Re: Racism


John Atkinson wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...

Brian M. Scott wrote:
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

Not any more. As soon as a word has been widely taken into
curse use, it becomes virtually impossible to use it in
any other way, except perhaps in limited circles, such
as scholars who can really agree on using such a word as
a term.

While it has certainly started down that road, I don't agree
that 'racist' has reached that point. 'Fascist', yes;
'racist', no.

"Fascist" has been rescued from the brink of meaningless opprobrium
(which seems to be what Jukka means by "curse") by the Bush
administration, which has largely embraced fascism in the classic
Mussolini sense of interpenetration of business and government.

Surely it's the Bush administration and/or its supporters who have given
the word another shove in the direction of that brink, by christening
its opponents "islamo-fascists"?

Indeed. There's that too. But that is strictly in Jukka's sense.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Racism
    ... which has largely embraced fascism in the classic ... Mussolini sense of interpenetration of business and government. ... Thank you for this illustrating example of curse use of "fascist". ... want to bash Bush, and you use whatever verbal weapons lie around. ...
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  • Re: Racism
    ... that has no denotation; ... (which seems to be what Jukka means by "curse") ... which has largely embraced fascism in the classic ... The Bush administration uses the word "fascist" in a non-derogatory way to ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Racism
    ... (which seems to be what Jukka means by "curse") ... which has largely embraced fascism in the classic ... Mussolini sense of interpenetration of business and government. ... The Bush administration uses the word "fascist" in a non-derogatory way to ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Racism
    ... which has largely embraced fascism in the classic ... want to bash Bush, and you use whatever verbal weapons lie around. ... Actually "fascist" lost its denotation in the 1940s at the latest, when the Soviet communists started using it as a curse word for their opponents including Nazi Germany, Finland, etc. ... Jukka K. Korpela ...
    (sci.lang)