"-free" goes neutral

[Jonathan Lighter]

All true. So why does the extension to humans seems so striking if and in
some cases troubling?

Or does it just mean I'm...I'm...I'm a _liberal_?

JL

On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 4:34 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <
bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "-free" goes neutral
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 2:51 PM, Seán Fitzpatrick
> <grendel.jjf at verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > "Value-free".
>
> And then of course there's "context-free (grammar, language, etc.)",
> in use in linguistics since the '50s. Not to mention "content-free":
>
> http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/C/content-free.html
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jonathan Lighter [mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
> > Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 12:18 PM
> > 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.
> >
>
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