Language Arts: Poor

By Nancy Simon

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . " - Emma Lazarus

For as far back as our forefathers' time, we have called people who belonged to a lower economic class "poor."

Poverty - or the state of being "poor" - has been used in reference to everything from a person's financial status (or lack thereof) to their unfortunate lot in life, e.g., "That poor SOB has a nasty wife at home who is what makes him so miserable."

Yet while "poverty" comes across as respectful, the term "poor" conveys a most negative connotation.

And though times have changed and politically correct terms pertaining to everything from race to religion have been placed under a microscope, one may muse that terms used in reference to society's bottom rung have neither been questioned nor adjusted for contemporary times in any conceivable way.

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