"critter"

[Jonathan Lighter]

A glance at HDAS suggests just how common "crispy critter" was among Vietnam
War writers.

IIRC, the cereal appeared around 1964.

JL

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 7:26 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "critter"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
> >
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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