Opinion |

Chicken wings, nachos and a helping of word salad

Today’s Super Bowl matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs is expected to draw 100 million viewers. I’ll be watching too, all the while dreaming about next season’s possibilities.

As readers of this column know, I’m a loyal Green Bay Packers fan.

Undoubtedly, there will be some talk today about Tom Brady, who retired from the NFL on Feb. 1. Brady, who quarterbacked two teams in 23 seasons, was a five-time Super Bowl MVP. It’s just one of his “first all-time” records: wins (251), Pro Bowls (15), pass completions (7,753), pass attempts (12,050), passing yards (89,214), passing touchdowns (649). ESPN posted a list of Brady’s achievements — 35 in all.

It’s no hyperbole to consider Brady among the game’s greatest players. And he may be one of the greatest athletes in American sports history. But is he the “GOAT”?

GOAT is an acronym for “Greatest of All Time.” According to Grammarphobia.com, the word was first used in this context in 1992. It was associated with Muhammad Ali, called “The Greatest.” Ali’s wife, Lonnie, incorporated G.O.A.T. Inc. to license his intellectual properties for commercial purposes.

NFL analyst and sportswriter Cian Fahey has argued that use of the term GOAT in team sports lacks nuance. He calculated that quarterbacks account for just 10 percent of the outcome of any given game, given the amount of time they are on the field (and the 21 other players on the field at the same time).

Further, Fahey noted, quarterbacks don’t play many games, even over a long career. The best basketball players, by comparison, play 82 games in a single regular season and are on the court 75 percent of the time.  

On Tuesday, L.A. Lakers player LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record, which held for 38 years. James has scored 38,390 points and is expected to play another two years, at least. Needless to say, he’s getting a lot of GOAT accolades from basketball fans.

It’s not just the term GOAT: I would argue that labels, in general, lack nuance. For some reason, our society has grown particularly fond of them. Yet, at the same time, we’ve gone out of our way to complicate our speech.

I understand why: We want to be more inclusive. And while I agree it’s important to be thoughtful about our word choices and to avoid dehumanizing other people, it’s created a sort of word salad.

Take the term BIPOC, for example, which stands for Black, Indigenous and People of Color. Admittedly, I am none of these, but it feels like lazy shorthand: Are we saying there are White people and everyone else?

New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about this recently. He shared the results of a national poll that found just 18 percent of people have a favorable view of the term BIPOC — twice as many White people as non-White people. Two-thirds of respondents had never heard the term.

Kristof expressed concern that the inclusive language campaign has gone too far, saying it seems more performative than substantive — a substitute for real action that “bewilders and alienates millions of Americans.” And from a practical perspective, Kristof wrote, problems are easier to solve when we use clear, incisive language.

There may be a movement afoot to restore linguistic sanity. Last month, Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced the cancellation of the “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative,” an attempt by a committee of IT leaders at the school to ban 161 common words and phrases. As New York Times opinion writer Pamela Paul described it, the policy sorted words into categories of transgression including “person-first,” “institutionalized racism” and “imprecise language.” Among the words: webmaster, tribe, brown bag lunch.

I don’t know if GOAT found its way to the Stanford list, but it was No. 1 on the Lake Superior State University 2023 Banished Words List for being imprecise, trite and meaningless.

Following a fall event on the topic of religious intolerance, hosted by the National Conflict Resolution Center, San Diego civic leader and sage Malin Burnham told me that the word “hate” was used at least 30 times. To Burnham, it’s become a crutch that’s gotten in the way of real understanding.

After we talked, I sent a note to Lake Superior State suggesting the addition of “hate” to their banished words list, but never got a reply. Now I’m glad I didn’t, because the word is sadly descriptive. My real complaint is that it’s become all too common. 

When game time rolls around this afternoon, I’ll be loading a plate with chicken wings, nachos and plenty of chips. As for the word salad, I think I’ll pass.

Dinkin is president of the National Conflict Resolution Center, a San Diego-based group working to create solutions to challenging issues, including intolerance and incivility. To learn about NCRC’s programming, visit ncrconline.com