Download about words

ABOUT WORDS
Language exerts hidden power,
like a moon on the tides.
– Rita Mae Brown (US author and social activist)
ABOUT WORDS
Language is not only the vehicle
of thought, it is a great and
efficient instrument of thinking.
- Sir H. Davy (British chemist and inventor)
ABOUT WORDS
A blow with a word strikes deeper
than a blow with a sword.
- Robert Burton (author, The Anatomy of Melancholy)
Freewrite & Discussion
 What
is the power of words?
 How can words make someone
feel?
Not-so-SUPER POWER WORDS
Some words:
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Are used as weapons to oppress people.
Are dehumanizing
Deny people of their dignity, humanity, and
personhood
We Have a Choice
 We
never have to use words that
hurt others.
We Have a Choice
BUT…. People do use those words and they
do appear in literature.
 In Act
II, Scene I Walter uses the
word faggoty
We Have a Choice
In this scene the word is used in a way that is
degrading and hurtful. There is an implication
that homosexuality is not okay.
This way of using that word comes from
Medieval times when men and women who
were perceived to be gay in were murdered
and their bones or dead bodies were used as
kindling to burn women, perceived to be
witches, at the stake.
We Have a Choice
Much like racist, sexist, anti-Semitic words,
there homophobic words that have historically
been “socially-acceptable” to use. This does
NOT mean that these words were any less
hurtful or degrading then, then they are now.
We Have a Choice
SO….. How do we deal with Walter’s use of the
word “faggoty” in our reading of the play?
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Say it, understanding that it is the character, not
us, that is expressing this negative view?
Skip it?
Replace it ?
?