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sense and sensitivity

The Boston Globe reconsiders "wifebeater" after a reader questions the term: Krensky's comment prompted in-house discussion about the role of a newspaper in echoing words that - accepted as they may be in pop culture - are rooted in stereotype or born of a misplaced glibness.

As an example, the paper's ombudsman noted that the Globe uses "boom box" for giant personal stereo systems instead of considerably less delicate "ghetto blaster."

"Wifebeater" as slang for a tank-style cotton undershirt entered the language in 1996 and was readily adopted, "raising the concerns of many victims' rights groups that naming a popular article of clothing after an incident of domestic violence desensitizes young people to violence against women. However, many slang experts argue that, far from glamorizing domestic violence, this tongue-in-cheek name mocks the self-conscious machismo of the upper-class teen as he struggles to evoke the blue-collar image of another time and place."

The discussion at the Globe, like so much else in our culture, was sparked by Avril Lavigne.

Comments:

Tank tops! Jeekers, Amy! It's two below here! Don't you know any expressions that mock the self-conscious machismo of wool socks?

-- elavil, 01/21/2003

Those would be... what? Malamute kickers? Walrus punters?

Somehow I don't see it catching on.

-- Phineas, 01/21/2003

I like "wifebeater" about as much as I like "dago tee."

-- Andrew, 01/22/2003

I don't think I've heard "dago tee." Does that refer to the same garment? Although I did read this morning (in Bill Bryson's "Made in America") that "dago" is a shortened form of "Diego" and was originally a slur against Spaniards, not Italians.

-- amyc, 01/22/2003

Yep, same sleeveless white T-shirt. So called because of its perceived popularity among Italian men.

-- Andrew, 01/22/2003