Most everyone recognises the difference between using words--as when I began this sentence by using 'Everyone'--and mentioning words, as when that word appears the second time in this sentence, enclosed by quotation marks. I use the word 'fat' when I say 'Boris is fat'; I mention the word 'fat' when I say "Keir said 'Boris is fat'".
It might seem persnickety to bring the point up, but this distinction is sometimes important--Frege, Godel and Quine took Russell to task on the distinction--and sometimes it is ethically important. Vitally so. It takes front and centre when the words are slur-words, especially racial ones. To wit:
A BBC journalist used the N-word in a TV news report
By Amy Woodyatt, CNN Business
(Updated 1558 GMT (2358 HKT) July 29, 2020)
As Lamdin described how a healthcare worker was hit by a car, she warned viewers that they were about to hear "highly offensive language." She then said assailants had called the healthcare worker "a n***er."
Bristol-based Social Affairs Correspondent Fiona Lamdin did not use the N-word, as in the headline. She mentioned it. It does not completely erase the slurriness of the word--this is evinced by the practice of writing 'n***er'--but Lamdin should not be charged with using the word, and indeed there is nothing newsworthy in Woodyatt's story, as far as I can see. Especially not when Lamdin issued a warning of the coming mention of the word.
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