Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)


Ekkehard Dengler wrote:

> There can be no doubt that Franz used the English term without meaning any
> harm. The reason why he wasn't aware of its pejorative connotations is that
> he considers the related German term to be perfectly innocuous. Loanwords
> will change or retain their meaning independently of the respective source
> words.
>
> In short, you aren't "sending up" the concept of political correctness,
> you're applying it to a language you clearly don't know very well.
>
> Regards,
> Ekkehard

Why is mongologid offensive in English? because it links
an innocent white victim of that syndrome with the inferiour
Mongolian sub-race? is the rejection of a neutral term based
on racism? And if Down had racial intentions, would it be
politcially correct to hold his name in politically correct lingo?
or shouldn't one better say: "someone affected with a syndrome
named for a physician who may perhaps have been affected with
the syndrome of racism and should therefore not be mentioned
anymore but you know what I mean." Please replace every
mention of the Down syndrome by those lines. And Peter T.
Daniels did not anwer my question about the use of invalid
in America. Is a young man who is sent to war, defends
the freedom of the Western World, returns home traumatized,
mutilated or crippled, called invalid - worthless - over there?
Would that be politically correct?

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

.

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