"jew" as adjective and compound nouns vs. adj. + n.?

Wed May 15 20:00:26 UTC 2013

Back in the '70s a student theme mentioned "swim parent."

I was the only one in my office who didn't know what it meant.

JL

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "jew" as adjective and compound nouns vs. adj. + n.?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On May 15, 2013, at 12:20 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>
> > LH writes: "There's no reason to assume that the meaning of a compound
> will
> > be transparent.  "Olive oil" is oil of olives, "baby oil" isn't oil of
> > babies. . . ."
> >
> > Does this mean that "Olive oil" can be taken as transparent, whereas
> "baby
> > oil" isn't?  I'd deny that.  "Olive oil" is transparent only if we assume
> > that the essential aspect of an oil is its source, not its use.  If we
> > assume otherwise, then it's "baby oil" that's transparent -- as it should
> > be.  At least, my babies insisted that their oil should be transparent,
> not
> > murky.
>
> No, my point was that you can't expect nominal AB compounds (a category
> that, I argued, includes "Jew lawyer") to necessarily have the semantics of
> "Jew basher", because there is in fact a wide range of possible meanings
> for nominal compounds besides "a B of A(s)". Cases of A as source or use of
> B are two, but not the only ones. One possible, and frequently attested,
> meaning is "(a) B that is also (an) A", which would extend to "Jew lawyer"
> as well as "nurse midwife", "man friend", "student teacher" and so on.
>  This is why it makes more sense to distinguish adjectives modifiers from
> nominal modifiers grammatically, whence the diagnostics I alluded to below
> (e.g. "the lawyer looks/seems/sounds Jewish"--OK, so adjective; "the lawyer
> looks/seems/sounds Jew"--not OK, so noun).
>
> LH
> >
> > " A "monkey man" is a man who is (also) a monkey. . . ."
> >
> > I've always supposed that a "monkey man" is a man who shouldn't be taken
> > to Chicago, because he will be out of place there.
> >
> > GAT
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 2:42 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrote:
> >
> >> On May 14, 2013, at 12:33 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>
> >>> Is "Jew butcher" a compound
> >>
> >> Yes
> >>> -- "a butcher of Jews"?? -
> >>
> >> no
> >>
> >> There's no reason to assume that the meaning of a compound will be
> >> transparent.  "Olive oil" is oil of olives, "baby oil" isn't oil of
> babies,
> >> or compare "alligator shoes" vs "horseshoes".  A "monkey man" is a man
> who
> >> is (also) a monkey, but a "child psychologist" isn't a psychologist who
> is
> >> also a child.  Judith Levi, Pam Downing, and others have provided
> >> non-exhaustive classifications of compounds by meaning, with such
> >> categories as (from Downing):
> >>
> >>           Whole-part    (duck foot)                            Place
> >>         (Eastern Oregon meal)
> >>           Half-half        (giraffe-cow)                        Source
> >>        (vulture shit)
> >>           Part-whole     (pendulum-clock)                 Product
> >> (honey glands)
> >>           Composition  (stone furniture)                   User
> >>    (flea wheelbarrow)
> >>           Comparison   (pumpkin bus)                      Purpose
> >> (hedge hatchet)
> >>           Time              (summer dust)
>  Occupation
> >>   (coffee man)
> >>
> >> No reason "Jew lawyer" wouldn't be an example of the monkey-man or,
> >> better, nurse-midwife, kind rather than a hedge-clipper kind.  Notice
> that
> >> the "hedge-clipper" or "duck slaughterer" relation seems distinct from
> all
> >> of Downing's categories; as noted, the list is non-exhaustive.  Is
> "nurse"
> >> an adjective in "nurse-midwife"?  Or "child" in the unlikely but
> possible
> >> interpretation of "child psychiatrist"?  This is why I think the
> >> grammatical criteria for adjectival vs. nominal status are more reliable
> >> than meaning-based ones.  And I'm a semanticist.
> >>
> >> Incidentally, I think that's why it's natural to take "Jew lawyer" to be
> >> racist and/or offensive; it plays off the function of nouns as
> >> categorizers/pigeon-holers and thus ideally suited for slurs and
> epithets,
> >> as we've discussed in past threads:
> >>
> >> I'm not a Jew, I'm Jewish.
> >> He's not a deserter, he deserted.
> >> She lost, but that doesn't make her a loser.
> >> Don't call them diabetics, they're persons with diabetes.
> >> etc. etc.  (discussed by Bolinger in _Language--The Loaded Weapon_ and
> >> others since, including in our archives)
> >>
> >> LH
> >>
> >>> - or an adj. +
> >>> noun -- "a Jewish butcher"?  (Compare "Jew-drowning" under C2, which
> >>> I do see as a compound -- it can't be "Jewish drowning".)  Similarly
> >>> for "Jew pedlar", and probably others.  The OED seems either to
> >>> concede or be uncertain -- "C1. General attrib. *or as adj.* That is
> >>> a Jew; *Jewish*."  (Emphasis added.)
> >>>
> >>> Is there a case for separation of the C1.a compounds, for all of
> >>> which it seems that "Jew" acts like an adjective and could be
> >>> replaced by "Jewish", from the C1.b. compounds, where that is not the
> >>> case?  E.g., a "Jew bill" (in C1.b) is not "a Jewish bill", but
> >>> rather "a bill 'Of or relating to Jews.' "
> >>>
> >>> But if Larry is right, how then would one make the OED more
> >>> user-friendly?  If sophisticated dictionary users like myself and
> >>> George don't think to look for adjectival uses of nouns under (the
> >>> late-appearing) "Compounds", -- and especially when a "Quick search"
> >>> doesn't turn up any entries with "adj." characterizing them, just
> >>> "n." and "v." -- what about the ordinary yahoo?
> >>>
> >>> Joel
> >>>
> >>> At 5/14/2013 11:52 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >>>> I would defend the label.  These are indeed, I would argue, nominal
> >>>> compounds rather than adjective + noun phrases.  "Jew" in such cases
> >>>> doesn't pass the diagnostics for adjective-hood:
> >>>>
> >>>> That lawyer seems {Jewish/*Jew}.
> >>>> Despite Brendan's proselytizing, Moises remained {Jewish/*Jew}.
> >>>> It's very kosher/Jewish/*Jew
> >>>>
> >>>> etc.
> >>>>
> >>>> LH
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On May 14, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> George, look way down under "Jew, n." for "Compounds" -- C1 is
> >>>>> "General attrib. or as adj."  I've missed this disguised and low (on
> >>>>> the page) artifice of the OED before, for this and other nouns.  I
> >>>>> think the heading in such cases should be "n. and adj.".
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Joel
> >>>>>
> >>>>> At 5/14/2013 10:37 AM, George Thompson wrote:
> >>>>>> Seems strange, but such is the case, if the on-line OED doesn't
> >>>> mislead me.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>           JEW BEEF. -- The subscribers offer their services to
> >> merchants
> >>>>>> who are in the habit of trading to the West Indies, that in order to
> >>>>>> complete a well assorted cargo for those markets, it will prove to
> >> be an
> >>>>>> acquisition to apply to them for the above article; they are in 5 or
> >> 10
> >>>>>> gallon kegs.  ***  Levy & Lyons, 26, White-hall street. N. B.
> >> Regular
> >>>>>> certificates will be given.
> >>>>>>           Mercantile Advertiser, November 1, 1804, p. 2, col. 2
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> HDAS and Jonathon Green's dictionary have "jew" as a disparaging
> >>>> adjective,
> >>>>>> which isn't the case here.  Their examples are generally in the form
> >> of "a
> >>>>>> Jew xyz" which translates into "a Jew who is an xyz" -- a Jew
> lawyer,
> >>>>>> perhaps.  Here, it meant "kosher", and the ad was placed by a Jewish
> >> firm.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> GAT
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> George A. Thompson
> >>>>>> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
> >> Northwestern
> >>>>>> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then
> >>>>>>
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> >>>>>
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> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
> >
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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