associate, adj. and n.

[Dan Goncharoff]

About a month ago I noticed the employees at Bloomingdale's were using a
door labeled "Associates Entrance".

DanG


On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 10:46 AM, paul johnson <paulzjoh at mtnhome.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       paul johnson <paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM>
> Subject:      Re: associate, adj. and n.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Paul Johnson
> And the Wal Mart associates are among the untouchables of the associate
> caste
>
> On 6/8/2012 9:13 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > At 6/8/2012 02:27 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >> I was on the T today and spotted someone with a hospital ID that read
> >> "ICU Patient Care Associate". And I thought, "That's a nice euphemism."
> >> Then it occurred to me that "associate" is one of the more common
> >> current business euphemisms. It replaces "clerk", "secretary",
> >> "orderly", "front man", etc. If you go to a car dealership for an oil
> >> change, you're greeted by a "service associate". You want your bed pan
> >> changed in a hospital, you call a "patient care associate". You want to
> >> archive you paperwork from the latest transaction, you call the filing
> >> associate. If you agree to something from a telemarketing call, you are
> >> transferred to the caller's "associate" to take down your formal
> >> information (the only case among the rest where the position may not be
> >> hierarchical--merely different duties). And if you want to mail
> >> something from your office building, you give it to the mail-room
> >> associate. This does not even include the associates in law firms. Then,
> >> there is the adjectival version. If you're not a full professor, you
> >> can't get tenure unless you've achieved the associate professor status
> >> (that is, assistant professors are sub-par, in some gradation scheme).
> >> If you work for a publisher, but not in charge of much of anything,
> >> you're an associate book editor--and you report to the book editor. If
> >> you do. on-site estimation work for an insurance company, but are not
> >> authorized to sign the paperwork, you're an associate adjustor.
> >>
> >> I can keep going, but one thing all these uses of "associate" in either
> >> noun or adjective version have in common is that they all represent
> >> subordinate positions--they are clearly inferior to other positions that
> >> come without the "associate" tag.
> >
> > Victor, I see "associate" as a term intended to convey a higher
> > status than some other position/term -- e.g., a "mailroom associate"
> > is more prestigious than a "mailroom clerk".  I agree that the
> > "associate" positions are inferior to other positions -- but so is
> > everyone inferior to someone else, except the head man/woman.  And I
> > wonder how frequently the "associate" is attached to the term X for
> > some position so that it becomes "X associate", clearly inferior to a
> > just plain X.  That is, X morphs into Y -- e.g., "nurse" (or perhaps
> > "orderly") into "patient care (associate)".  So the position may be
> > the same, have the same duties, but it sounds more prestigious.
> >
> > In the case of an "associate" professor, that position is actually,
> > as you note, *superior* to another position, the "assistant" professor.
> >
> > So perhaps the sense one wants in a dictionary is the *pretension*
> > rather than the inferiority.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >> The "patient care associates" are
> >> subordinate to nurses. The law firm associates are subordinate to
> >> partners. And I've already mentioned the other ones. In the past,
> >> "associate" meant a position that is sideways, so to speak, from your
> >> own. Now it means sideways and downward.
> >>
> >> Nothing of the sort can be found in the OED. All the definitions
> >> there--and there is only one article that includes both adj. and n.--are
> >> more collegial positions than subordinate ones. Law firm associate does
> >> not merit a separate entry--which is to say, it does not have one at
> >> all.
> >>
> >> Associate, adj. and n.
> >>> A. adj. = associated, adj.
> >>> 1. Joined in companionship, function, or dignity.
> >>> 2. Joined in league, allied, confederate.
> >>> 3. United in the same group or category, allied; concomitant.
> >>>
> >>> B. n. [the adj. used absolutely.]
> >>> 1. One who is united to another by community of interest, and shares
> >>> with him in enterprise, business, or action; a partner, comrade,
> >>> companion.
> >>> 2. A companion in arms, ally, confederate.
> >>> 3. One who shares an office or position of authority with another; a
> >>> colleague, coadjutor. spec. An officer of the Superior Courts of
> >>> Common Law in England, 'whose duties are to superintend the entering
> >>> of causes, to attend sittings at nisi prius, and there receive and
> >>> enter verdicts,' etc. (Warton.)
> >>> 4. One who is frequently in company with another, on terms of social
> >>> equality and intimacy; an intimate acquaintance, companion, mate.
> >>> 5. One who belongs to an association or institution in a subordinate
> >>> degree of membership, without the honours and privileges of a full
> >>> member or 'Fellow.'
> >>> 6. A thing placed or found in conjunction with another.
> >>> 7. /Psychol/. An idea, or other mental content, connected with another
> >>> by any of the forms of association.
> >>
> >> All of these suggestion something in partnership, companionship,
> >> intimacy, confederacy, conjunction. Not one suggests any kind of
> >> hierarchical relationship or clerical position. This is not surprising,
> >> as only two of the entries A.1. and B.7. have any examples past
> >> 1880--and both are coincidentally from 1931.
> >>
> >> VS-)
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> --
> "I wouldn't be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org