[Ads-l] "women of cover"

Baker, John JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM
Fri Mar 17 03:49:22 UTC 2017


And Bush also talked about the need for a "crusade," heedless of the word's incendiary connotations in the Islamic world. But I think these were just general cluelessness and not intended to be anti-Muslim rhetoric. 


John Baker



> On Mar 16, 2017, at 7:38 PM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> 
> My inadvertence put "women of cover" in the context of Bush.  I meant it to be a question about the Homeland Security person (despite his not being a T...p supporter.).
> 
> OTOH, when after 911 there was a "national" memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral (designated by the U.S. Congress as the "National House of Prayer"), Pres. Bush permitted the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing "Onward Christian Soldiers", "marching as to war".
> 
> 
> Joel
> 
> 
>      From: "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 5:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "women of cover"
> 
> Not meant to be, I think.  Unlike our current President, the second President Bush used inclusive rhetoric and emphasized that the United States has no quarrel with Islam, whose adherents include millions of American citizens.  I disagreed with him on many things, but not on this.
> 
> Bush's first use was a press conference on October 11, 2001:  "I was struck by this, that in many cities, when Christian and Jewish women learned that Muslim women, women of cover, were afraid of going out of their homes alone, that they went shopping with them, that they showed true friendship and support--an act that shows the world the true nature of America."  
> 
> "Women of cover" was a nominee for most euphemistic WOTY 2001, but lost out to "daisy cutter," the U.S. Air Force's most powerful conventional bomb, by a wide margin.
> 
> 
> John Baker
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel Berson
> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 4:54 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "women of cover"
> 
> And dog-whistle racist?
> 
> Joel
> 
> 
>       From: "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 2:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "women of cover"
>   
> Popularized by President George W. Bush in an October 2001 press conference.  I don't immediately see anything earlier than that.
> 
> 
> John Baker
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of James A. Landau
> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 11:52 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "women of cover"
> 
> This phrase has probably been around for a while, but it is new to me.
> 
> This morning I was at an interfaith meeting, chaired by the senior local iman.  One of the speakers was from Homeland Security (he was definitely NOT a Trump believer) and he gave a talk on what was being done about hate crimes.  In the talk several times he referred to women who for religious reasons kept their heads covered as "women of cover".
> 
> - Jim Landau
> 
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