What's in a Name?

Happy Administrative Assistant's Day! They used to be called secretaries but that became imbued with negativity and the solution was, as is typically the case, to change the name.

And in this case I think it works. Why? Because it is has a lot of syllables in it! The way to throw off the critics from heaping scorn your way is to make sure your tag is polysyllabic. For example, how many people are going to take the time to say, "Damn Administrative Assistant forgot to make that call!". Much easier to mutter, "damn secretary forgot to make that call". The "-ary" ending is also less impressive than the "-ant" ending. (Cary without the Grant would've been far less successful).

Perhaps this was part of the thinking behind the term "African-Americans". The word "colored" was perfectly fine until bigots began to tinge it with negativity. "Blacks" apparently suffered a similar fate, although its symmetry with "whites" would imply equality. It's too easy to curse blacks but takes too much time and energy for the bigot to say, "African-Americans are blah-blah-blah".

I'm not sure my theory is correct though. "Flight attendents" has the same number of syllables as "stewardesses". Perhaps that change was made because "stewardesses" sounds too feminine.