[Ads-l] banana (UNCLASSIFIED)

Mark Mandel markamandel at GMAIL.COM
Thu Oct 31 03:33:55 UTC 2019


As Lawrence said:

>More offensive for people than for inanimate objects.

MAM


On Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:04 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> How about "oriental rug"?
>
> Or is it saved by lower case?
>
> ISTR that "Oriental" was being condemned in the early '70s, when I was in
> college.  It was around the time of "banana."
>
> In any case, Edward Said's _Orientalism_ (1978) was the biggest nail in the
> coffin and lexical re-orientation was de rigueur.
>
>  For people with degrees anyhow.
>
>
>

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list