself, one does that with 48 full-born thegns" as oath-supporters--taking "þegena" for "begena," as Bosworth-Toller does.]

ChronC (O'Brien O'Keeffe) B17.7 [The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS C]
1. [078310] & se cing þa & eall here cwædon Swegen for niðing; VIII scypa he hæfde ær he Beorn amyrðrode, syððan hine forleton ealle butan II, & he gewende þa to Bricge & þar wunode mid Baldwine.
["And the king then and all the army called Swegen a villain:He had eight ships before he murdered Beorn; afterwards they all left him except two, and he went then to Bridge(?) and lived there with Baldwine."]

The Oxford English Dictionary says: " 1. A coward, a villain; a person who breaks the law or a code of honour; an outlaw."

The word is never used of Grendel. It comes from the root "nið," meaning "hatred" or "enmity." I am in no way defending Teresa Hayden; I think what she said is quite bad enough, and what I've seen of the exchange hardly merits calling the respondents to her husband "villians" or putting them in the same category as those who plunder the dead or murderers! However, the word is not Old English for subhuman or sexually deviant; it's not associated with cannibals there either.

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

I've friended you, btw - anyone who appreciates both Johnny Depp and St. Augustine (and why are there no St. Augustine references, so far as I remember, in Ninth Gate? then one could have combined those interests) is someone I'm likely to enjoy reading...

[mofic.livejournal.com]

I had assumed she meant to write "nothing" and it was just a typo...

[cleo]

Interesting discussion here. I have been keeping up with most of this since the flurry of posts after Elizabeth Bear's. But this hooked me with the OE, as I am a former student of OE myself. The discussion that's come out of this has definitely been interesting, but I think it's safe to say that TNH knows and is implying the subtler shades of meaning of the word.