How can a word be bad?

Reivew of David Sosa, ed., Bad Words: Philosophical Perspectives on Slurs

Heather Stewart ~ RP 2.04 (Spring 2019), pp. 107–109 ~ Review

David Sosa (ed.) Bad Words: Philosophical Perspectives on Slurs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 256pp., $60 hb., 978 01 98758 655. ‘Slurs’ – understood here to be particular words designed by convention to derogate targeted individuals or groups – are a puzzling category of speech, which raise a variety of philosophical questions pertaining to their […]

Debate on Sexist Language: Sexism and Semantics; More on Man Made Language

Deborah Cameron and Anne Beezer ~ RP 036 (Spring 1984) ~ Article

DEBATE ON SEXIST LANGUAGE Sexism and Semantics Deborah Cameron In RP34, two articles appeared dealing with the relation between language and sexism: Alison Assiter’s critique of Dale Spender’s Man Made Language and a dialogue between Mike Shortland and John Fauvel on the subject of sexism and linguistic reform. Although these articles were not explicitly connected […]