Someone called me, “Honey,” just recently. It was a phone call to a local office that I needed to do some routine business. “Honey,” I thought. I haven’t been called by a pet name in a long time. What is more, I do not know my feminine friend who took license in offering the welcoming gesture. Additionally, I did not take it as a flirtatious opening salvo.
In our nation today, I guess I should have been offended as language is increasingly policed, but I wasn’t. Should I have been? Maybe. Certainly, not a question I can probably explore in just a few paragraphs, but I’ll take a stab at it.
I will leave the bigger answer to the question to sociologists, but from a biblical perspective language does matter i.e., how we greet one another and generally have civil discourse.
In a letter recorded in the bible, the mention of conversation is as follows, “…rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” My guess is, for some, uninvited pet names would fall into the category of “filthy language,” but that is a stretch for me. The other admonitions against rage, malice, and so forth, are noticeably clear.
It seems reasonable to say that inappropriate language is in the ear of the beholder in every case. One person takes little note of undeserved familiarity, a pet name, and another sees the need to voraciously correct the speech. Recently, I, too, used such language in a conversation with a person I knew little and immediately was called out. I obliged but wondered why the offense was so strong. Maybe it was my status as a human being. If an adored celebrity had said what I said to this individual, perhaps the outcome would have been different from condemnation to categorical fawning. I don’t know.
What I do know is that we are called to be long-suffering with one another. To be patient, kind, and forbearing another’s perceived social deficits. A march to legalistic thought and speech policing should be at worst a last resort and at best never employed.
Every person knows when loaded language is at their doorstep. And there are ways in which one can politely utilize etiquette to dispel an offensive utterance. It seems counterintuitive to rush to DEFCON 1 unless we can cast the proverbial first stone with impunity. I certainly cannot.
Additionally, dialogue and social intercourse differ from region to region, state to state, and so forth. If I were somewhere in the deep south, I may worry that I hadn’t been called a pet name.
I guess the point is this: it is worth considering how we speak to one another. Many would agree that the overflow of the heart is realized in language. Maybe it is better to have the right heart first, honey.
Kent Simmons is the pastor of Canyon Community Church in Kingman. He can be reached at kent@canyon-church.com.