#innominate

I think I wanna give posting my art here a go.

'Common' is still used in English as a rarified insult. That's not a good thing. I’d rather it be completely tossed in the dump.

Nothing gets up my craw more than the sound of someone describing a person they despise as 'common'.  Of course, we've adapted that insult to more charming words (not), like 'Mundanes' (which...hallmarks you for reading Piers Anthony's Fantamisogyny (1), or Muggles and Mudbloods (2)--I hate 'em all because isolationist language is the opposite purpose of diversity and inclusion. 

(1) For you MUCH younger readers, Piers Anthony's XANTH books were all about people with magic vs. those without (Mundanes). It thrived as a smiling, condescending insult in the cultural wars between Group A: people who loved fantasy and science fiction, and Group B: the people who didn't 'get' Group A and called them weird children.  Much later, the majority of us grew up and realized:

Being mean doesn't make you a better person, or even wiser.

Piers Anthony can't write anything without explaining yet again how desirable it is to have grossly underage, dumb, promiscuous females.

Dumb people aren't interesting, no matter how many powers and square inches of naked subservience you give them

Sigmund Freud, what have you done?

2) Muggle as defined via my old enemy, Wikipedia:

a person who is a member of the non-magical community, Muggles are simply ordinary human beings without any magical abilities and almost always with no awareness of the existence of magic.

We could go ON and ON about how Jerk Rowling crafted the word to be a ‘more cuddly’ version of foolish;(*) someone who is born separated from her ‘real’ world of wizardry and magic; someone who is stupid and subpar, but my skin isn’t that thick today.** The point is, this is a modern way of smilingly calling someone ‘retarded’ and getting away with it.

‘Mudblood’ is even worse, but at least it strips the fake smile off the sharp teeth lurking behind the word.

Sir Terry Pratchett was one of the writers aware of the separatist creches in science fiction and fantasy, and that is one of the reasons why he liked to expose it. He did it with Nobby Nobbs, a man so common, he had to carry around a medical certificate that vouchsafed his own humanity.

Sam Vimes, who hated everyone unilaterally enough to be an expert on hatred, points this out in very plain language to an aristocratic vampire who values people in terms of their social standing:

“You see, I don’t think he’s got noble blood in him. Nobby’s as common as muck. It’s one of his better points.” (Feet of Clay)

Sir Terry put it out even plainer in his first Watch novel, Guards! Guards!

It always amazed Vimes how Nobby got along with practically everyone. It must, he’d decided, have something to do with the common denominator. in the entire world of mathematics there could be no denominator as common as Nobby.

So how did it all happen? The long and short of it is, ‘common’ was used to separate from humanity, the people who had no titles to their identity. They are the common man; commoners.

In blunter terms, common people are innominate. That means ‘unclassified’. 

Not named.

How we developed it as a derogatory, separatist insult...well, that’s all on us. 

And it is up to us to stop every now and then, and look hard at the words we use when we are angry at someone. Because the words are a symptom of the underlying thinking--Hillary Clinton’s Deplorables. Trump’s ‘these idiots’. A wedge designed to push yourself away (perhaps protectively) from a population target. Only when it is too late do we realize we’ve slapped shut the door in the wall that connects us.

______________

*) https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/98873/etymology-of-muggles

That’s always a good day. And eyebrows. If your eyeliner and eyebrows behave- that is a pretty good sign. Haha. Good eye make-up can always help throw off others when you are having a crappy day, so no one is the wiser!