From Booksmart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.
I'm John McWhorter, and now and then,
I do what used to be called with sitcoms in the 70s a very serious episode,
where I let the barrier between my jolly Lexicon Valley persona and my controversial editorialist persona I think it's necessary
because there is a way of looking at language these days that's getting around,
especially in elite circles, that I think is unnecessary.
frankly,
rather performative and needs to be broken down by somebody who happens to occupy the weird intersection between being a linguist and also being somebody who is black and writes and thinks about race too.
And I want to zero in on this new idea about the word master.
Master.
is a word that the real estate industry has decided is a bad word,
and so we're not supposed to call it the master bedroom anymore, for example.
And in general, there's a sense that we need to spray for that word,
because master reminds us of the master-slave relationship on plantations.
You know, I'm not with this.
I think that it's gone way too far,
and I think we need to just take a time out and think about what this sort of thing really means.
Now, sometimes changing language makes sense.
There are times when instead of just letting language do what it'll do passively,
we need to step in.