Afghan(i)

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:58 PM -0400 10/16/01, Mark Mandel wrote:
>Apropos of Barry's restaurant-surfing and other comments, AHD3 says
>"afghani" is a unit of currency. Is there any justification for
>capitalizing it and using it as the adjective/inhabitant? I've used it
>myself, but now I'm dubious.
>
>What does it do that "Afghan" doesn't? It seems to be formed by a careless
>analogy to "Pakistani", where the root before "-istan", whatever its
>origins, is not an ethnonym.
>
There was also a nice (although saddening) reference in today's Times
(E5) to a one-woman stand-up show ("Rebel Without a Pause") by the
mononymic "comedian and performance artist" Reno in which she
describes being awakened on 9/11 in her apartment 8 blocks from the
WTC by a friend who tried in vain to convince her that the
neighborhood was under terrorist attack, and after finally realizing
it was true, going outside to find TriBeCa "transformed into
TriBeCaStan".  I suppose there are a number of TriBeCaStani
restaurants and art galleries that have since reopened.

larry