Johnson: Deliberate misunderstanding

SOME words survive in English as fossils, special dead words used only in a single fixed phrase. (Arika Okrent, a linguist, recently wrote a delightful column about such words.) An example might be a chink in one’s armour. The Oxford English Dictionary has the word chink recorded as early as 1398, also spelt chine, meaning a cleft or crack caused by splitting. A chink could be found in the earth, in boards or in rocks. But today the word is used mainly to describe a metaphorical problem in one’s armour—a tiny but exploitable weakness in one’s defences—even though no one much wears armour anymore.

The New York Times recently used "chink" to note potential weaknesses in the FC Barcelona football club, and to describe a character in a play with one flaw. The Washington Post called Iran a chink in Barack Obama’s foreign-policy armour. The Times of London uses the phrase frequently: in its sport pages it may describe Australia’s cricket side; elsewhere it has been used to comment on topics from cyber security to theatre.

Recently, guests on CNBC, an American business-news channel, were discussing the divorce of Rupert Murdoch, a media mogul, and his wife, Wendi Deng. Robert Frank, one of the panellists, mused about Ms Deng’s legal strategy for getting a share of Mr Murdoch's assets:

I wonder, you know, Peter, what do you think the chink in the armour here might be? That’s what [Deng’s lawyer] is so good at, is finding a chink in the pre-nups and all these trusts.

Oh dear. Chinks in the armour of Barcelona FC are acceptable. But because "chink" is also derogatory slang for Asians, particularly the Chinese, the word becomes awkward if there is anyone of Asian descent anywhere near the relevant context. (The OED’s first citation for this usage is from 1901.) Unfortunately for Mr Frank, Ms Deng was born and raised in China.

To be clear, there is no way Mr Frank could have been referring to Ms Deng with the racial epithet. How could Ms Deng’s lawyer find his own client in his opponent’s armour? Certain words may be written and pronounced identically, but are distinct etymologically and semantically.

That did not stop a spokesman from the Asian American Journalists Association from saying, of Mr Frank’s unfortunate chink, that “In this day and age, a phrase like that, that I’m not going to repeat, is offensive to many of us.” Acknowledging that the remark was made off the cuff, the spokesman went on that “we would like CNBC and Mr Frank to realise that the words uttered on air today about an Asian-American in the news were inappropriate in any context.” Never mind that the words were not used about an Asian-American but about Mr Murdoch's legal defence.

Every day people ignore the secondary meanings of words if they are nonsensical in the context. Take the question “Can you e-mail me the file on my computer?” Few will wonder whether the file in question is a rough metal tool. To insist that the question is potentially ambiguous—“How can I e-mail you a rough metal tool?”—would be silly. Small children, people with certain cognitive impairments and punsters may retrieve the wrong word from the mental lexicon. But a serious organisation like the Asian American Journalists Association should not. To make a fuss betrays either a worrying lack of self-confidence or a craven need for attention.

Speakers and writers have certain responsibilities: they should try to be clear, honest, efficient and sensitive to their audience. But listeners have a responsibility, too. To insist on implausible meanings is to pull a silly time-wasting trick: “Can I ask you a question?” “I don’t know, can you?” Deliberate misunderstanding violates the good faith critical to getting any message across.

Last year Jeremy Lin, a Chinese-American basketball player, was on a hot streak. But in one terrible game he kept turning the ball over to the other team. ESPN, a sport broadcaster, headlined its web story “Chink in the Armor” under a picture of Mr Lin. The editor was sacked. He pleaded that he had used the phrase in dozens of headlines, that he had written it at 2:30am and that he was a great fan of Mr Lin's. But he was doomed by the fact that the “chink” in the headline could plausibly refer to Mr Lin (who dismissed the headline as harmless). The ESPN editor should have been more careful.

But the Frank-Deng case is different. It is ultimately a good thing that people have become more sensitive about racism, sexism, disabilities and the like. But aggressive accusations over innocent utterances benefit no one. After all, we all have tiny weaknesses in our defences.

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