chink in the armor

Victor Steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Aug 2 05:23:24 UTC 2013


"You people"?

My point is that this is an expression that is used precisely in this
context (to the point of becoming cliche). So, the language must change
in response to the ethnic identity of one of the subjects of the news
story? Even though the two homophones are unrelated in origin? More to
the point, without any actual evidence of malintent, is there any reason
for the association to make a stink? It's really weak tea IMO.

We've had flare-ups over bogus etymology of "handicapped" and
"niggardly", among others. I'm not in favor of that list growing.

     VS-)


On 8/1/2013 11:51 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 3:54 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I see no reason to suspect any untoward intent.
> You people never do. After all, since the use of the word, innocent or
> not, never has any reference whatever to you,
>
> I'm not going to bother to complete this.
>
> --
> -Wilson

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list