18 September 2015
Trigger warnings have been a focus of some rather highly charged discussion at universities across North America lately. A trigger warning is a notice posted at the beginning of material, such as that depicting rape or violence, that may act as a catalyst or trigger for those suffering post-traumatic stress, so that they can mentally prepare themselves to view the material or to avoid it altogether. In the university context, there have been a number of student requests that professors provide trigger warnings for any such material that the students will encounter during their course work. The debate is over whether or not such warnings are warranted or appropriate in the university environment, and if so, how and when they should be delivered and for what types of material.
Putting aside the argument (which is actually less about the warnings per se and more a proxy and rallying flag for familiar progressive and conservative positions in a more general political debate), where and when did the term trigger warning arise?
The earliest use of trigger warning that I can find is in an online discussion group from June 2006 and recorded in a master’s thesis on self-destructive discourses the following year. In it, a woman wrote about her desire to harm herself in a post titled “trigger warning.” Note that this instance is not about triggering material, but about a call for help, a warning that she might, either metaphorically or literally, pull the trigger.
In April 2008 the Gannett News Service published an article that used the term, but in a confused manner that shows the reporter and editors were not completely familiar with it:
By law, Bush is required to submit such legislation because Medicare trustees have pulled a “trigger” warning for two consecutive years. The trigger gets pulled when Medicare trustees predict that the government will eventually have to use general revenue to pay for at least 45 percent of the program.
Again, this is a warning that someone will or needs to take an action, not a marker of potentially damaging material. The word trigger is in quotation marks, a standard indication of a usage that editors believe will be unfamiliar to readers, but only the word trigger, and not the phrase trigger warning, is so marked. The verb pull is also noteworthy, as one commonly pulls a trigger, but one does not idiomatically pull a warning.
The earliest use I have found of trigger warning in now familiar sense appears a few months later, in a June 2008 letter to the editor of the Toronto Star:
However, next time you publish an article with content that could be extremely upsetting and disturbing to readers, you should post a “trigger warning” so that readers can avoid having a major adverse emotional reaction.
So the term appears and develops between 2006–08. Earlier citations may well be found, but it given how the citations I have found show the term under development, significant antedatings are unlikely.
The term comes, of course, from the trigger of a gun or other device. The OED records this use of trigger from 1621, appearing in Gervase Markham’s Hungers Prevention, or the Whole Arte of Fowling by Water and Land:
Hard by this loope [of the net] shall there be fastened [...] a little broad thin trycker, made sharpe and equall at both ends.
The word is from the Dutch trekker, and is applied to firearms by 1622. The verb to trigger appears much later, in place by 1930, and is usually metaphorical and not referring to a literal lever or device.
Sources:
Kim, Eun Kyung. “Panic Over Medicare Funding Not Necessary, Lawmaker Says.” Gannett News Service, 8 Apr 2008.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s. v. trigger, n.1, trigger, v.
Seko, Yukari. Online Suicidal Murmers: Analyzing Self-Destructive Discourses in the Blogosphere. Master’s thesis, York University, Toronto. June 2007. 101.
Smullen, Simone. “During War, It Seems, Life Is Cheap” [Letter]. Toronto Star, 17 Jun 2008. AA.7.