[Ads-l] "A big academic word"

[Dave Wilton]

There's also the "precariat," the class of people who live in precarity, such as most university professors (i.e., adjuncts) and Uber drivers.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2016 7:29 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] "A big academic word"

Prof. Eddie Glaude, Jr., of Princeton, humorously apologized to Joe and Mika on MSNBC's _Morning Joe_ for using "a big academic word": _precarity_.


After bemused confessions of unfamiliarity, they all began using it.

Nearly a quarter million RGH's.

It means "precariousness" as applied to sociopolitical circumstances.

Evidently "precariousness" isn't good enough or specific enough - or maybe it's too hard to say.

Not in OED.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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