As time goes by, language continues to evolve.
In this episode, we explore the question of evolving English, and the specific question of how we refer to people without a permanent and stable place to live, as this example highlights the politicisation of language.
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about language.
[00:00:25] Specifically, we are going to talk about how language changes over time, and the often political reasons for this.
[00:00:33] And even more specifically, we are going to look at the example of how to refer to people who do not live in a house.
[00:00:42] It might seem like an odd example, a strange word to choose, but believe you me, it is a question that opens up a whole host of different questions, questions that are more controversial than you might think.
[00:00:56] OK then, Homes, Homelessness and Evolving English
[00:01:03] If I asked you, “so, what is the purpose of language”, you would probably say something like “to communicate information from one person to another”.
[00:01:14] There are lots of things in the world - animals, people, objects, emotions, ideas - we have common agreed words or expressions for them, so that when we use these common words or expressions, other people know what we mean.
[00:01:30] If I ask you “what is your name?”, you know what I mean by that, and you answer me.
[00:01:36] If I say “what are you doing on Tuesday?” and you tell me “I’m going swimming”, we both know what each other mean.
[00:01:45] All clear so far, there was nothing controversial or politically divisive there.
[00:01:51] But as we both know, language can be problematic.
[00:01:56] Words and phrases can be offensive, they can cause harm.
[00:02:01] They can be created to cause deliberate offence to people, like some racial slurs for example.
[00:02:07] But, more often than not, a word that was once commonplace, in common usage, starts to be considered offensive by a small group of people, and over time often becomes unusable, considered too offensive and inappropriate to be used in the language.
[00:02:28] You may have heard about the works of Roald Dahl, the British author, being rewritten to make them seem less offensive to a modern audience. This was big news when it was first reported in February of this year, and it was revealed that characters could no longer be referred to as “fat” or “ugly”, for example.
[00:02:51] Fair enough, you might think, it’s possible to enjoy these books without needlessly offending people who might take offence.
[00:02:58] Or, it’s “absurd censorship”, as his fellow author Salmand Rushdie put it.
[00:03:05] To explore this question of evolving language, specifically evolving English, we are going to look at the very specific question of how we refer to people without a permanent and stable place to live, as this example touches on lots of interesting linguistic points as well as highlights the politicisation of language.
[00:03:28] To do this, let’s first address the question of what we call the place we live in.
[00:03:35] In English there are two main words that we can use to describe the place we live.
[00:03:41] It can be our house or it can be our home.
[00:03:47] They refer to the same thing, but they don’t have exactly the same meaning.
[00:03:53] A house is more practical, it refers to the structure itself, whereas a home gives an idea of comfort.
[00:04:03] English, of course, isn’t unique in this; many other languages have this concept, of there being a word or expression for the physical place and there being another word or expression that conveys a more emotional meaning.
[00:04:20] Now, why is this important? It’s important because it describes how you feel about the place in which you live.
[00:04:29] If you say “something feels like home”, it means that it feels familiar and comfortable, it's where you should be.
[00:04:38] You can’t say “it feels like house” or even “it feels like my house”, because there is no emotional attachment between a person and a house; if you want to convey emotion, you use the term “home”.
[00:04:54] It’s a relatively simple distinction in English, and it’s one that I imagine you probably already knew.
[00:05:00] But where it becomes perhaps more complicated is when the place someone calls “home” is not a house, not a traditional dwelling.
[00:05:11] To give you a fictional example, Mowgli, the boy in the Jungle Book, calls the jungle “home”, because he has an emotional attachment to it, it’s where he feels he belongs, with Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther.
[00:05:27] To give you a more practical, modern-day example, clearly not everyone in the world lives in a traditional house, with one UN study estimating that 150 million people, so that's 2% of the world’s population, fall into this category: they live on the streets, in temporary accommodation, or without any fixed home.
[00:05:53] Now, the most common expression for this still is “homeless”. If someone lives on the streets, in a tent, perhaps even in a car, or anywhere that is not a standard fixed “house”, they are referred to as “homeless”.
[00:06:10] This, for the time being, is the most frequently used term that you’ll read or hear.
[00:06:15] But it only really started to be used in the 1980s.
[00:06:20] Before this, people used terms that are now considered offensive: vagrant, tramp, hobo and bum.
[00:06:29] “Homeless” started to be used as a more neutral term, a word that simply described what was going on without casting judgement.
[00:06:40] As you will know, you can add the suffix “less”, L E S S, to the end of many words in English to mean “without”.
[00:06:48] Heartless means without a heart, so not having any sympathy.
[00:06:53] Hopeless means without hope, limitless means without having limits, and if you add “less” to “home” you get “homeless”, someone without a home.
[00:07:04] It might seem like a perfectly sensible term to use.
[00:07:07] But, as with many things in language, words and expressions that once seemed innocent and harmless start to be questioned.
[00:07:17] What does using this word communicate? Does it accurately describe what we are trying to say?
[00:07:24] You might remember in May of this year, there was an incident on the New York Subway when a member of the public restrained another passenger, he held him down on the ground, with his arms around the man’s neck, and killed him in the process.
[00:07:41] The man who died was called Jordan Neeley, and he had been living on the streets of New York for several years, he was what most people would call “homeless”.
[00:07:52] And on May the 3rd of this year, shortly after the incident, the American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC as she’s known, tweeted out this:
[00:08:04] Jordan Neely was murdered.
[00:08:07] But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges.
[00:08:24] It’s disgusting.
[00:08:27] Now, there are several pieces of debatable language there, mainly the reference to murder, which implies that the man who killed him did so unjustifiably and unlawfully.
[00:08:38] But the point I want to focus on here is how she described Jordan Neely: “houseless” NOT “homeless”. While most TV channels and newspapers were describing Neely as “homeless”, AOC went for “houseless”, a term practically unknown outside some very specific circles.
[00:09:02] This tweet about the incident has been seen 21 million times as of the time of me recording this episode, and it introduced millions of Americans to a word that they had, until then, been unaware of.
[00:09:16] So, why did AOC use this word?
[00:09:20] It wasn’t a mistake, and it’s not a common synonym for homeless. She was making a point.
[00:09:26] So what point was this?
[00:09:29] Well, for several years, various advocacy groups have been pushing to stop the use of the term “homeless”, as they believe that it is derogatory to the people it is describing.
[00:09:42] To quote one organisation directly, the Los Angeles Community Alliance:
[00:09:47] “Not everyone has housing, but everyone has a home—including our houseless beneficiaries at LACA. The term “homeless” makes the spaces they do call home sound illegitimate, when home represents far more than a location. Instead, home is friends, family, and community.”
[00:10:07] END QUOTE
[00:10:09] In other words, because “home” has the connotation of comfort, happiness and legitimacy, if you say that someone living on the streets is “homeless”, the implication is that they cannot be happy and comfortable where they live, and therefore you are demeaning and belittling the place that they have come to call home. What’s more, you are saying that the space they call home, be it the streets or a public park, is not a legitimate place to call home.
[00:10:39] And with the growing amount of people who are homeless or houseless in the United States, with almost 0.2% of the US population falling into this category, this has become an increasing point of contention, an area for discussion.
[00:10:55] What is the right word to describe these people, according to these groups?
[00:11:01] “Houseless” is one option, as is “unhoused” or “people experiencing homelessness”.
[00:11:08] It’s a complicated question.
[00:11:10] Over half a million people fall into this category, and clearly there is a wide variety of people, from someone who has been living on the streets for 10 years and suffers from addiction and mental health issues through to someone who has just lost their job and has been sleeping on friend’s sofa for a couple of weeks through to a parent who recently separated from their partner and is living out of their car while they find a new place.
[00:11:35] Are they all “homeless”?
[00:11:37] Are they “experiencing homelessness” or are they unhoused? Are they “houseless"?
[00:11:45] It’s a really interesting question that has triggered debate about the issue of housing and homelessness, or houselessness perhaps should I say.
[00:11:54] One of the main criticisms of the term “homelessness” is because it makes it sound like the streets are not a legitimate place to call home.
[00:12:03] And this is a question of political opinion. If you believe that people should be free to live on the streets, to be able to live in tents on public streets and in public parks, then these areas can be a legitimate home.
[00:12:19] If, on the other hand, you believe that society shouldn’t be enabling people to live like this, as we should be trying to do everything we can to get people off the streets and into housing, then language should accurately reflect the fact these are not legitimate places to live and call home.
[00:12:38] If this is your opinion, “homeless”, not “houseless” or “ unhoused” is the most appropriate term.
[00:12:45] To some, especially on the political right, it has become yet another sign of academics and policymakers using taxpayer money to have esoteric linguistic discussions rather than addressing the real problem.
[00:13:00] The US government provides billions of dollars in federal funding for homeless assistance programmes, yet the number of homeless people, or people experiencing homelessness, has continued to rise.
[00:13:14] Furthermore, to the critics of this term, implying that the streets, and public spaces are a legitimate place for someone to call home is offensive in itself.
[00:13:25] These organisations, instead of helping people off the streets, whether that's through finding some form of accommodation or helping them cure themselves of addiction, are implicitly saying “it’s ok to call the streets your home”.
[00:13:40] And to the critics of the term, that’s not ok; it’s public property, not an individual’s home.
[00:13:47] But to perhaps the most important question that we haven’t yet addressed: is it something that actually matters to homeless people?
[00:13:56] As a lexicographer from Dictionary.com put it, “there are three people in every conversation: the speaker, the person being spoken about, and the person being spoken to. Too often in conversations about homeless people, according to this quote, the person being spoken about is absent from the room.”
[00:14:15] So, what happens if you ask a homeless person?
[00:14:19] Is this something that homeless or houseless people care deeply about?
[00:14:24] In one of the original and most well-known thought-pieces about whether homeless is an offensive term, the journalist wrote about a conversation with a homeless policy director, where she asked this very question.
[00:14:38] The journalist asked her what homeless people thought about being called “homeless”. Was it deeply offensive? Would they prefer “houseless” or “unhoused”?
[00:14:48] After all, the term was being used to describe them, so surely they should have an opinion about it.
[00:14:55] The policy director admitted that most homeless people don’t really care, they just wanted to be treated with respect. You can certainly argue about whether using the term “homeless” is disrespectful, but I think it would be hard to argue that the biggest concern of a homeless person is what language The New York Times is using to describe them.
[00:15:18] Now, clearly the issue of homelessness is very complicated, with no simple solutions. And indeed we have only looked at it through the very specific lens of language today.
[00:15:30] President Biden announced the lofty goal of reducing American homelessness by 25% by the year 2025, and pledged to increase the federal budget to combat homelessness to $10 billion per year.
[00:15:46] Time will only tell whether he will succeed, but if you ask a homeless person what is going to have an impact, what really is going to move the needle, it seems to me that you wouldn’t find the term used to describe them right at the top of their list.
[00:16:02] OK then, that is it for this little exploration of evolving English, looked at through the lens of homes and homelessness.
[00:16:11] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:16:14] Is there debate about what to call homeless people in your language? How has this changed over time?
[00:16:21] What other words have become politicised and no longer acceptable in your language?
[00:16:26] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:16:29] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:16:37] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:16:41] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about language.
[00:00:25] Specifically, we are going to talk about how language changes over time, and the often political reasons for this.
[00:00:33] And even more specifically, we are going to look at the example of how to refer to people who do not live in a house.
[00:00:42] It might seem like an odd example, a strange word to choose, but believe you me, it is a question that opens up a whole host of different questions, questions that are more controversial than you might think.
[00:00:56] OK then, Homes, Homelessness and Evolving English
[00:01:03] If I asked you, “so, what is the purpose of language”, you would probably say something like “to communicate information from one person to another”.
[00:01:14] There are lots of things in the world - animals, people, objects, emotions, ideas - we have common agreed words or expressions for them, so that when we use these common words or expressions, other people know what we mean.
[00:01:30] If I ask you “what is your name?”, you know what I mean by that, and you answer me.
[00:01:36] If I say “what are you doing on Tuesday?” and you tell me “I’m going swimming”, we both know what each other mean.
[00:01:45] All clear so far, there was nothing controversial or politically divisive there.
[00:01:51] But as we both know, language can be problematic.
[00:01:56] Words and phrases can be offensive, they can cause harm.
[00:02:01] They can be created to cause deliberate offence to people, like some racial slurs for example.
[00:02:07] But, more often than not, a word that was once commonplace, in common usage, starts to be considered offensive by a small group of people, and over time often becomes unusable, considered too offensive and inappropriate to be used in the language.
[00:02:28] You may have heard about the works of Roald Dahl, the British author, being rewritten to make them seem less offensive to a modern audience. This was big news when it was first reported in February of this year, and it was revealed that characters could no longer be referred to as “fat” or “ugly”, for example.
[00:02:51] Fair enough, you might think, it’s possible to enjoy these books without needlessly offending people who might take offence.
[00:02:58] Or, it’s “absurd censorship”, as his fellow author Salmand Rushdie put it.
[00:03:05] To explore this question of evolving language, specifically evolving English, we are going to look at the very specific question of how we refer to people without a permanent and stable place to live, as this example touches on lots of interesting linguistic points as well as highlights the politicisation of language.
[00:03:28] To do this, let’s first address the question of what we call the place we live in.
[00:03:35] In English there are two main words that we can use to describe the place we live.
[00:03:41] It can be our house or it can be our home.
[00:03:47] They refer to the same thing, but they don’t have exactly the same meaning.
[00:03:53] A house is more practical, it refers to the structure itself, whereas a home gives an idea of comfort.
[00:04:03] English, of course, isn’t unique in this; many other languages have this concept, of there being a word or expression for the physical place and there being another word or expression that conveys a more emotional meaning.
[00:04:20] Now, why is this important? It’s important because it describes how you feel about the place in which you live.
[00:04:29] If you say “something feels like home”, it means that it feels familiar and comfortable, it's where you should be.
[00:04:38] You can’t say “it feels like house” or even “it feels like my house”, because there is no emotional attachment between a person and a house; if you want to convey emotion, you use the term “home”.
[00:04:54] It’s a relatively simple distinction in English, and it’s one that I imagine you probably already knew.
[00:05:00] But where it becomes perhaps more complicated is when the place someone calls “home” is not a house, not a traditional dwelling.
[00:05:11] To give you a fictional example, Mowgli, the boy in the Jungle Book, calls the jungle “home”, because he has an emotional attachment to it, it’s where he feels he belongs, with Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther.
[00:05:27] To give you a more practical, modern-day example, clearly not everyone in the world lives in a traditional house, with one UN study estimating that 150 million people, so that's 2% of the world’s population, fall into this category: they live on the streets, in temporary accommodation, or without any fixed home.
[00:05:53] Now, the most common expression for this still is “homeless”. If someone lives on the streets, in a tent, perhaps even in a car, or anywhere that is not a standard fixed “house”, they are referred to as “homeless”.
[00:06:10] This, for the time being, is the most frequently used term that you’ll read or hear.
[00:06:15] But it only really started to be used in the 1980s.
[00:06:20] Before this, people used terms that are now considered offensive: vagrant, tramp, hobo and bum.
[00:06:29] “Homeless” started to be used as a more neutral term, a word that simply described what was going on without casting judgement.
[00:06:40] As you will know, you can add the suffix “less”, L E S S, to the end of many words in English to mean “without”.
[00:06:48] Heartless means without a heart, so not having any sympathy.
[00:06:53] Hopeless means without hope, limitless means without having limits, and if you add “less” to “home” you get “homeless”, someone without a home.
[00:07:04] It might seem like a perfectly sensible term to use.
[00:07:07] But, as with many things in language, words and expressions that once seemed innocent and harmless start to be questioned.
[00:07:17] What does using this word communicate? Does it accurately describe what we are trying to say?
[00:07:24] You might remember in May of this year, there was an incident on the New York Subway when a member of the public restrained another passenger, he held him down on the ground, with his arms around the man’s neck, and killed him in the process.
[00:07:41] The man who died was called Jordan Neeley, and he had been living on the streets of New York for several years, he was what most people would call “homeless”.
[00:07:52] And on May the 3rd of this year, shortly after the incident, the American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC as she’s known, tweeted out this:
[00:08:04] Jordan Neely was murdered.
[00:08:07] But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges.
[00:08:24] It’s disgusting.
[00:08:27] Now, there are several pieces of debatable language there, mainly the reference to murder, which implies that the man who killed him did so unjustifiably and unlawfully.
[00:08:38] But the point I want to focus on here is how she described Jordan Neely: “houseless” NOT “homeless”. While most TV channels and newspapers were describing Neely as “homeless”, AOC went for “houseless”, a term practically unknown outside some very specific circles.
[00:09:02] This tweet about the incident has been seen 21 million times as of the time of me recording this episode, and it introduced millions of Americans to a word that they had, until then, been unaware of.
[00:09:16] So, why did AOC use this word?
[00:09:20] It wasn’t a mistake, and it’s not a common synonym for homeless. She was making a point.
[00:09:26] So what point was this?
[00:09:29] Well, for several years, various advocacy groups have been pushing to stop the use of the term “homeless”, as they believe that it is derogatory to the people it is describing.
[00:09:42] To quote one organisation directly, the Los Angeles Community Alliance:
[00:09:47] “Not everyone has housing, but everyone has a home—including our houseless beneficiaries at LACA. The term “homeless” makes the spaces they do call home sound illegitimate, when home represents far more than a location. Instead, home is friends, family, and community.”
[00:10:07] END QUOTE
[00:10:09] In other words, because “home” has the connotation of comfort, happiness and legitimacy, if you say that someone living on the streets is “homeless”, the implication is that they cannot be happy and comfortable where they live, and therefore you are demeaning and belittling the place that they have come to call home. What’s more, you are saying that the space they call home, be it the streets or a public park, is not a legitimate place to call home.
[00:10:39] And with the growing amount of people who are homeless or houseless in the United States, with almost 0.2% of the US population falling into this category, this has become an increasing point of contention, an area for discussion.
[00:10:55] What is the right word to describe these people, according to these groups?
[00:11:01] “Houseless” is one option, as is “unhoused” or “people experiencing homelessness”.
[00:11:08] It’s a complicated question.
[00:11:10] Over half a million people fall into this category, and clearly there is a wide variety of people, from someone who has been living on the streets for 10 years and suffers from addiction and mental health issues through to someone who has just lost their job and has been sleeping on friend’s sofa for a couple of weeks through to a parent who recently separated from their partner and is living out of their car while they find a new place.
[00:11:35] Are they all “homeless”?
[00:11:37] Are they “experiencing homelessness” or are they unhoused? Are they “houseless"?
[00:11:45] It’s a really interesting question that has triggered debate about the issue of housing and homelessness, or houselessness perhaps should I say.
[00:11:54] One of the main criticisms of the term “homelessness” is because it makes it sound like the streets are not a legitimate place to call home.
[00:12:03] And this is a question of political opinion. If you believe that people should be free to live on the streets, to be able to live in tents on public streets and in public parks, then these areas can be a legitimate home.
[00:12:19] If, on the other hand, you believe that society shouldn’t be enabling people to live like this, as we should be trying to do everything we can to get people off the streets and into housing, then language should accurately reflect the fact these are not legitimate places to live and call home.
[00:12:38] If this is your opinion, “homeless”, not “houseless” or “ unhoused” is the most appropriate term.
[00:12:45] To some, especially on the political right, it has become yet another sign of academics and policymakers using taxpayer money to have esoteric linguistic discussions rather than addressing the real problem.
[00:13:00] The US government provides billions of dollars in federal funding for homeless assistance programmes, yet the number of homeless people, or people experiencing homelessness, has continued to rise.
[00:13:14] Furthermore, to the critics of this term, implying that the streets, and public spaces are a legitimate place for someone to call home is offensive in itself.
[00:13:25] These organisations, instead of helping people off the streets, whether that's through finding some form of accommodation or helping them cure themselves of addiction, are implicitly saying “it’s ok to call the streets your home”.
[00:13:40] And to the critics of the term, that’s not ok; it’s public property, not an individual’s home.
[00:13:47] But to perhaps the most important question that we haven’t yet addressed: is it something that actually matters to homeless people?
[00:13:56] As a lexicographer from Dictionary.com put it, “there are three people in every conversation: the speaker, the person being spoken about, and the person being spoken to. Too often in conversations about homeless people, according to this quote, the person being spoken about is absent from the room.”
[00:14:15] So, what happens if you ask a homeless person?
[00:14:19] Is this something that homeless or houseless people care deeply about?
[00:14:24] In one of the original and most well-known thought-pieces about whether homeless is an offensive term, the journalist wrote about a conversation with a homeless policy director, where she asked this very question.
[00:14:38] The journalist asked her what homeless people thought about being called “homeless”. Was it deeply offensive? Would they prefer “houseless” or “unhoused”?
[00:14:48] After all, the term was being used to describe them, so surely they should have an opinion about it.
[00:14:55] The policy director admitted that most homeless people don’t really care, they just wanted to be treated with respect. You can certainly argue about whether using the term “homeless” is disrespectful, but I think it would be hard to argue that the biggest concern of a homeless person is what language The New York Times is using to describe them.
[00:15:18] Now, clearly the issue of homelessness is very complicated, with no simple solutions. And indeed we have only looked at it through the very specific lens of language today.
[00:15:30] President Biden announced the lofty goal of reducing American homelessness by 25% by the year 2025, and pledged to increase the federal budget to combat homelessness to $10 billion per year.
[00:15:46] Time will only tell whether he will succeed, but if you ask a homeless person what is going to have an impact, what really is going to move the needle, it seems to me that you wouldn’t find the term used to describe them right at the top of their list.
[00:16:02] OK then, that is it for this little exploration of evolving English, looked at through the lens of homes and homelessness.
[00:16:11] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:16:14] Is there debate about what to call homeless people in your language? How has this changed over time?
[00:16:21] What other words have become politicised and no longer acceptable in your language?
[00:16:26] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:16:29] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:16:37] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:16:41] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about language.
[00:00:25] Specifically, we are going to talk about how language changes over time, and the often political reasons for this.
[00:00:33] And even more specifically, we are going to look at the example of how to refer to people who do not live in a house.
[00:00:42] It might seem like an odd example, a strange word to choose, but believe you me, it is a question that opens up a whole host of different questions, questions that are more controversial than you might think.
[00:00:56] OK then, Homes, Homelessness and Evolving English
[00:01:03] If I asked you, “so, what is the purpose of language”, you would probably say something like “to communicate information from one person to another”.
[00:01:14] There are lots of things in the world - animals, people, objects, emotions, ideas - we have common agreed words or expressions for them, so that when we use these common words or expressions, other people know what we mean.
[00:01:30] If I ask you “what is your name?”, you know what I mean by that, and you answer me.
[00:01:36] If I say “what are you doing on Tuesday?” and you tell me “I’m going swimming”, we both know what each other mean.
[00:01:45] All clear so far, there was nothing controversial or politically divisive there.
[00:01:51] But as we both know, language can be problematic.
[00:01:56] Words and phrases can be offensive, they can cause harm.
[00:02:01] They can be created to cause deliberate offence to people, like some racial slurs for example.
[00:02:07] But, more often than not, a word that was once commonplace, in common usage, starts to be considered offensive by a small group of people, and over time often becomes unusable, considered too offensive and inappropriate to be used in the language.
[00:02:28] You may have heard about the works of Roald Dahl, the British author, being rewritten to make them seem less offensive to a modern audience. This was big news when it was first reported in February of this year, and it was revealed that characters could no longer be referred to as “fat” or “ugly”, for example.
[00:02:51] Fair enough, you might think, it’s possible to enjoy these books without needlessly offending people who might take offence.
[00:02:58] Or, it’s “absurd censorship”, as his fellow author Salmand Rushdie put it.
[00:03:05] To explore this question of evolving language, specifically evolving English, we are going to look at the very specific question of how we refer to people without a permanent and stable place to live, as this example touches on lots of interesting linguistic points as well as highlights the politicisation of language.
[00:03:28] To do this, let’s first address the question of what we call the place we live in.
[00:03:35] In English there are two main words that we can use to describe the place we live.
[00:03:41] It can be our house or it can be our home.
[00:03:47] They refer to the same thing, but they don’t have exactly the same meaning.
[00:03:53] A house is more practical, it refers to the structure itself, whereas a home gives an idea of comfort.
[00:04:03] English, of course, isn’t unique in this; many other languages have this concept, of there being a word or expression for the physical place and there being another word or expression that conveys a more emotional meaning.
[00:04:20] Now, why is this important? It’s important because it describes how you feel about the place in which you live.
[00:04:29] If you say “something feels like home”, it means that it feels familiar and comfortable, it's where you should be.
[00:04:38] You can’t say “it feels like house” or even “it feels like my house”, because there is no emotional attachment between a person and a house; if you want to convey emotion, you use the term “home”.
[00:04:54] It’s a relatively simple distinction in English, and it’s one that I imagine you probably already knew.
[00:05:00] But where it becomes perhaps more complicated is when the place someone calls “home” is not a house, not a traditional dwelling.
[00:05:11] To give you a fictional example, Mowgli, the boy in the Jungle Book, calls the jungle “home”, because he has an emotional attachment to it, it’s where he feels he belongs, with Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther.
[00:05:27] To give you a more practical, modern-day example, clearly not everyone in the world lives in a traditional house, with one UN study estimating that 150 million people, so that's 2% of the world’s population, fall into this category: they live on the streets, in temporary accommodation, or without any fixed home.
[00:05:53] Now, the most common expression for this still is “homeless”. If someone lives on the streets, in a tent, perhaps even in a car, or anywhere that is not a standard fixed “house”, they are referred to as “homeless”.
[00:06:10] This, for the time being, is the most frequently used term that you’ll read or hear.
[00:06:15] But it only really started to be used in the 1980s.
[00:06:20] Before this, people used terms that are now considered offensive: vagrant, tramp, hobo and bum.
[00:06:29] “Homeless” started to be used as a more neutral term, a word that simply described what was going on without casting judgement.
[00:06:40] As you will know, you can add the suffix “less”, L E S S, to the end of many words in English to mean “without”.
[00:06:48] Heartless means without a heart, so not having any sympathy.
[00:06:53] Hopeless means without hope, limitless means without having limits, and if you add “less” to “home” you get “homeless”, someone without a home.
[00:07:04] It might seem like a perfectly sensible term to use.
[00:07:07] But, as with many things in language, words and expressions that once seemed innocent and harmless start to be questioned.
[00:07:17] What does using this word communicate? Does it accurately describe what we are trying to say?
[00:07:24] You might remember in May of this year, there was an incident on the New York Subway when a member of the public restrained another passenger, he held him down on the ground, with his arms around the man’s neck, and killed him in the process.
[00:07:41] The man who died was called Jordan Neeley, and he had been living on the streets of New York for several years, he was what most people would call “homeless”.
[00:07:52] And on May the 3rd of this year, shortly after the incident, the American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC as she’s known, tweeted out this:
[00:08:04] Jordan Neely was murdered.
[00:08:07] But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges.
[00:08:24] It’s disgusting.
[00:08:27] Now, there are several pieces of debatable language there, mainly the reference to murder, which implies that the man who killed him did so unjustifiably and unlawfully.
[00:08:38] But the point I want to focus on here is how she described Jordan Neely: “houseless” NOT “homeless”. While most TV channels and newspapers were describing Neely as “homeless”, AOC went for “houseless”, a term practically unknown outside some very specific circles.
[00:09:02] This tweet about the incident has been seen 21 million times as of the time of me recording this episode, and it introduced millions of Americans to a word that they had, until then, been unaware of.
[00:09:16] So, why did AOC use this word?
[00:09:20] It wasn’t a mistake, and it’s not a common synonym for homeless. She was making a point.
[00:09:26] So what point was this?
[00:09:29] Well, for several years, various advocacy groups have been pushing to stop the use of the term “homeless”, as they believe that it is derogatory to the people it is describing.
[00:09:42] To quote one organisation directly, the Los Angeles Community Alliance:
[00:09:47] “Not everyone has housing, but everyone has a home—including our houseless beneficiaries at LACA. The term “homeless” makes the spaces they do call home sound illegitimate, when home represents far more than a location. Instead, home is friends, family, and community.”
[00:10:07] END QUOTE
[00:10:09] In other words, because “home” has the connotation of comfort, happiness and legitimacy, if you say that someone living on the streets is “homeless”, the implication is that they cannot be happy and comfortable where they live, and therefore you are demeaning and belittling the place that they have come to call home. What’s more, you are saying that the space they call home, be it the streets or a public park, is not a legitimate place to call home.
[00:10:39] And with the growing amount of people who are homeless or houseless in the United States, with almost 0.2% of the US population falling into this category, this has become an increasing point of contention, an area for discussion.
[00:10:55] What is the right word to describe these people, according to these groups?
[00:11:01] “Houseless” is one option, as is “unhoused” or “people experiencing homelessness”.
[00:11:08] It’s a complicated question.
[00:11:10] Over half a million people fall into this category, and clearly there is a wide variety of people, from someone who has been living on the streets for 10 years and suffers from addiction and mental health issues through to someone who has just lost their job and has been sleeping on friend’s sofa for a couple of weeks through to a parent who recently separated from their partner and is living out of their car while they find a new place.
[00:11:35] Are they all “homeless”?
[00:11:37] Are they “experiencing homelessness” or are they unhoused? Are they “houseless"?
[00:11:45] It’s a really interesting question that has triggered debate about the issue of housing and homelessness, or houselessness perhaps should I say.
[00:11:54] One of the main criticisms of the term “homelessness” is because it makes it sound like the streets are not a legitimate place to call home.
[00:12:03] And this is a question of political opinion. If you believe that people should be free to live on the streets, to be able to live in tents on public streets and in public parks, then these areas can be a legitimate home.
[00:12:19] If, on the other hand, you believe that society shouldn’t be enabling people to live like this, as we should be trying to do everything we can to get people off the streets and into housing, then language should accurately reflect the fact these are not legitimate places to live and call home.
[00:12:38] If this is your opinion, “homeless”, not “houseless” or “ unhoused” is the most appropriate term.
[00:12:45] To some, especially on the political right, it has become yet another sign of academics and policymakers using taxpayer money to have esoteric linguistic discussions rather than addressing the real problem.
[00:13:00] The US government provides billions of dollars in federal funding for homeless assistance programmes, yet the number of homeless people, or people experiencing homelessness, has continued to rise.
[00:13:14] Furthermore, to the critics of this term, implying that the streets, and public spaces are a legitimate place for someone to call home is offensive in itself.
[00:13:25] These organisations, instead of helping people off the streets, whether that's through finding some form of accommodation or helping them cure themselves of addiction, are implicitly saying “it’s ok to call the streets your home”.
[00:13:40] And to the critics of the term, that’s not ok; it’s public property, not an individual’s home.
[00:13:47] But to perhaps the most important question that we haven’t yet addressed: is it something that actually matters to homeless people?
[00:13:56] As a lexicographer from Dictionary.com put it, “there are three people in every conversation: the speaker, the person being spoken about, and the person being spoken to. Too often in conversations about homeless people, according to this quote, the person being spoken about is absent from the room.”
[00:14:15] So, what happens if you ask a homeless person?
[00:14:19] Is this something that homeless or houseless people care deeply about?
[00:14:24] In one of the original and most well-known thought-pieces about whether homeless is an offensive term, the journalist wrote about a conversation with a homeless policy director, where she asked this very question.
[00:14:38] The journalist asked her what homeless people thought about being called “homeless”. Was it deeply offensive? Would they prefer “houseless” or “unhoused”?
[00:14:48] After all, the term was being used to describe them, so surely they should have an opinion about it.
[00:14:55] The policy director admitted that most homeless people don’t really care, they just wanted to be treated with respect. You can certainly argue about whether using the term “homeless” is disrespectful, but I think it would be hard to argue that the biggest concern of a homeless person is what language The New York Times is using to describe them.
[00:15:18] Now, clearly the issue of homelessness is very complicated, with no simple solutions. And indeed we have only looked at it through the very specific lens of language today.
[00:15:30] President Biden announced the lofty goal of reducing American homelessness by 25% by the year 2025, and pledged to increase the federal budget to combat homelessness to $10 billion per year.
[00:15:46] Time will only tell whether he will succeed, but if you ask a homeless person what is going to have an impact, what really is going to move the needle, it seems to me that you wouldn’t find the term used to describe them right at the top of their list.
[00:16:02] OK then, that is it for this little exploration of evolving English, looked at through the lens of homes and homelessness.
[00:16:11] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:16:14] Is there debate about what to call homeless people in your language? How has this changed over time?
[00:16:21] What other words have become politicised and no longer acceptable in your language?
[00:16:26] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:16:29] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:16:37] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:16:41] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
