The Woman in the Mirror

 

A couple of recent lessons in humility have weighed on my mind for the better part of a week now.  It is my nature to detest making what are normally called faux pas; those lapses in social consciousness that find us saying things that are offensive to another person, group of persons, or classes of persons.

It is mortifying enough when such a misstep is made knowing full well, a nanosecond after the utterance escapes from my mouth, how absolutely inappropriate I have been.  But when the infraction is committed unbeknownst to me,  in the midst of doing what I perceive to be a good deed…well,to my knowledge, that hadn’t happened to me before last week.

How I reached the ripe old age of 67 without knowing the origin of the word I chose to utilize in a good-natured post marking the December 26th birthday of a fellow blogger, I can only guess. 

In the post, I said something about people having birthdays on or around Christmas Day often feel gypped out of attention – and sometimes gifts.  A reader who usually makes delightfully supportive comments on my posts this time just included a link to a web page – nothing else.  The topic of the page had something to do with tolerance.  I couldn’t figure out what it had to do with this birthday announcement, so I shrugged and moved on.

A couple of hours later I received a private message suggesting I replace the word “gypped” with something less offensive.  The writer wrote of living within blocks of a Gypsy King as a kid, and therefore knew how that term was used.

This was one time when only the word gobsmacked would suffice to describe my sudden realization of the origin of the word gypped. 

I have never met a gypsy.  I have never knowingly seen a gypsy, especially one who fits the description I carry in my imagination.  In fact, I now realize that before very recently, I thought gypsies were mythical characters or long-gone memories of times gone by.   

There were no gypsies in my hometown.  When my grandmother threatened to send me off to the gypsies if I didn’t behave, I thought it was just one of her “sayings," of which there were dozens. And the only thing I knew about Gipsy Kings was on the back of the Hotel California cd in the cabinet.

An hour later I had read enough about the history of gypsies to be mortified at my ignorance.  I had only learned of their victimization in the Holocaust in an article posted on Open Salon less than a month ago.  And now I know there are American Gypsies living the “traveler” lifestyle, for which they are famous, throughout the United States.

Three days ago a neighbor and I were chatting outside in the unseasonably warm sunshine.  She and I have known each other for at least a decade and have spent quite a bit of time together at neighborhood gatherings and events.

“Oh, Lezlie, I have something I want to …  You always have an opinion…well, I was about to say you are opinionated, but…I want to run something by you.”

Opinionated.  Now there’s a word that can get my attention.  It certainly did about 20 years or more ago when my boss used the word while giving me a progress review.

Here is Google’s definition:

Adjective:  Conceitedly assertive and dogmatic in one's opinions.

Synonyms: obstinate - headstrong - stubborn - self-willed

There are other definitions I found that aren’t quite as harsh, but I’m going with this one.

In my mind, a person who does not think about issues, who doesn’t have enough curiosity about certain topics to learn about them and form an opinion is not very interesting.  I seem to be curious about virtually everything, which is probably why I spend so much time in my head. 

In a given conversation I will be in one of two positions:  either I will have thought about, read about and talked about the subject before and have a basis for discussion; or, I will not know anything about the subject and will proceed to ask a few pretty incisive questions, many of which can seem to annoy the speaker sometimes.

It is never my intention to come off as a know-it-all; in fact, I try hard not to.  But I fail.  And I am determined to tone down the conceited and dogmatic aspects of my assertions, especially if the person who is evaluating my contributions would agree that obstinate, headstrong, stubborn and self-willed (whatever that means) would also apply to me.

Individual, evaluative words and phrases have as profound an effect on me as the more commonly hated gender and race based pejoratives.  A colleague who was not a fan of mine once told me I was “an inch away from brilliant.”  Some would say that was a rather generous pronouncement coming from a detractor.  Me?  Comically, I worry to this day about that inch!  But the hurt I felt from his telling me we were “oil and water” caused me to cry on the spot and it reverberates from time to time in my memory.  This happened 20 years ago.  I had thought we were friends or at the very least, friendly.

American English is packed with loaded words and expressions that come flying off the lips of well-meaning people who don’t question their meaning or origin.  Just this week I have heard Indian giver, off the reservation, Irish twins, Chinese fire drill, and yes, I used gypped.  I’m going to do better.