“Chai Tea” and the Perils of Words

Several times recently, I’ve seen social media users post variations on “You mustn’t say ‘chai tea,’ because chai means tea, so ‘chai tea’ means ‘tea tea.’” These posts aren’t verbatim, so they presumably aren’t copypasta; but they repeat the same message, that “chai tea” is a tautology. I take the poster’s point. But I think this misses something important about how language evolves, and how meaning is something we make, not something that just exists.

Why do we pronounce the name of Notre Dame University, in South Bend, Indiana, differently than the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris? Well obviously, because Notre Dame University is in the United States, while Notre Dame cathedral is in France. The transition between countries, with their different majority languages and historical conventions, means the words change when moving across contexts. When stated that way, the difference seems obvious. But seems is a loaded word.

Continuing the French metaphor, English has several loan words from French. This probably reflects French cultural influence in British and Continental affairs from the Renaissance through the Napoleonic era, and the fact that speaking French has long been considered mannerly. But in reading how these French loan words cross into English, it becomes clear that the words’ meanings change. Language is dynamic, usage creates meaning, and we reinvent language when we imbue words with significance.

In French, un sachet is simply a bag, any bag. Plastic grocery bags, designer handbags, and over-the-shoulder totes are sachets. But the English word bag already exists. Therefore, in making the transition, the word sachet in English morphs into a small ornamental bag, especially one used in displaying scented herbs. Likewise, un bureau is an office desk with drawers, but in English, it becomes an office full of desks, especially a remote or subsidiary office.

When English-speakers say chai, we aren’t speaking Hindi; we aren’t ordering “tea,” because the word tea already exists. Generally, we mean masala chai, a specific way of preparing tea, which only recently came into English-speaking consciousness and has become a fad for its rich texture and intense flavor. If chai simply meant tea, the word would be prolix and unnecessary, or anyway redundant. But by naming masala chai, the word becomes valuable, and therefore survives.

We could stop there. The fact that words, like species, change to fit their ecology, is sufficient. But I see something deeper happening here. When a certain subset of tea connoisseurs demand the Hindi definition persist in English, they’re trying to establish strict linguistic controls and stop meanings from changing. Many of us remember this form of prescriptive grammar from grade school, from teachers upset over split infinitives and the difference between “can” and “may.”

I’ve written before about my students who were terrified to write anything for class because they’d had such extensive, sometimes tyrannical grammar rules drilled into their heads. Language rules, even within the same language, are often contradictory, arbitrary, and driven by personal preference. And they often share a previous supposition that language is in a state of decline. Many classroom language rules intimidate students because they reflect how English was spoken decades, even centuries ago.

It bears stating that I taught in an overwhelmingly White, working-class university, in an overwhelmingly White, working-class state. But the students most intimidated by aggressive grammar enforcement were Black, Hispanic, and poor. In unguarded moments, they speak particular gradations of English reflecting their racial, economic, or provincial backgrounds. But teachers, rule-bound to teach “standard” English, can be particularly harsh, deliberately or otherwise, with students they perceive as belonging to out-groups. The result is tragically imperialist.

And remember, there is no tea commerce, much less tea vocabulary, without European imperialism. Vast swaths of India and China still haven’t fully recovered from English damage during the Opium Wars, conducted specifically to open the tea trade on terms advantageous to White Englanders. Though Britain’s overseas empire has substantially crumbled since World War II, America—or, more accurately, American multinational corporations—have stepped into the role. Americans drink “chai tea” because of ancestral imperialism.

I’d rather not say that American tea connoisseurs demanding chai purity are Orientalist imperialists. Those I’ve known care deeply about Indian history and its postcolonial legacy. But the attempt to freeze language according to past usage, always winds up being about preserving power hierarchies. Whether it’s the hierarchy of imperial conquest, or the hierarchy of tea snobbery, prescriptive grammar is an act of power. And power inevitably burns its users as much as its targets.

Anaïs Mitchell and the Rebirth of Greek Tragedy

Eve Noblezada and Reeve Carney as Eurydice and Orpheus in Hadestown: the Musical

The word “catharsis” enters English from Greek through Aristotle, mostly his book Poetics. Therein, Aristotle uses the word “katharsis” to describe the effect he believes tragic drama has on audiences, raising negative emotions and, by expressing them, leaving them behind in the theater. For the most part, only classics scholars, gastroenterologists, and theatre kids know the word has its origins in medical terminology.

In ancient Greek, “katharsis” meant the removal of harmful substances from the body, especially in large quantities. In Aristotle’s day (and remember, his father was a physician), this might have meant medical leeching or emetics. It also signified heavy menstruation, though Aristotle, a consummate misogynist, probably never considered that. Most likely, he meant a metaphor to powerful laxative drugs and their effects on the gut.

You read that right. By “catharsis,” Aristotle probably meant that large, oft-postponed shit you take and, having taken, find yourself able to think clearly, feel deeply, and judge accurately. Aristotle believed that audiences watching Athenian tragedies, which were religious ceremonies, felt their feelings so intensely that it cleared mental blocks and burdens on the soul. He figured tragedy made audiences take a metaphorical shit, and having shat, emerge spiritually cleansed.

All that is prelude to say: I hope Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell’s musical retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, presages a new generation of artistic tragedy. Many audiences, especially in the provinces, may never see a stage production, because the show’s need for multiple levels and trick floors make it impractical for regional and community theatres. But its recent big-screen distribution has made this play into a legitimate phenomenon.

I won’t recapitulate the plot. Writers from Plato and Virgil, to Rainier Maria Rilke and Sarah Ruhl, have reinvented it for their times, as Mitchell does here. I’m more interested in process and effect. Hadestown has all the Aristotlean characteristics of a successful tragedy: plot, character, theme, language, music, and “spectacle.” And, to judge by the stunned silence among the exiting audience at my showing, it clearly purges the emotions.

This production differs from most theatre in its specificity. Orpheus is still a gifted musician, but no longer a hero, he works despised jobs while seeking his break. Eurydice, beautiful but poor, is no longer snake-bitten; she chooses Hades, because at least there’s work. And Hades (the god and place alike) are now metaphors for carnivorous capitalism, the economic machine that consumes dreams and reduces humans to anonymous parts.

Plato and Aristotle, depicted by Raphael

We, the audience, see ourselves in this Dionysian ecstasy. Not everyone is a poet like Orpheus, surely; but we’ve all known the indignity of accepting work beneath our capabilities because rent is due. Like Eurydice, we’ve known the push-pull between economic necessity and moral integrity. And while we all haven’t been rapacious industrialists like Hades, we’ve all known and worked for someone who, like Hades, is disfigured inside and out.

For years, I insisted I disliked musicals. But recent experiences have shown me that I actually dislike Broadway musicals toned down for production in educational theatres, a theatrical subgenre too many of us know innately. School musicals are perhaps notorious for their thematically neutered structure and precious, virtuoso-driven music. Little could seem further from lived experiences of poverty, inequality, and discordant rhythm.

Mitchell doesn’t blanche to coach audiences to see ourselves in her characters, then hurt the characters. The suffering Eurydice suffers when Orpheus can’t hear her, and she must make a decision alone—why, we’ve all felt that misery when we discover we face life’s violent circumstances, sooner or later, alone. The doubt Orpheus feels, walking out of hell, is doubt we’ve all experienced that our lives are founded on lies.

Finally, Mitchell appends a final scene missing from the ancient sources. Without spoilers, we whether the characters lack free will, and whether they chose their tragedy, or the tragedy was an inevitable outcome. I’ve written before that whether writers and critics see plot or character as more important in storytelling, seemingly depends on whether they believe humans have free will. But we live now in times where such certainty seems quaint.

Hadestown is a tragedy because, like the ancient Athenian tragedies, it isn’t timeless. It uses mythology its audience already knows, but repurposes it for its intended audience. Millennia from now, Mitchell’s references to our real world may seem as abstract as those embedded in Sophocles do to us. But it’s a tragedy, in Aristotle’s sense, specifically because it hits us, the viewers, where we live. We feel because we already do.