Library vocabulary

[John Dunn]

At the risk of turning this list into the correspondence column of The Daily Telegraph, perhaps I can add my support to what John Langran and Will Ryan have written.  On the British/English issue, I notice that the Russian mass media have become much more punctilious than they used to be, even to the point of hyper-correction, i.e. using britanskij when they really do mean anglijskij (particularly with reference to legal and sporting matters).

John Dunn.

-----Original Message-----
From: William Ryan <wfr at SAS.AC.UK>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:52:47 +0000
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Library vocabulary

How delicately put! Yes, that definitely includes me. When I was a boy 
the word 'Brit' was unknown. Then one began to become aware of it - it 
was used mostly by people, and newspapers, from former parts of the 
British Empire and was definitely disparaging, especially when used by 
Australian cricket commentators. An Egyptian friend, a professor of 
English, once told me that in Egypt it had the force equivalent to that 
of 'wog', as used by uncouth English speakers when referring to people 
of the Middle East, and could be accompanied by spitting. It is used 
much more commonly in the UK now and I agree has probably lost most of 
its pejorative flavour among people below 40-50. It still a colloquial 
form. As an editor I would not allow it except in reported speech.

Will Ryan


John Langran wrote:
> Yes I think "Brits" is disliked mainly by shall we say the over-50 s
> JL
>
>

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John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

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