My colleague, the columnist John McWhorter, a trained linguist, noted in a recent essay that the catchphrase was an American instance of a euphemistic language practice known in South Africa as hlonipha, in which an innocuous word or phrase is substituted for an utterance that may give offense. “Let’s Go, Brandon!” also functions as “in-group salute” for Republicans, Mr. McWhorter wrote.That seemed not to sit very well with Mr. Brown. “I don’t want it to just be the substitute for a cuss-word,” he said. Then he reconsidered his position: “I mean, if it’s making it more polite, then, by God, I guess, go ahead,” he said.Part of his problem is that he faces a microcosm of what NASCAR is navigating. The car racing association’s “challenge is to appeal to a new audience without aliena …
