Tebowing

In the past 6 weeks, no one has gotten more attention than Denver Broncos quarterback, Tim Tebow. Turning around a thought to be hopeless football season, Tebow, as the new starting quarterback, has won 6 games in a row. Tebow has almost single-handedly reversed the Bronco's previous 2-5 record to a playoff contending 8-5 record. He has gotten so much attention that he has now officially left an imprint on the English language itself.

"Tebowing"- the act of 'taking a knee' in prayerful reflection in the midst of an athletic activity. According to the Global Language Monitor, this was accepted as an English language word a few days ago. The word was first popularly used in the dramatic overtime victory of the Denver Broncos over the Miami Dolphins on October 23, 2011. During the victory celebration, Tim Tebow ‘took a knee’ and was photographed in a moment of prayerful reflection.

So how exactly does one get a word added to the English language? I always thought it was almost impossible to get a "made-up" word just added to the language like that; I always thought storylines of that sort belonged in the fictional world of my childhood favorite, Frindle. Contrary to popular belief, there is no official agency for accepting new words into the English language. Instead, the Global Language Monitor accepts new words once they meet the criteria of a minimum number of citations across the breadth of the English-speaking world, based on the depth of usage on the Internet, in social media and in the top 75,000 global print and electronic media.

This begs another question, is this an accurate/proper way of adding words into the English language? Some disagree.

Graeme Diamond, principal editor of the New Words group at the Oxford English Dictionary, once said:

"People would be wrong if they thought of us typically reading something in the paper one day and sticking it into the dictionary the next. We want to resist putting ephemera in, because the OED never takes anything out."

This raises an important distinction to be made. Acceptance by the Global Language Monitor is not equivalent to gaining acceptance to Webster's Dictionary for example. Just because the word's usage has been spreading all over the nation in the last 5 or so weeks, just because it's all over the Internet and Tumblr, just because it is approved by the Global Language Monitor, does not make it a word. Actual professional lexicographers have nothing to gain by putting "Tebowing" in a dictionary. There are many points of criticism for thinking to do so. "Tebowing" would be treated as a slang word. And there's been very little formal research on slang, there's no agreement on when slang becomes word.

Others criticize the written source itself, the Global Language Monitor. They say the Global Language Monitor does nothing but find ways to put the latest bait headlines in a press release. The release draws enormous attention because people are eager to consume the cult of Tebow, and they don't really understand how language works. It's interesting to note that these "cults" are most often formed in relationship to athletics. Sports have become important generators of new cultural trends that extend beyond the athletic arena (i.e. "Do the John Wall." "Teach Me How to Bucky.").

"Tebowing" provides an excellent example in how rhetorical phenomena can emerge and the powerful impact it can have on language and society. So what's your view? Should "Tebowing" be adopted as an official English word in the dictionary? Remember to vote above!

Western Rhetoric Towards the Veil

It's interesting to say the least how much controversy a piece of clothing can cause. It's interesting how words to describe a piece of clothing can take on a universal symbolic meaning. It's interesting how this symbol can be used to help warrant an unnecessary war in Afghanistan. This is exactly what the Islamic veil has done.

It's commonly understood that the West sees the veil as a universal symbol of oppression. However, Brigitte Johnson wants to take this further. In this article, she "explores the ways in which dominant Western rhetoric of veiled Muslim women subject these women to a kind of double oppression—by constructing them as universal victims of “barbaric” Islamic patriarchy, and by implicitly erasing their agency and appropriating their actions and voices—and how this kind of Western discourse can be manipulated to reinforce Western hegemonies."

Western language towards the veil ignores the historical background of why it is worn. And thus, Western language has consistently constructed veiling practices as ahistorical, monolithic, and homogenous—a set of unchanging, one-dimensional religious practices that illustrate the oppressiveness of Islamic society. The consequence of this type of language is grave and occurring right now. This discourse shapes Western identity just as much as it shapes Islamic identity. The West sees itself as superior, better, higher. The veil becomes a reassuring confirmation of the East's inferiority.

This misrepresentation through language can direct action. During America's 2002 military intervention in Afghanistan, universalized images of Afghani women burqas spread rapidly. Seeing it as a symbol of oppression, the media helped "dehistoricize the US invasion of Afghanistan by erasing its 20-year track record of financing and equipping mujahideen rebels and later the Taliban itself, and in which the trope of the oppressed, veiled Muslim woman was used explicitly as justification for the war."

The manner in which the media talked about the veil persuaded its viewers to see the intervention in a new light. We, America, would become saviors for those oppressed.

The media constructed Afghani women as victims in need of saving by the US, while it refrained from analyzing how the US had been complicit with the Taliban’s abuses, which US officials had had full knowledge of when they were funding the mujahideen and later the Taliban.

It's interesting how misunderstanding the meaning of an object can cause us to act. Sometimes, we need to be the ones to shed our veil of ignorance.