Joe Bidens Obama moment...

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:06 PM -0500 2/7/07, William Salmon wrote:
>I think part of the hubbub over Biden's "clean" comment might be related
>to the fact that he has made others that could be interpreted as
>insensitive, such as the Indian-American/Dunkin Donuts comment:
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIT3jUrNTX0
>

Very nice clip.  Surprised he didn't attempt to
imitate the accent of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon,
proprietor of the Springfield, DE Kwik-E-Mart.

LH

>
>Quoting Brenda Lester <alphatwin2002 at YAHOO.COM>:
>
>>I'm from Georgia, and a common compliment there is, "He looks good,
>>smells good." That means he "cleans up real good," which is also a
>>compliment. These are regional expressions, and southern people know
>>that.  I'm sure Biden did not mean clean, as in not dirty. A better
>>word would be polished or refined.  And this "white way"--what
>>happened to standard English? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a very
>>eloquent, articulate speaker. I never heard any debate on his
>>speeches being white-speak.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Dennis Baron <debaron at UIUC.EDU> wrote:
>>  There's a new post on the Web of Language --
>>
>>Joe Biden’s Obama moment, or, I love it when you talk white to me.
>>When Joe Biden characterized Barack Obama to the New York Observer as
>>“the first mainstream African-American who is articulate,” he
>>revealed the kind of linguistic prejudice that too often passes for
>>acceptable in white America. Biden made this remark about his Senate
>>colleague in an interview in which he disparaged his other rivals for
>>the Democratic presidential nomination as having a position on Iraq
>>that is “nothing but disaster” (Hillary Clinton) and not knowing
>>“what the heck he’s talking about” (John Edwards). Calling Obama
>>well-spoken as well as “bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”
>>didn’t seem so bad in comparison. But it was the Obama moment, not
>>the other insults, that threatened to derail Biden’s candidacy,
>>because it revealed an insensitivity both subtler and in some ways
>>more pernicious than Virginia Senator George Allen’s use of macaca,
>>an overt slur which contributed to Allen’s defeat in the last
>>election. ... Sen. Biden and many other mainstream Americans all too
>>frequently assume as well that the right way is the white way....
>>
>>Read the rest at the Web of Language
>>
>>
>>
>>DB
>>
>>
>>Dennis Baron
>>Professor of English and Linguistics
>>Department of English
>>University of Illinois
>>608 S. Wright St.
>>Urbana, IL 61801
>>
>>office: 217-244-0568
>>fax: 217-333-4321
>>
>>www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron
>>
>>read the Web of Language:
>>www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------
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>>
>
>
>
>~Will Salmon
>
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>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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