gendercide

[Jonathan Lighter]

> . . .because so many of the would-be perpetrators who are weak on their
classical Latin
misinterpret it as the killing of viruses. <

In this case, language ceases to speak the perpetrating elites consistent
with their prelinguistic desires.

JL

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: gendercide
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9:09 AM -0400 10/24/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >On CNN just now: "Did you know that 100,000,000 women and girls in China
> and
> >India are the victims of gendercide?"
> >
> >This came at the end of a segment devoted entirely to the
> >allegedly widdespread practice in Afghanistan of dressing little girls as
> >boys, and encouraging them to "act as boys," so that a family may avoid
> >shame by pretending to strangers that it has at least one son.
> >
> >But that's an Afghan custom.  What about China and India?  I don't know.
> >Not a word was said. But Wikipedia restricts "gendercide" to actual
> killing.
> >It includes "femicide" and "viricide."
>
> The latter being much less prevalent, no doubt because so many of the
> would-be perpetrators who are weak on their classical Latin
> misinterpret it as the killing of viruses.
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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