man+(noun) combin ing form

[Laurence Horn]

>In a message dated 10/2/05 10:58:56 PM, JJJRLandau at AOL.COM writes:
>
>
>>
>>  My recollection is that in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1950's and 1960's,
>>  the term "colored man" did NOT mean "an African-American male" but rather
>>  had
>>  the more specific meaning "an African-American male employed in a white
>>  household" or even more specifically "an African-American male employed in
>>  a  white
>>  household as a semi-skilled artisan, such as a handyman or  gardener."
>>  Similarly "colored woman" had the specific meaning "an  African-American
>>  cleaning
>>  woman".   However (NAACP please note)  "colored people" did indeed mean
>>  "African-Americans in general".
>>
>
>Couldn't a distinction made on the basis of stress? i.e.,
>
>colored MAN = African-American servant

Not sure about this; *my* intuition is different.  "I'll have my
colored man do it", "Where's the colored man?", and so on would still
seem to have the forestress.  (I hear this with non-rhotic
pronunciation, no doubt from old movies:  "CULluhd man".)

Larry

>COLORED man = African-American male
>
>That would seem intuitively right to me.