"icon"

[Jonathan Lighter]

In today's version, it's "_slain_ Civil Rights icon Emmett Till."  Usually
the phrase you hear is "slain Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King,"
but since Till wasn't a "leader," the only alternative in media Inglish is
"icon."

It would take too long - apparently - to tell millennials-on-brain-support
just who Emmett Till  was. You know, "a young black teenager kidnaped,
beaten, and murdered by white racists in 1955."

"Civil Rights icon" is just cooler.

JL


On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 1:42 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "icon"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 7:42 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Honestly, I don't think "martyr" or "idol" has anything to do with it.
>
>
> *Especially* not in the case cited. Victim? Yes. "Icon"?! No!
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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