Ethnic identity conflict metaphor

victor steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Sat Jul 5 05:05:25 UTC 2014


This is likely nothing new to most people here, but the combination of
"mafia" and "diaspora" in the same sentence makes for an interesting
backstory:

http://goo.gl/23YmEV
> The "PayPal Mafia" is no mafia at all. It's a diaspora.
> "Basically, we were kicked out of our homeland and they burned down our
temple. So, we were scattered to the four corners of the globe, and we had
to make new homes."
> That's how David Sacks, former COO of PayPal and current CEO of Yammer,
described it. The ominous "they" in this story is eBay, and eBay is is
partly responsible for both the success of PayPal and why the founders
walked away from it.

Both "mafia" and "diaspora" have lost their ethnic identification a long
time ago, but it still makes for an interesting contrast.

VS-)

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



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