autonym

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/8/2009 04:08 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>That probably should read "... how *some* people
>of color refer to themselves."

But Wilson, *all* "people of color" refer to
themselves in *some* way -- just in different
ways for different folks.  :-)  That is what I
meant:  in the future, when I talk (write) about
how  "'people of color' refer, and used to refer,
to themselves", I intend to say that the terms
differ, not only over time but at a single time.

>Was it S. I. Hayakawa who wrote something like (newly-discovered
>"savage" replying to question, "Who are you people?"):
>
>"Who are *we*? Why, *we* are *people!*"? [Tell me, who are *you*?! I
>really wanna know!]

I made an unfortunate verbal slip some years ago
at a World Cup preliminary match between the U.S.
and one of the Central American countries.  Two
men next to me were speaking in a dialect (and
perhaps accent) that apparently used some
"standard" English words -- or at least words I
recognized -- but I couldn't understand any full
sentences.  I said to the one closest "Pardon me
-- may I ask what language you're speaking?", and
he replied, understandably, "English".  I was too
embarrassed to apologize and say that what I had
meant to ask was, "What do you *call* your
language?", the answer to which would have
permitted me to research it and learn a little about it.

Joel


>-Wilson
>­­­
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>-Mark Twain
>
>
>
>
>
>On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 1:05 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: autonym
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 5/8/2009 12:21 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >>AHD 4th edn
> >>http://www.bartleby.com/61/87/A0538750.html
> >>A name by which a people or social group refers to itself.
> >
> > Thanks.  This definition seems useful -- e.g., for talking about how
> > "people of color" refer, and used to refer, to themselves.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
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