The word "goy", used in an English context, can mean:

  1. "Gentile" - colloquially and innocuously

  2. "Gentile" - as a disparaging slur

(It can also mean "Nation" generically and innocuously in a Hebrew context.)

Given that the disparaging usage is, in fact, found ("matzui") in the wild and is, in fact, offensive, should we censor use of this term in an English context to mean "gentile" on Mi Yodeya, even when it's meant innocuously? I fear that some readers may get the wrong idea about our community, be offended, or feel unwelcome if they see a term in our content that's often used as a slur in the wild, and I think that "gentile" can be substituted with no loss of meaning in virtually all cases.

If you think censorship is appropriate, which of the following should it apply to?

  • Question titles

  • Question and Answer bodies

  • Comments

  • Chat messages

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Do you have any examples currently on the site where the word seems to be used negatively? – Double AA May 23 '12 at 17:17
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@DoubleAA, I have not, to my recollection, seen the disparaging usage on Mi Yodeya. If I saw that, I'd just go ahead and censor it. I'm asking here about usage that's intended innocuously but may be interpreted otherwise. – Isaac Moses May 23 '12 at 17:23
@DoubleAA, I see where my sentence-ordering may have given the wrong impression on that, and I fixed it. – Isaac Moses May 23 '12 at 17:41
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"Censor" is a strong word, but I considered editing the recent self-referential use of the term and taking it as a teaching moment. (Then I got interrupted, and then I saw this post.) – Monica Cellio May 23 '12 at 20:30
@MonicaCellio, I'm using the word "censor" on purpose, to make it clear that I don't take lightly enforcing a restriction on word choice, even when I think it may be necessary. – Isaac Moses May 23 '12 at 20:32
how would that work in context where it actually just means nation? – user1520 May 23 '12 at 21:27
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@asifahnik, how often does someone write goy to mean nation? And why can't he write nation instead? – msh210 May 23 '12 at 22:06
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@asifahnik, that context would be Hebrew, which is easily distinguishable from English. – Isaac Moses May 23 '12 at 22:21
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As a fellow to whom the term applies, I would say I'm not really offended by it, but would prefer to be called a gentile given the choice. And there will always be that guy who will be offended in the extreme. In some contexts, there could be confusion as Mormons have taken the term to apply to non-Mormons. But on this site, that should never be an issue. Is this the right moment to confess I feel uncomfortable (irrationally, I think) using the word Jew? I find myself writing Jewish person or some such. – Jon Ericson May 24 '12 at 0:54
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@JonEricson, I assume that in "there could be confusion as Mormons have taken the term to apply to non-Mormons" you're referring to gentile? Yeah, I agree, that's an unlikely confusion on this site (except possibly in a question specifically about Mormons or Mormonism). (Re Jew, somewhat off-topic of this question, but: You're certainly not the first person I've heard that from, but I'm in no way offended by the term and I suspect the same is true for the vast majority of Jews.) – msh210 May 24 '12 at 19:19
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@msh210: Yes, I'm a gentile from the perspective of both Jews and Mormons. Bizarrely, in some contexts, Mormons consider Jews to be gentiles. – Jon Ericson May 24 '12 at 19:38
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Related: judaism.stackexchange.com/q/8199 – msh210 Jun 22 '12 at 20:38

3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

I agree that, for the reason you mention in the question, users should avoid goy (and goyim and goys) except in transliterated passages. This is true in titles, questions, answers, and comments. (I'm not as concerned about chat messages, which are very ephemeral and mostly for site devotees.) Unless there will be a loss in meaning (e.g., as Jon Ericson mentions in a comment on the question, gentile is ambiguous when discussing Mormonism on a Jewish site) or readability (which can include e.g. cadence), I think it should be changed to gentile or non-Jew. If there will be such a loss, then, since no insult is intended and the word has a common non-pejorative meaning within the Jewish community, I think it can be left as is.

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I think non-Jew is more specific in meaning than either Goy or Gentile, and therefore it should be used. As you can see from the other answers, Goy can also mean nation, and Gentile can also mean non-Mormon, as well as several different things depending on which way you understand the derivation of the word from Latin, Old French, and Middle English.

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personally, I'm often offended by the word "Gentile." Note from the AHD discussion of the word how its reference to non-Jews really develops from its meaning as "noble" and later, to "all from a certain group" thus, it is applied to all who are not Jews as the Jews would not be noble or courteous.


Word History: French not only gave us hundreds of words, it sometimes gave us the same word more than once. A prime example is Old French gentil, “high-born, noble.” In the early 1200s, this was borrowed into Middle English and spelled as gentile, which later developed to mean “having the character of a nobleman, courteous,” and, by the 1500s, “soft, mild.” After some changes in spelling, the result was Modern English gentle. French gentil was borrowed again into English at the end of the 16th century, also in the spelling gentile and meaning “well-bred, belonging to or appropriate to the gentry.” In the ensuing century it came also to mean “courteous, elegant,” and continues to do so today as the word genteel. Since the spelling gentile did not accurately represent the word's French pronunciation, in the 17th century some people wrote it jantee or janty. This word took on a life of its own: while it originally meant “well-bred,” by the 1670s it meant “easy or unconcerned in manner,” and thence “spritely, lively, brisk.” Thus was born jaunty. The French gentil that spawned these words comes from Latin gentīlis, which meant simply “belonging to (the same) gēns or family.” It is from the original Latin meaning that we get the modern word gentile, borrowed in the 14th century (again through French) meaning, essentially, “belonging to the same family as all non-Jews.”


http://www.yourdictionary.com/jaunty


OK, maybe I'm playing devil's advocate, but a word carries with it the baggage that the recipient imports also.

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Cool! I didn't know that. – Double AA Jun 11 '12 at 7:33

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