WOTY Candidate

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Jan 2 16:59:28 UTC 2007


At 8:49 AM -0800 1/2/07, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On Jan 2, 2007, at 7:53 AM, Dave Wilton wrote:
>
>>I didn't see this on Grant's or Wayne's lists, but a word that I think
>>should be seriously considered is "macaca."
>>
>>... Not sure that it's a good fit for any of the usual sub-
>>categories. Possibly
>>most euphemistic.
>
>euphemistic?  on the obscure side, but it still means '[kind of]
>monkey'.
>
>>Least likely to succeed is also possible as I don't think
>>it will retain currency except as a historical reference.
>
>that seems very likely to me.  it had its (very significant) moment,
>but i can't see people having a use for it aside from reference to
>that moment.  has anyone recorded uses of "macaca oneself" or "be
>macacaed" meaning 'condemn oneself out of one's own mouth' or
>something similar?
>
>arnold
>
I can imagine referring to other public figures as having a "macaca
moment", which adds an attractive alliteration...

LH

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list