"critter"

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 27, 2011, at 7:18 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>> There is one instance in which a race-restrictive sense is superficially
>> apparent: _"These critters an't like white folks …."_, but I have the
>> impression that the word itself is still nonspecific here.
>
> Even if it could be shown that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the cited
> instance was meant as a racist slur against the innocent colored, how
> could that possibly be in the way of demonstrating that, as used
> TODAY, the word _critter_ is a "racist" slur?
>
> Well, if _moist_ can be made into an obscenity merely as the
> consequence of The Man's deciding that it is

I thought the complaints came from The Woman, or some of them.

> , what can prevent
> _critter_ from in like manner being made into a "racist" slur, e.g. "a
> derogatory term used in the United States by Americans of European
> ancestry in spite or in contempt of the American Negro."
>
> To paraphrase Pryor, "Is that 'lexicographic' enough for your ass?"
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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