curious usage note

[Jonathan Lighter]

>I suspect, this might have been true only a few months ago--perhaps
one needs to go as far back as mid-2009.
But what's the evidence that it ever was true?  Furthermore, the note seems
to me to be unusually condemnatory.

Yet the word is not labeled "offensive."  MW online defines the word without
comment. Ditto OED (parent of NOAD) with n./adj. cites back to 1967, none of
which appears markedly disdainful or dismissive to me, or used in a vehement
"anti-Arab" or "anti-Islam" [sic: shouldn't it be "anti-Muslim"?] context.

Surely anglicization itself is not now seen as racist or bigoted. Is it?

JL

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 4:29 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: curious usage note
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I suspect, this might have been true only a few months ago--perhaps
> one needs to go as far back as mid-2009. But with the election season
> approaching in 2010, "jihadist" was also being used on the *Left*
> (along with "teahadist") to represent aggressive and often religious
> right-wing activists. This had led to such superficially paradoxical
> phrases as "anti-mosque jihadists", so, in at least some instances,
> there must have been a degree of irony added to the term. The term
> remains to be popular with anti-Islam and anti-Arab activists,
> however, so IMO the description is still largely--but no longer
> exclusively--true. More importantly, FNC and other right-wing talking
> heads have also adopted the term for other groups they don't like,
> e.g., animal-rights activists, opponents of particular platform goals
> or people (e.g., "anti-Walker jihadists"). The transfer appears to
> have dual purpose--it lumps all sorts of opposition groups under one
> catch-all term /and/, at the same lime, tags them as radical-Islam
> fellow-travelers. I will look for specific instances in print, but my
> observations have largely been made from TV and radio.
>
> Some samples (I decided to find a few before sending):
>
> http://goo.gl/JFG6m
> Fiscal Jihadist, Free Spending Republicans Punked the Tea Party
> [01.22.11]
>
> http://goo.gl/QdXOD
> Texas Senate Honors Stealth Jihadist
> [02.15.11]
>
> http://goo.gl/Ly554
> American Taxpayer, Financial Jihadist
> [08.14.10]
>
> http://goo.gl/IzHLK
> American Taliban — The Republican Party Looks More Jihadist by the Day
> [02.05.10]  [note adjectival usage]
>
> http://goo.gl/z6d4n
> Jerkoff Jihadist Christine O’Donnell Beats Off Challenger Mike Castle
> to Win Delaware Senate GOP Nomination
> [09.14.10]
>
>
> Note that the last two are clearly aimed /at/
> conservatives/Tea-partiers/Republicans, the first is somewhat
> ambiguous (at least from the headline) and the rest are all written
> from the right-wing perspective. While this is not entirely
> representative of the distribution, it does reflect the range fairly
> accurately.
> VS-)
>
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 12:25 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> > 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?
>
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