"-free" goes neutral

[Jonathan Lighter]

As I reported a while back, this too seems to be in use as a neutral term.

JL

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 4:49 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "-free" goes neutral
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4:20 PM -0500 2/13/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >"-Free" might have have gone that way a lot earlier, if the Nazi
> >_Judenrein_, roughly, "cleaned, cleared  of Jews," hadn't been given
> >the space-saving and peppier translation, "Jew-free," by some random
> >war-correspondent.
> >
> >-Wilson
>
>
> Brings to mind how Milosevic and friends a while back cast a whole
> new light on "cleansing".
>
> LH
>
> >
> >On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> ><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  Subject:      "-free" goes neutral
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  We've all bought products that promise to get other products
> "stain-free,"
> >>  "odor-free," "germ-free," "gunk-free," etc.  "-Free" implies that
> something
> >>  quite undesirable has been removed.  You are now "free of" that
> obviously
> >>  undesirable thing.
> >>
> >>  Thirty or so ago years ago, a freshman turned in a theme about racism.
> In it
> >>  he used the phrases "Jew-free" and "black-free."  I decided I needed to
> have
> >>  a little chat with the lad.
> >>
> >>  As it turned out - and it was pretty clear from his theme - he had not
> meant
> >>  to imply that being "Jew-" or "black-free" was a good thing. In fact,
> the
> >>  opposite. However, his sense of language was so limited that he had not
> >>  perceived what (I assume) we do, that "-free" means "good riddance."
> >>
> >>  Last night CNN (n.b., not Fox) reported that Patrick Kennedy would not
> seek
> >>  reelection. The panel at the bottom of the screen read "Congress to be
> >>  Kennedy-free."  The anchor explained that his retirement would mean
> "the
> >>  first Kennedy-free Congress in fifty years."
> >>
> >>  Now if we may rise above partisan politics for a moment, I submit that
> CNN
> >>  did not intend to suggest "good riddance" when it spoke of a
> "Kennedy-free
> >>  Congress" any more than that student (now old enough to be some
> journalist's
> >>  father) was a neo-Nazi.
> >>  It meant "a Congress without a Kennedy."
> >>
> >>  Google summons up too many "Kennedy-free" hits to examine, but wherever
> they
> >>  come from, and whatever they mean, CNN must think the affix is
> neutrally
> >>  descriptive.
> >>
> >>  JL
> >>
> >>  --
> >>  "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >-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
> >
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> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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