Let’s Know better: Articulate

This week, a man called me “the articulate one”; I was the only woman currently in the room and had spent the last hour pushing back on the wild assumptions of older white men. I don’t embody the social strata markers most affected by this term, so I don’t suspect it came laden with the baggage I’m about to unpack–but that setting and my muted-though-stunned reaction suggests this is another one of those words we should think twice about using.

So let’s get to know better.

Here’s the thing: this word is usually offered up as a probably-genuine compliment by well-intentioned people who haven’t examined the semantics too closely. I’ve been one myself, probably, before I really started wallowing in the cultural muck that informs our daily language usage. Dude this week was pretty transparently trying to compliment me on my comments during our meeting. And.

The problem: this compliment is fundamentally founded on the shared assumption that it’s an exception rather than a rule: you’re articulate for a younger woman, you’re articulate for your color, you’re articulate and I didn’t expect you to be. To groups used to hearing those unspoken parts out loud, your “compliment” is going to carry an awful lot of baggage because it makes broad assumptions about their background and capacity. And closely related go-tos like “well-spoken” and “you don’t sound black/foreign/southern/poor!” just make the pile even stinkier.

Sometimes that filthy baggage is hanging on a line for everyone to see, like when our current president called our first black president “articulate” and “clean” while making a grossly wrong historical assumption. More often, it’s carefully tidied away in a box labeled “I was just trying to be nice”. Regardless of transparency, a real compliment needs to be framed without the subtext of exceptionalism–or an accompanying microaggression that undercuts positive intent.

Here are some alternatives to consider when you want to compliment someone’s eloquence:

• That was really thoughtful!
• Well-put!
• I think that was a well-crafted argument
• Do you offer classes on public speaking?
• You made an interesting point about [specific thing they said that impacted you]; I’ll have to think more about that

Or my favorite, from another man at the end of that meeting: “I know you didn’t have to, but I saw you stepping out there more than once, and I appreciate it. Please come back.”