What's In a Word?

Look what you started, Michael Richards. Well no, actually, you didn't start anything, you just grabbed the elephant lurking in the corner and hauled him onto center stage for his 15 minutes. The astonishing thing is that the consensus among the professors, attorneys, activists, opinion shapers, and pundits who trooped past broadcast journalism's microphones and cameras this week was that the "n" word ought to be banned. Like banning stuff works, right? The way prohibition got rid of the desire for booze. I didn't hear anyone dare to suggest that banning a word would not only fail to solve the problem, it would exacerbate it, driving it underground where it could fester and metastasize. If we want to get rid of a word, let's ban the word "super." In my opinion it's a really dumb word. Or better still, let's ban dumb opinions.