Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)

Franz Gnaedinger wrote:
>
> 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?

No, because it links an East Asian "race" to a mental deficiency.

> 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?

The "intention" of the namer was to point out that Down Syndrome people
have eyes that look "Mongoloid."

> 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?

/'inv@lid/ and /in'v&lid/ are not the same word.

The question must have been more then ten lines after the start -- where
Franz typically begins wandering.

They're usually called "disabled veterans"; a memorial/monument is in
planning for Washington, DC.

Is Franz deliberately bating me by using my full name at every mention?
Or is he to be excused as before on the basis of faulty understanding of
English, despite years of observing interaction at this newsgroup, if
nowhere else?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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