Klarinet Archive - Posting 000110.txt from 2005/06
From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Personal prejudice
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 21:42:52 -0400
I wrote,
> ...Thumb, index finger, social finger, ring finger and pinkie.
Tony Pay wrote,
>>Wow, something else new...social finger? Even my
>>wife hasn't heard of that one. (Sure you don't mean,
>>antisocial finger?-)
We've got a lot of other nicknames for that finger in the USA, but most of
them are either so arch or so dirty that they sound as if somebody's trying
too hard. The correct way to pronounce "social finger" is with very slight
sarcasm. I learned that term from an old friend who probably picked it up
during his 26 years in the U. S. Marine Corps.
I wrote,
> I call a clarinet a horn sometimes, btw, and I don't see what's supposed
to
> be so illiterate about that.
Tony wrote,
>>I didn't ever suggest it was illiterate, Lelia. I said I
>>found it *irritating for no good reason*, and that
>>therefore it was a prejudice.
I know you didn't use the term "illiterate" per se, but I was referring to
this exchange between you and Dan Leeson, when Dan wrote,
>>> This is a personal prejudice and I mean no disrespect, but whenever I
hear
>>> people refer to the E-flat clarinet as an "eefer" I throw up. They
sound
>>> like shit-kicking country western singers.
and you replied,
>>I feel the same way about people who talk about 'horns' --
>>and even 'pinkies' get up my nose;-)
For all I know, these particular shit-kicking country western singers might
be putting on the same act that Mick Jagger puts on (does he sound like
someone who earned a degree from the London School of Economics?), but in
the USA, calling someone a shit-kicker implies both illiteracy and
stupidity. (Shit-kicker and hayseed share the same underlying metaphor:
farming is dirty work and people who get dirty for a living must not be
very bright.) I can't stand country-western music, and I don't care deeply
about a prejudice against saying "horn" to mean clarinet, but when that
prejudice seems connected to a prejudice against farmers (my mother's
family), it gets my fur up a little bit (though please understand that I'm
not seriously offended, and that I understand that no offense was intended).
>>As a matter of fact, on a much more serious note
>>than is justified by this thread, I think the world
>>might be a better place if it were more possible to
>>be open about our prejudices, whilst at the same
>>time insisting they are not in fact taken seriously by us.
>>
>>Instead, the world compels us to hide our prejudices
>>lest they be used against us -- which tends to keep
>>those prejudices active, because we hide them also
>>from ourselves.
I notice that people go through the motions of acknowledging prejudices in
such a way as to imply that we're only being modest when we use the
pejorative term, prejudices, when we really think they're well-thought-out
opinions. We've been discussing humorous subjects, and I don't want to
spoil the fun; but this pattern applies to the serious cases as well. It's
a ghoulish pleasure to listen to somebody try to wiggle out of
acknowledging a truly offensive prejudice when, deep down, s/he knows
better. I still remember the singular treat of listening to a racist
relative of mine try to justify his bigotry on "scientific" grounds, about
thirty years ago. The pitch and volume of his voice kept rising as he
punctuated his monologue with at least a dozen repetitions of, "I'm not
prejudiced, but..." while all I did was sit there and say nothing but
"Mmmm" in a neutral tone and stare at him with a complete poker face.
Finally, he sputtered to a stop, then said, "This isn't really what I meant
to say." I said, "Really?" He shouted, "You college kids all think you're
so damn smart!" and got up and stomped out of the room.
Lelia Loban
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