farmer & peasant

[George Thompson]

The thugs who figure in Alfred Henry Lewis's Apaches of New York used "farmer" frequently as a derogatory term for unsophisticate. (ca. 1910)

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:06 am
Subject: Re: farmer & peasant
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> You can be a peasant without it necessarily being insulting, though it
> usually is now. But boor is definitely something you don't want to be,
> and
> also was originally a farmer. Perhaps at some future date "farmer" itself
> will be an insult and people who grow stuff will be agribusinessmen or
> some
> such, which at some future date will become an insult, etc and so forth.
> DAD
>
> If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
> Joel S. Berson
> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:20 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: farmer & peasant
>
>
>
> At 7/21/2010 04:32 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >As for "farmer" as an insult, there is a perfectly good "peasant" that
> >is used either a denomination of something rustic (e.g., peasant bread)
> >or is, in fact, an insult. AFAIK, there has always been a semantic
> >distinction between "farmer" and "peasant".
>
> If you were English, you were a farmer; if you were French, you were
> a peasant.  (According to the free and independent English.)
>
> Joel
>
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