Episode 012 – Talking Sh*t: Can “Insults” be Intimate?

[0:00:02 Speaker 0] Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. You’re listening to Latin Experts. A podcast of Latino studies at the University of Texas at Austin Latin experts features the voices of faculty, staff and students, as well as friends and alumni of the Department of Mexican American and Latino Latino Studies, the Latino Research Institute and the Center for Mexican American Studies. Join us for this episode of Latin experts. Mm. Welcome back to all our listeners. This is the Latin experts podcast, uh, coming at you from Mexican American Latino Latina studies, Latino studies at U T, um, and a variety of other sources here at the University of Texas. My name is Dr Rachel Gonzalez Martin, and I’m here with Dr Berlin Lopez. And in honor of being February and nearing the Via the San Valentin Valentine’s Day, we’re going to be talking about a rather fun topic. We’re talking about affection. And so Dr Lopez Bell, um, how are you? Hey, Rachel. I’m doing well. You know, I’m excited to be talking about affection and how we talk to each other and express affection. Sometimes fun ways, but also ways that would, you know, have are really to get a little mad at this. I think that’s something we need to mention. Our content today is a little blue. I can’t remember if we frame our podcast as family friendly. I would say this is not necessarily kid friendly. Um, it’s not totally explicit, but we are going to be focusing on expletives were thinking about expletives and insults and how we, as Latinos in our communities, have an interesting way of showing affection to the people we love or like, or at least don’t dislike people that were close to. So that’s what we’re talking about today. And then why don’t you give us a little bit around out around a roundabout way of what you do and how you do it and why insults matter to you? I’m a trained psycho linguists linguist on some days, and I’m really interested in figurative language, so figurative language being non literal language. I’ve done some work on humor and jokes, and I think what attracted me to this topic. And you know, having this sort of series on talking about expletives is how we use expletives with, you know, discussing interpersonal functions or expressing closeness with our friends, but also because expletives they fulfill a particular communicative function right that we can’t necessarily use or do with everyday language. So as you know this, I’m interested in idiomatic expressions. But I think with expletives it’s really interesting to see these sort of intersections of your social group but also expressing emotion, using humor and how it can be used to express solidarity but also to emphasize, like in group and out group. So I’m excited to tease these apart today. That’s awesome, I was thinking, and this is terrible because you can tell that I’m only just coming off like a semester off. I’m thinking like I like bad language. I think bad language. And we’re actually thinking our listeners. Maybe you can chime in. We’re thinking about doing a recurring series on the podcast called Talking Shit, or maybe even talking shit in Latino communities, Latino communities and this way, in which we use language to communicate all sorts of things beyond, like literal, literal meaning, right, thinking about the symbolic. But also, you know, if we can kind of pull back on scope a little bit right, we’re living in a pandemic right now. We’re all coming into this full year’s time of really being separated from the people we love and care about and the environments that we were used to sort of engaging with people. So even thinking about the banter at the bar, right? Or the banter on the bus anywhere we’re all kind of confined together, you know, our language in it, a little bit blue. We can get a little bit sassy or angry, but not necessarily in a way that were really hostile, right? There are ways in which we show affection that are very much place oriented and even time period oriented. When BLM and I were talking about getting this topic together and originally, we were going to record in the morning and I kind of laughed like This isn’t really like before breakfast kind of conversation. This is a nighttime talk. And so, even under after five PM totally, this is the it’s five PM somewhere kind of talk, and so even thinking about that right? We have a certain view on the topic. You know this idea of language and the kinds of language and insults and expletives, but we also know that in Latino communities, right, this language is all over the place, right? This idea of you know below your work, thinking about like mixing language, thinking about code switching, even just thinking about age appropriate language, right? You work with brokers. So the idea that, like, you know, you could be seven years old and no medical terminology because you have to write. So even just thinking about the ways in which language and the presence of certain kinds of vocabulary transcend what people might expect in certain communities just because of life. Circumstances, I think, is really interesting. And so I’m a folklorist. So I’m less technical than, uh, dilemmas when we’re talking about dirty words and bad words and bad language. But my love of language has always been about the idea of theirs. Dictionary definitions of words. And then there’s how people use words. And I love getting into arguments with people about Dean occasional meaning and, you know, Well, that’s not what a word means. It’s like, Yeah, but that’s how I use it and my friends use it. So why do I? Why do I need to change that when it does work in my community? The way that I needed to do work right? There’s a successful right communicative dia logic engagement. So I don’t need to worry about what the real academia Espanola says. A certain word means right or even just the Webster’s Dictionary. Yeah, totally. And I mean, academia doesn’t really take into consideration how language has changed, particularly in the Americas, right? Like we don’t We don’t speak in Castano, you know Santa for a long time for them to include Spanglish. And they didn’t even want to recognize Spanglish as a word where it’s like we all use the word Spanglish. So basically, these sort of I want to call him archaic. But yeah, they’re archaic forms of policing language and telling us what is what functions as a word. What does it but communities? One language changes, but also communities use words in particular ways, and words can take on additional meaning. You know, absolutely. I remember. Yeah, like, you know, as a heritage Spanish speaker, using words like Scarpetta to refer to a notebook even though I know that’s quote unquote, not the correct way. But we have a way of, you know, reformulating language, and that’s one of my interests as well. Oh, I completely agree this idea that there are ways in which there’s a ways and there’s ways which people manage resiliency and manage sort of their power, the power dynamics in the world at large, by controlling what comes out of their mouth or choosing not to control, depending on who’s watching what comes out of their mouth. And I think a lot of that we think about expletives. And I wrote my first big sort of research project. Well, I guess my last big research project as an undergraduate was on the word cabron. Right? Was thinking about this male male insult. That’s very sexualized, but I grew up with that term. It wasn’t it wasn’t like I I kind of make fun. It wasn’t fighting words. It was play fighting kind of words. And so so, you know, thinking about how language language releases or materializes, these different nuances of relationships that aren’t, you know, kind of humorously. They’re literally not black and white. They’re proud, right? There’s an in between sort of cultural interpretation of what’s going on. And so you were talking just a second ago about essentially language ideologies, right? It’s not even what language is doing. It’s how we feel about using it. How we how we’re told to judge people based on what of how they’re saying something, not what they’re saying and that I think haunts us as a community, right? Thinking about whether it’s being a Heritage speaker and then being put into E. S L in kindergarten because there’s a presumption of your capacity or like me, right? My family gave me, you know, Spanish language flash cards as a kid and expected me to pick it up, but they didn’t want me. They didn’t want to speak to us directly because they didn’t want us to have an accident when we went to school because they had their own sort of hang ups about growing up Spanish speakers, you know, decades before. Yeah, and I think you know that I love that you brought up like being given Spanish flashcards growing up for us. We could only speak Spanish at home. I told my mom that she was like a linguistic police woman, like the minute we crossed the door, it became a rule like English because my parents were you know, there were recent immigrants and they thought that we wouldn’t learn to speak Spanish, and then when we spent summers and like Juarez, it was the same thing. And then my dad, he’s interesting as well because he he knew how to speak English by the time like I think I was born. But he refused to speak to me in English as a kid because he, like he had his own ideologies about his own languages, where he was very nervous that he would pass on his accent to me and to my brother. So, yeah, so it’s really interesting to think about how these ideologies persist inter generationally, how they affect, you know, language, socialization practices and how it’s definitely tied to identity, right, Um, and then speaking Spanish as a heritage speaker and then being called a book or a polka and then that creates all these anxieties where it’s like, this is a Spanish that I know. And but I think it all comes from you know, these these prescriptive ideologies about language that Spanish should be spoken in a particular way. English will be spoken in a particular way, which, really we don’t follow grammatical rules when we’re speaking, you know, like Inter personally like we use double negatives all the time. I don’t pronounce all my ing’s. You know, I read drop. But even if we think about, like, you know, trying to thinking about the diversity within English speaking and Spanish speaking in diaspora Latinas communities, right, what people have learned at home what they learned at school, what they learned from people in their peer groups, Right? Um, and then thinking about what comes out of people’s mouth is creative, right? We don’t really give people the latitude to be creative and say that that’s on purpose, as opposed to wanting to say this means you’re capable, and this means you’re not right. So thinking about how these ideologies overlay, But you said something, I think really helps us transition to this idea of our own. Maybe personal stories and feelings is the ways in which a lot of these terms, when we think about language, a lot of the language, particularly bad language that we use, um marks, who were talking to as people that we know really, really well, right? And a lot of times that could be family. I will say I learned the most Spanish language expletives at home, not necessarily from the stereotypical chola spatulas that my parents assumed would be bad influences because I don’t know how class works. But it was at home that I learned how to custom Spanish, you know? And I think that’s powerful, right? Because it isn’t always about being the lowest level resource. I think that’s something that’s really important to emphasize. I think both of us agree, right. The ways in which expletives and insults and what seemingly is quote unquote marked as bad language is actually a really adept transformation of language and use, Right, Right, So let’s think so. We’re thinking about personal stories of insults were thinking about Valentine’s Day and love and showing affection and even how we mark. We mark these boundaries around us by how we speak to people. Um, I remember now that I think about it from my grandmother, and maybe I’m traumatized, but I’m gonna say it anyway. When I was a little girl, my grandmother would call me in Altoona, as in big but alright. But a girl which, you know, as I thought about it growing up, I’m sure I was horrified because to me that was just Oh, God, you’re acknowledging my body. And I bought image issues. But even now, kind of looking back, right? The reason she called me that was because she felt that close to me, right? Yes. It was also a dig at my body. But it wasn’t necessarily. It wasn’t just that. And it had this layering of meaning and it definitely had love attached to it. That’s not to say we all have a healthy sense of what love is, but it’s also intimate. Yes, it is. It’s also intimate, like not just anyone on the street could call you that or could call you that without you responding in some way. Exactly. Exactly. I think that’s something you know that we’re kind of thinking about is that part of these insults and these sort of linguistic gestures towards relational identities have to be done right? Because if you’re going to hurl insults to people and you get it wrong, you’re going to get hit. You’re gonna get screamed at you’re gonna get slapped by someone, right? If someone off the street yelled Saldana, I would give someone the finger and be really angry at this public display of disrespect, right? But that was not how I responded to my grandmother. Clearly different relationships. What about you believe you have any? If you have any of these sort of traumatizing examples that exemplify our point here, I think the last time, the last time on the podcast, we talked about how my family called me Prieta. But I was thinking of like and that one was the one where it was about. Like I couldn’t be outside for too long because I was playing sports. But another one that comes to mind and I don’t This one isn’t as traumatizing. It’s just kind of funny. So I do want to bring in some humor. My mom refers, refers to my brother, and I asked her, Fails like we’re her uglies and she calls me Ohana Fast. So like ugly eyes, Big eyes. Big, Yeah, ugly big guys And my brother is her. Flacco fail. So like we’re both fails. But there’s going to different body parts. Yeah, and I’ve always asked my mom like, Where did that come from? And she said that when I was born, she thought I was really ugly. So your mom’s got a sense of humor is what she’s saying totally. And apparently, when she called me ugly when I was born, my abuelita like, yelled at her and was like a suspended Kentucky. And so it’s to me. It’s just kind of My mom is a very funny woman. She hates that a user as an example for linguistic, for language, famous make her famous will be great. Yeah, we have respect for you, senor. I promise. But thinking about that listen, she might. But to think about this, right? This idea of our parental relationships, right? Or even like your mom being chastised by her mother, right through understanding that there is a power to what we say to one another. But also, I mean, she’s your mother, right? So any physical traits that she may be doesn’t like on you possibly lead back to her right might be something she feels about herself. So we think about that bodily intimacy, right? There’s definitely a There’s definitely a closeness to that, right? If she she always thought of herself as super Flaca in a way that was insulting, that she was self conscious about, you know, your brother now reflects that. And if she’s got so you know, proportionally large eyes as you do, my friend, then maybe that’s, you know, her connection is more like, Oh, yeah, I’m saying that, which sounds kind of mean, but I’m also kind of proud because that shows that you’re my daughter, right? Almost like claiming people, right? The idea. But again, if you take it out of context or even you take it out of a cultural context, right, all of a sudden it gets a little bit dicey, right? People from an outside of your community saying, Wow, your parents are very, um, you know, are cruel like and they’re mean, They’re mean. And you’re like, actually, Well, yes, but no, no, it’s not. Not not in the same way. So even understanding that, you know, in diaspora, when we live in the United States, the things that we bring with us the ideology of the history of the languages that then transforms, you know, in the present it’s all new, right? It’s emergent folk. What we would call it, you know, in like the naming that you share with your brother with your mom, right? Like that couldn’t exist in another place. It’s completely a function of you being siblings and you being her Children and her personality coming together with how you were born right or what? You know what you look like just happened to be looking like when you were born, Um, so kind of in the same vein as insults were kind of getting a little more graphic, like thinking about expletives. Can you? As a linguist, can you define for our audience? What do we mean by expletives? So I think today, the way we’re kind of defining expletives might be like words that people might find as taboo. Maybe not something you’d probably say in the office, but they are words that we use to end. They want to contextualize them, because when we use expletives, expletives aren’t the literal meaning. It’s an additional meaning, or it’s a meaning that’s taken on by who’s using these words. It could be within a friend group, because I think it’s important to also talk about how words are used within our friend. Groups, maybe even within are like colleagues, but also within our family, because sometimes those fears don’t necessarily overlap. And what you might say you know, with your friend group. If you said it in a faculty meeting might get you in a lot of trouble. True story. Believe Yeah, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, like, Yeah. And today we’re using a lot of humor. So a lot of these expletives, we’re gonna be talking about different phrases that we might use, maybe swear words. But they might also give words that, you know, just have taken a different meeting. Absolutely. No, that’s great, right? That gives us a sort of a rounding at the edges. And really, what? I was going to add to that right? As someone who’s interested in how people communicate in particular cultural context, right? Particularly Latinos. Maybe women, maybe people that identifies Chikane extra Puerto Rican, right? Those are gonna be different social and cultural context, even temporarily write something that was an expletive 50 years ago. And in fact, a lot of the terms that I think we’re gonna be thinking about now are really changed over time. Based on different sort of developments in social ideologies, our feelings about what they literally mean inform how we figuratively use them, right? And I think that’s important, um, to understand, right? So we’re seeing we’re seeing the site of shift in values, right? And then an understanding of again society changing. So let’s get into some of our examples that I don’t know where you want to start, but I’ll let you start, and I’ll dive in after you. Okay, well, we have a lot of words. We do. We’re very good at developing. Examples will probably have to lump them together for the sake of our Should we start with, like, uh, mom on? Yeah, that’s when we talked about earlier. So yeah, if you refer to someone as like a mom on, you’re you’re basically saying, like, don’t suck or like, you suck a lot, right? Like right. But it’s also to be asshole, right? So But again, the idea of I heard that word in my home, right, So that’s definitely a word that comes for me at least comes from a very domestic, intimate, home life kind of situation. And I’ve always been interested in thinking about what exactly is being sucked because we understand that there’s a variety because I was talking with some students about it in my folklore class, and it was specifically, we were using it in the context of, like essentially two males talking to each other and one male chastising the other like for saying something kind of lame or silly. And so we’re sucking, specifically referenced like breastfeeding. And this idea of thinking about the person who spoke as being sort of childlike or not a man, right? That’s where sort of the insult came from. I’d be curious to think about other how else you’ve seen that interpreted because it was really difficult to come to it in class and to try to get in context and understand where where sucking was being identified. Yeah, I think you bring up a good point because I would think and I don’t know. And we’ve talked about this the you know, the history of this word or how it came to be. But like if if we take it back, I think it could be related to, like, sort of infantile, infantilizing a person. If we think about breastfeeding and a baby, I don’t know if we could throw in some queer theory and this as well. If it’s like two heterosexual men telling each other like this is my mom. No, Mom is because yeah. What is that doing? Where does the insult? Absolutely You know, it’s true. Yeah, it comes from feminization, right? What’s the worst thing you could be as a Latino man is identified as a woman, particularly because of narratives of presumed sexual behaviors. Right? It’s about it’s about penetration. It’s about being a top versus bottom right, which we’ll see kind of get turned on its head, right? So we think about expletives in our community, right? We, you know, and it’s Valentine’s. We’re getting close to Valentine’s Day, so kind of thinking about their sexuality and gender fit into these, because so much of our culture, as you know, as a product of Catholicism, as a product of conservative social values. You know, we can talk about colonialism and the transformations of gender ideologies in the New World, but we don’t have time for that. But we can’t. That’s a totally of an episode, folks. But the idea that sexuality is at play here, right? Using sexuality is symbolism and then taking back those terms right, taking back some of these ideas. So I love to sort of move just for a second. I think you know, getting to sort of have one or two more really good examples is thinking about this idea of the term pizzeria. Do you want to share what that means or what you you you consider Pretoria to mean? Sure, you know, like when you hear about like, Oh, and Cannon and Diarrhea, it’s basically slut Shaming people, right? Or talking about being promised promiscuous about people’s sexual sexual encounters are just like it’s like it’s using its using. You know, it’s essentially an illusion to sex work that’s negative, right? As opposed to being right. And so part of thinking about food area or even using the term we were talking about this and bringing up the idea of, um, queer people, particularly queer men or gay men or non binary folks using boot to as a way to refer to fam friends, um isn’t about shaming as much as it is is about acknowledging like a sex positive identity that’s distinctly different from how material would be used. Let’s say in our grandparents generation or our parents’ generation, right? Totally. I like this reclaiming of these terms, right? So language does change, but also reclaiming these terms to where they begin to lose this sort of negative connotations. And I like that you brought up like it makes them more sex positive, as opposed to slut shaming or telling. Talking about people hauling around where it’s like people can do what they want as long as they don’t hurt others, right? Absolutely. But this is part of that sort of the layers, right? I think that’s something that’s that’s complicated, particularly in our community, right, because we have the layers of, let’s say, cultural identities, whether it’s diverse Latina goddess, which is a word we don’t really like. Talk about an expletive, right? Um, Latina, that is but the idea of diverse community histories, right? And then, on top of that, you add questions of class of gender, identification, of sexual identification or sexual desires, right? And then you. Then you try to put, like, push all of that through a single word, and you’re never going to get 11 simple answer. And so I know that’s something we really wanted. We sort of talked about was again the reclamation of majorities, right? What does it mean to take back these words that before, and this sort of gets us thinking about the sense example. Right hot area, right where we’re going back to this idea of sexuality and this idea that a term that was used as an accusation, right to be a hotel or a hoe to write, to be outed in a very aggressive, very dangerous kind of way has absolutely been reframed right. Whether it’s, you know, hot area is a conference, you know, for intellectuals thinking about queer theory and brown communities or even, just, you know, the passing Friday night joke of What are we doing tonight? Postcode area. You know, being gay, being queer and being proud, right, as opposed to like hiding out with those kinds of terms. But I’d love to hear more your thoughts, either on these or other terms, that sometimes I think, you know, cultural and socially we take for granted because we’re thinking in English. But we’re also having to think in Spanish, and I have to think of the cultural history of the US. But we’re also thinking about cultural history of people who find themselves marginal in the U. S. Yeah, so thinking about like the word Kataria I kind of love the word. Uh, I like words. But me too, I think. Yeah. And, you know, I keep thinking about age groups, and, you know, we use these words in very particular ways for our particular age group. And I keep thinking about like, where is this going to be in, like, 10, 15, maybe 20 years from now? Absolutely. Because if we think about, like our parents and our grandparents generations, these are very negative terms to them. If I were to say, you know, I’m not almost buttery, and my mother would like clutch, you know, the Bible or something that would get drunk. I know that doesn’t sound right to say, but I think that kind of dramatic slap to the face by the priest or something would be actually to be seen as totally acceptable If I said I was just going out for simple area with my right, Right, So, you know, and I’m interested, like, you know, how this even in our lifetime these these these phrases, but also these words have taken on different meaning and how they continue to change and evolve. Absolutely. That’s kind of where my my thinking is, I learned I love to learn from my students, and they give me new words and I also think about how they use this. So I’d love to hear from the listeners if these ones have taken any new form that maybe you and I aren’t privy to. Yeah, I mean older. It’s rough. This is a rough moment to realize. Yes, absolutely right this idea particularly, I mean generationally right. We pay attention to our students and even the number of proactively gender nonconforming students who have different pronouns and are very conscious of this identity. I feel like our student body is definitely growing in those distinctions. And so the idea of hot area Maybe that’s too, you know, all of a sudden that has a new negative connotation because it adds an identity that is not selected right? So it doesn’t have it doesn’t do the same work because the world has changed right, and it may do the same work in certain communities, but not not not not the way that we might assume. Let’s say twentysomethings are considering these terms. Um, I think that’s actually really powerful, right, But I think we need to, you know, we’re kind of heading to that place. Well, what do we think? Our takeaway is right. Although we want to give people fantastic vocabulary to use, I want everyone and we’re listening to us to really lean into boot area and hot area and thinking about what does it mean to say no Mama’s? Yeah, we want we’re bringing back, you know, the enthusiasm around expletives, right? We do not have to be ashamed of how creative we can get with words, but I think, um, we really need to understand the complexity of some of these ideas. What do you think? Yeah, I think the complexity and what these words mean in particular context in particular, groups understanding that there is a history to these words, right? And how that history has changed and how it’s going to continue to change, I think are important takeaways for these words. And also I’m not for reclaiming of words, you know, like I think we should also think about that as well and kind of propose that to our listeners, think about how these words can have been reclaimed, are going to probably be reclaimed again or change change. I was gonna say this embracing of change but also like, you know, the way in which language language is a materialization of our world and a materialization of our values. But maybe not in the direct way people think right. The ways in which our communities are changing the ways in which our ideologies are changing. Um, and even if we laugh, when we think about, you know, terms that we associate with something you’re supposed to whisper. But now we’re screaming them out to the world. There’s something to that right? There’s there’s a creative way people are asserting who they are and who they want to be. And I think we really need to start paying attention, right, or we need to be more mindful about how we interpret good language and bad language. Um, but I think, you know, you know, onward to more port area, right? Understanding what this might mean, you know? What does it mean? Uh, all the things that it could mean. So this idea of possibility and potential, I think, is really I think it’s really powerful, So we’re winding down. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners? Belem. Um, as we send them out to self consciously document their their expletives and those they love and the pet names they give their partners that may or may not be g rated. Um, any thoughts? Yeah, I know. I think I am. Good. Maybe we can end with, like, diarrhea. Oh, that sounds good. That’s where we’re going with this. We’re really excited. Everyone stopping to listen with us today. We will see everybody next time. Thanks, pal. Um, yeah. Thanks, Rachel. Hi. All this is Ashley Nav, Um, Otero’s the communications associate. A Latino studies. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. Make sure to check out the Latino studies Instagram page. Follow us at Latino studies, you teak to keep the conversation going.