I don't normally like naming books if I criticize one small part of them

[conuly]

but in this case it's pretty much unavoidable due to the subject matter, so I'll just tell you: the book is called Confessions of a Teenage Leper. Eva brought it home from the library, and I read it as I cooked dinner.

It may be the case that most or all people with Hansen's Disease hate the term "leper" and prefer not to be called that. I'm more than happy to oblige! And while the protagonist can get away with it due to also having the disease, the readers of this book need to be told the preferred usage.

But that doesn't make me thrilled to suddenly see a paean to Person First Language in the middle of this book, one which was then reiterated in the afterword. Instead of "put the person first!" nonsense I would have told our main character, when she complained that it doesn't matter which word you use, that the terms "leper" and, to a lesser extent, "leprosy" have been tied down with so much stigma and figurative baggage that it's basically impossible to use them in a literal, non-pejorative sense and that, also, whether she understood it or not it wasn't a very good idea to go around saying rude and offensive things when you know other people can't stand it.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

Does the author have it? Cause there's a big difference between the author and the protag.

[conuly]

I don't know.

[workday_dreamer]

Long, didactic tracts in the middle of books can be cute when they show that an author cares about something a lot. They also tend to stop the plot dead in its tracks and can come across as forced within the context of the story.

[conuly]

In this book it was well-placed. I just disagree with the moral. Person first language is not all that.

[workday_dreamer]

Ah. That I can understand.

[moon_custafer]

Where was the book written? It’s my impression that views on person-first language vary by geography (I seem to recall at least one comment-thread fight breaking out on this topic between US and UK autists).

[conuly]

It's set in America - specifically Texas and Louisiana - but the author appears to be Canadian and I noticed several slightly "off" patterns to people's speech that I assume are Canadianisms. (On glaring example is that American students do not "write" exams any more than they "sit" them. In America, one "takes" a test, quiz, or exam, and although regionalisms do vary it still sounds more natural to say "finals" than "final exams" in that context.)

[cloudsinvenice]

Looking at the synopsis, the other thing that bothers me is that it gives the impression that it's one of those stories where the character wasn't very nice to begin with, so the illness functions in their life as a Lesson For Bad People (funny how often these things are vengefully inflicted by authors on Bad Girls in particular), which just reinforces the health = morality concept that is so drilled into people in society already...

[conuly]

She wasn't, like, a total epic mean girl, but yeah.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

But isn't it what a teenager is likely to call it?

[conuly]

I don't know, actually. It's such a rare condition in the West that if you say "I was diagnosed with Hansen's Disease and suffered permanent nerve damage" it's likely nobody will ever make the connection to leprosy until they google it. And given the huge stigma that still surrounds the condition, even in the West, they might want to avoid using terms that increase stigma.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Person-first language is perfectly appropriate when one is talking about a person who has a disease. "Person with cancer", "person with MS", "person with Hansen's Disease" - in all such instances, the person would be the same person without the disease, only not sick.

Person-first language is inappropriate when one is talking about an intrinsic aspect of identity. "Black person", "gay person", "deaf person", "autistic person" - in all such instances, the person would not be the same person without that aspect. (I include deaf in there because many in the Deaf community would have it so, even though I don't actually agree. I'm not deaf, so I don't get to define them.)