still more on -er

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:39 PM -0500 11/22/09, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>In a message dated 11/22/09 8:14:11 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>
>>  "Christer" is interesting, since of course it does correspond to the
>>  generalization, as do "Quaker", "Shaker", and "Holy Roller, all of
>>  which at least originated as pejoratives.
>>
>
>CHRIST is a noun, the others are verbs. NEW DEAL and (arguably) AARP and
>ACLU are ideological positions.
>
>But these three counterexamples aside

They're not counterexamples to the claim that the process in question
applies to ideological (political and/or religious) movements (or
creeds), and I'm not sure your nomination of Hell's Angels or biking
really fit, without procrustean stretching.

New Dealer does, and it would be interesting to see if the first uses
there were negatively intended (applied by anti-FDR forces, as
opposed to Democrats, unionists, or whoever proudly announcing "I'm a
New Dealer").  I don't characterize AARP as an ideology.  ACLU might
be; if it were salient enough and the phonology worked a bit better,
I can imagine Fox newscasters referring to certain politicians as
"ACLUers".  In fact there are references to "card-carrying ACLUers"
on the web; they seem either pejoratives or (far more rarely)
instances of reclamation.  So more grist for the mill, rather than
any sort of counterexample.

LH

>, if Larry's rule is just that -er is
>pejorative when applied to nouns that characterize political or religous
>convictions, then--again--(1) they are grammatically anomalous and hence more
>likely to be interpretable as ironic/sarcastic and (2) people are perjnaps
>more likely to make up odd names for things they don't approve of than things
>they do.
>
>And is it really true that Hell's Angels are not a social movement and that
>being a true Biker (whether pedalled or motored) is not a religion for the
>devoted?
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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