[Ads-l] sexist "crazy"

[Jonathan Lighter]

A related development:

Ted Cruz has called Donald Trump "petty" and "small" for his brainless
attack on Mrs. Cruz.  He also said that Trump's nomination would be "a gift
wrapped in a pink little ribbon for the Democratic party."

In discussing these remarks, MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace (who used to work for
George W. Bush) asserted that there were "Lots of [gender-]coded words in
here: 'small,' 'petty,' 'pink.'"

Since the Democrat Trump would supposedly be the biggest "gift" to would be
Hillary Clinton, "pink" might be described as "coded" for gender, though
I'm not sure why that would be significant in this case.

What is more interesting, however, is how on earth "small" and "petty" are
"coded words" for anything, particularly when directed at Donald Trump.

JL




On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 3:15 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: sexist "crazy"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > On Mar 24, 2016, at 11:52 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> >=20
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: sexist "crazy"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> >=20
> > Hey, Arnold, a terminological question: what's wrong with "restrictive"
> a=
> nd
> > "nonrestrictive"?
>
> the terminology is traditional, and it's not evil, but people tend to have
> =
> trouble using it appropriately. so some people in the syntax business have
> =
> proposed other terminology.
>
> arnold
>
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