curious usage note
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Mar 30 17:26:35 UTC 2011
At 12:41 PM -0400 3/30/11, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>Isn't the "-ite" suffix normally restricted to tribes (Hittite) and
>followers of people (Trotskyite)?
>
>Jihad is neither.
>
>DanG
Nor is "sodomite", nor "Labo(u)rite".
Then there's the pejorative -er we've discussed (flat-earther,
birther, truther, et al.)--so maybe Jihader. Naaah.
LH
>
>On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 12:33 PM, 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: curious usage note
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 12:25 PM -0400 3/30/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> >_New Oxford American Dictionary_ (2005):
>> >
>> >"Jihadist...There doesn't seem to be a pressing need for this
>> >English-friendly form since the Arabic term for a holy warrior, _mujahid_,
>> >has already made it into English. in the plural forms (_mujahideen,
>> >mujahedin_) along with _jihadi_, a form more in keeping with Arabic
>> >morphology."
>> >
>> >Weird, eh? Like being "English-friendly" could be a drawback, esp.
>> >in contrast with a harder-to-spell-and-remember foreign word like "mujahid
>> "
>> >(my keyboard doesn't want me to include the diacritic over the "a.")
>> >
>> >But what of this?:
>> >
>> >"..._Jihadist_, however, is the preferred form for all writers who are
>> >vehemently anti-Arab or anti-Islam."
>> >
>> >Is this true? Do I even detect sarcasm? Doesn't the note imply that the
>> use
>> >of "jihadist" is an identifying mark of the racist and/or religious bigot?
>> >
>> >On what basis specifically?
>> >
>> >JL
>>
>> Right; I think we (or the bigots among us) ought to stick with
>> traditional suffixal usage and go with "Jihadite"--or, if female,
>> "Jihadette"--rather than adopting the much more neutral-sounding
>> "Jihadist". (Cf. Trotskyite, suffragette, et al.) Unfortunately,
>> "Jihadite" sounds more like an exotic rock or gem, possibly a
>> birthstone.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
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