"politics"

[Jonathan Lighter]

What makes you so sure?

JL




On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 11:38 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "politics"
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> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 1/13/2010 11:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >No need to conjecture on why they should think that, but the word has
> >clearly suffered an extraordinary semantic pejoration.
>
> I suspect (not having read in particular "Chimpanzee Politics", but
> rather other books by de Waal; a 1994 one is called "Chimpanzee
> Cultures") that you will be convinced by him that "politics" is the
> right word to describe behavior such as the alliances that chimps
> form for various purposes.
>
> Joel
>
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