[Ads-l] "slaves" and "enslaved [persons]" revisited

Christopher Philippo toff at MAC.COM
Sat Apr 16 20:16:16 UTC 2016


On Apr 16, 2016, at 3:08 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> It seemed to me that in some places the substitution would work fairly naturally, in others not so much. 

Aside from that, when it comes to the NYT print edition they’re possibly keeping column inches in mind, and they’re probably not going to do different versions for print and online.  Sixteen characters when five might do for something recurring thirty-five (or whatever) times cuts down a bit on how much information one can convey in the space left.  Even worse on Twitter, of course.

I’ve unfortunately had occasion to type one or the other a lot more often lately due to a statue of a slaver/slaveowner/slaveholder/? being recently put up in the city where I was born.  I’m pretty upset about it happening.  The city’s first African-American mayoral candidate supported the project, bizarrely; he’s not voiced his reasons for doing so.

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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