“Massacre” and its Bon Usage

Abstract: Violence can produce crises in language, reducing victims to silence or, more generally, compromising words’ capacity to signify correctly. This article examines the 1967 efforts of a Belgian grammarian, Maurice Grevisse, to repair the word “massacre” in aftermath of the Holocaust and the violence of decolonization. Grevisse stands as perhaps the most influential specialist of the French-language in the twentieth century, authoring multiple editions of a key grammar reference. He took these skills to the word “massacre,” interrogating the word’s proper use in the mid twentieth century. The article surveys Grevisse’s findings, and then it uses them to reflect on current mass violence, particularly that inflicted on Palestinians and the crises of language it has provoked.