curious usage note

[Paul Johnston]

Although "New Jerseyan" is officially the designation for those from the Garden State, I have heard and most often use the term "Jerseyite", which falls in neither of these categories.

And darn those Arabic "broken plurals"!

Paul Johnston
On Mar 30, 2011, at 12:41 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: curious usage note
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Isn't the "-ite" suffix normally restricted to tribes (Hittite) and
> followers of people (Trotskyite)?
>
> Jihad is neither.
>
> DanG
>
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 12:33 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: 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
>>
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