Systematic Racism in Dictionaries: The Case of the Dutch

Systematic Racism in Dictionaries: The Case of the Dutch1 Beatrix Visser 't Hooft As if to reiterate Johnson's famous definition of the lexicographer as "a harmless drudge" (quoted in Kramarae and Treichler 1992), makers ofdictionaries like to assert that they are echoes and mirrors of society. Such irresponsible, pseudo-objective descriptivism holds that the job of a lexicographer is merely to record meanings and usages where and how they occur. In reality, lexicographers are gatekeepers and code controllers of a patriarchal, sexist, ableist, ageist, elitist, exclusivist , and racist society. Nor is prescriptivism, the alternative most often posed, more satisfactory: the prescriptivist believes that a dictionary 's selections and definitions should promote "correct" usage — thus perpetuating the hierarchizing legacy and androcentric values of the white male hegemony. The biases by means of which dictionaries do society's dirty work are no better illustrated than in the treatment of Dutch and related compounds. At first glance, the use of Dutch as noun and adjective appears to be unexceptional, a simple geographic or linguistic designation. By linguistic sleight of hand our gaze is directed to the Netherlands or to the West Germanic language chiefly spoken there, thus masking an ostensibly subsidiary range of connotations and denotations that in fact constructs the main burden of definition and usage. To show how this happens in the case of Dutch, a decoding and deconstruction of phallocentric objectivity and privileged authority is required, a way around marginalizing stereotypes and intertextual defamation. Such reckoning must account for absence as well as presence; in this connection it 'This article appeared first, in a different form, in Gravitas 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1996), 53-55. 204Miscellany is highly revealing that even the most negative, demeaning, or insulting definition is not accompanied by a standard usage label such as "derogatory," "pejorative," or "offensive." Although all the words and compounds discussed in this paper are racist, other prejudicial categories overlap. Ableism (the unwarranted assumption that there is a universal standard of physical and mental normality), ageism (discrimination based on age — see Sontag 1977, Rowe 1982, and Blackhouse 1984), and sexism (prejudice based on gender) are also prevalent. Next to racism, sexism is the most common category. Phallocentrism, genderization, or "manglish"2 prevails, and the woman-centered, matriarchal , or matrilineal are summarily dismissed. Dictionaries are rife with Dutchman or its compounds, e.g., Dutchman's-breeches, Dutchman'spipe , etc. Only the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1992 (AHD) and the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1993 (NSOED) bother to define Dutchwoman. (See Table.) Semantic reversal When lexicographers vilify the Dutch, and by implication or extension other groups, they characteristically deploy a strategy of semantic reversal in which an apparent compliment is to be construed as an insult, and the positive is to be decoded as the negative. Thus Dutch feast, Dutch comfort, Dutch treat, and Dutch courage, discussed later in more detail, are to be interpreted as antonyms of themselves. A brief survey of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable 1989 (BDPF) provides a mini-catalog of full or partial reversals. A Dutch concert is " [a] great noise and uproar, like that made by a party of drunken Dutchmen, some singing, others quarrelling, speechifying, etc."; Dutch gold is an easily tarnished alloy of copper and zinc; Dutch nightingahs are frogs; and Dutch talent represents "more brawn than brain." One exception to the rule of semantic reversal occurs in the case of Dutchman itself. In slang usages, we find semantic simultaneity in which cause and (improvised, stopgap) cure are combined. Hence the Random House Historical Dictionary ofAmerican Slang 1994 (HDAS) 2The word was coined by Varda One (1970-71). Kramarae and Treichler's Amazons, Bluestockings and Crones is an initiative to produce a feminist dictionary . See also Daly 1978, Vetterling-Braggin 1981, and Miller and Swift 1976. Cixous 1975 has eloquendy argued for the impregnability of l'écriturefeminine, 'women's writing' (echoed by Atwood 1982). Miscellany 205 Table STEREOTYPING OF DUTCH AND ITS COMPUNDS Ableist Ageist Racist Sexist double dutch dutch Dutch Dutch act Dutch auction Dutch bargain Dutch blessing Dutch by injection Dutch cap Dutch cheese Dutch comfort Dutch concert Dutch courage Dutch cupboard Dutch disease Dutch door Dutch...