curious usage note

[Jonathan Lighter]

About 100 Ghits for...

"sodomette."

JL

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: curious usage note
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
>
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> > 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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