The Tyranny of the Proper Noun

When I was growing up in Ireland during the times of the low-level civil war in Northern Ireland, I remember the ambivalence that I always felt when the announcement of the death of a person was made on the radio on television. If the person was described as a Catholic there was always the sense that the person was totally innocent and a random victim of Protestant terror. Similarly when the person was a Protestant, there was a sense that this individual was less than innocent and culpable to some degree in his death. It occurred to me that the presence of the proper noun in the description of the victim brought the prejudice of the listener to the fore. The death of a person on my side, however spurious an association, was a greater tragedy than the death of someone on the other side.

The public announcement of the death of a person is modified by the inclusion of the proper noun. This modifies the event in the mind of the observer. Their natural, however slight, handenness means their interpretation of the event moves to that direction.

Try removing the proper noun and describing the events in terms of the uncoloured facts when you next read or hear about a death in such circumstances.

Remove the proper nouns from a sentence such as “A 17-year-old Palestinian youth was shot dead by Israeli troops in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank today.” so it becomes “A 17-year-old youth was shot dead by troops in a refugee camp today.” How does this change your perception of the event?