Word of the Week: ‘Kapu’
Nicholas Clairmont
The American Heritage Dictionary notes: “The word taboo first appears in English in the journals of Captain James Cook. … In 1777, Cook wrote that the word ‘taboo … has a very comprehensive meaning; but, in general, signifies that a thing is forbidden. … When any thing is forbidden to be eat, or made use of, they say, that it is taboo.’ Cook was in Tonga at the time, and so it is the Tongan form ‘tabu’ that is the source of the English word ‘taboo.’ However, words related to Tongan tabu are found in other Polynesian languages, such as Maori ‘tapu’ and Hawaiian ‘kapu.’ (In the history of Hawaiian, the original Polynesian t-sound has regularly changed to a k-sound.)” We therefore learn that this native Hawaiian word “kapu” would have been the first version of our term “taboo” used in what is now American territory.
Today, linguistic taboos are a central concern of American life in a way they were not a mere decade ago. “Is it time to stop saying ‘aloha’ and other culturally sensitive words out of context?” asked the USA Today’s “entertainment reporter covering diversity and inclusion” David Oliver in January 2023, in an article that, to be honest, felt like more of a 2017 or so vintage. One professor is quoted saying, “What we need is a critical consciousness in our public around language. Language is too critical to our culture, that we can’t just casually use language in ways that might offend and/or even harm, do harm to certain groups of people.” Another one says, “Language is really about power.” There is a link to another article about “how to respectfully visit Hawaii, have an authentic trip.” What can you say to all this, really? I don’t think I am allowed to comment merely “LOL” in a language column. But I will observe that all of these taboos, or kapus, are culturally appropriating native Hawaiian folkways.
In December, the New York Times published the results of a fascinating survey, undertaken, according to the article publishing its results, partly because an earlier Pew poll found that a majority of Americans report they “believe there isn’t any agreement on what language is considered sexist or racist of late, with the boundaries seemingly ever-shifting.” Between Dec. 1 and 4, Morning Consult pollsters found that “new terms for race have a long way to go.” Eighty-seven percent of people would say Hispanic, and only 22% would say Latinx. Eighty-one percent would say Asian, and only 27% would say A.A.P.I. It’s not just these terms. I dated a girl who works in “global development,” and, in her field, saying “the Third World” is socially a little like saying “where them filthy savages be living.” But, here in normal-land, 15% of people would say “global South,” and 73% would say “Third World.”
It’s always a little darkly funny how late organizations such as the New York Times bother to take notice of an issue such as taboos enforced from the top down. After all, it is formerly straight-news organizations that are responsible for those “seemingly ever-shifting” boundaries. In 2021, the New York Times opinion section ran the headline “Stop Saying Post-Pandemic,” an example of one of several headline formulations for articles considering what words and phrases right-thinking readers should excise. “‘OK’ is now a hate symbol, the ADL says,” read a CNN headline in 2019. Because of the ADL’s and CNN’s incompetence and gullibility, people suffered. Mexican American Emmanuel Cafferty was fired in March 2020 when his arm was seen hanging out of a truck “near a Black Lives Matter protest,” and someone tweeted he must have been making the OK sign, supposedly meaning “white power.” He didn’t know about the protest or that meaning.
Zooming out, it’s important to remember this isn’t about any one word, but the sheer weirdness of the tendency to pretend that progress consists in getting people to use certain neologisms and that backwardness is refusing to update your vocabulary to sound like a grad student. It really wasn’t that long ago that the Left, whatever its other faults, focused on other things than erecting taboos. I think we will look back at how much language-policing we did in this historical moment and be embarrassed it ever happened. And not like bell bottoms, but like McCarthyism. I think people will lie about whether they took part in it.