[Ads-l] Snowclone: Can a (derog) X get a Y?

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2015 at 2:01 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>> On Apr 18, 2015, at 3:26 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>>
>> My apologies. Obviously "Jew" is not derogatory.
>
> Well, not officially, although it has been viewed as a quasi-epithet in
> need of euphemistic cover in some contexts, as Bolinger and others have
> noted: "he's a Jew" tends to be replaced by "he's Jewish" (which
> inevitably brings up the classic Jonathan Miller line, "I'm not a Jew,
> I'm Jew-ish--I don't go the whole hog.")
[snip!]

This became an issue recently when Rand Paul announced his
presidential bid -- his website offered supporters various custom
avatars to use on social media, including one that said "Jew for
Rand." After some uproar on Twitter, it was revised to read "Jewish
for Rand."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rand-paul-jew-for-rand-twitter

But since all of the other choices are of the form "NOUN for Rand,"
one wonders exactly what it means to be "Jewish for Rand."

--bgz

-- 
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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