On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 23:17:23 GMT, "Cereus-validus" wrote:

It is amazing how such a topic reveals who are the bigoted racists among us
and the clueless sycophants that empower them.

A truly enlightened individual would have admitted that such racist plant
names are offensive, vow never to use them again and enlighten other not to
use them.


So, I'm assuming that you insist that people not use the word "cretin" to describe an idiot because
it is an insult to people from Crete, not use "vandal" to describe someone who damages property
because it might offend descendants of the Vandal people?

I can with one hundered percent honesty say that I have never in my life heard the word "kaffir"
before I read it on this group in this thread. But you say that I am a racist and a bigot because I
refuse to be offended by the word?



http://www.bartleby.com/68/98/2298.html

Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

ETYMOLOGICAL FALLACY


This is the name of a much-practiced folly that insists that what a word “really means” is whatever
it once meant long ago, perhaps even in another language. A classic example is the argument that the
adjective dilapidated should be applied only to deteriorating structures made of stone, because its
ultimate source was the Latin lapis, meaning “stone.” Actually, the Latin dilapidare meant “to throw
away, to scatter, as if scattering stones,” and the infinitive lapidare meant “to throw stones.” And
in any case dilapidated no longer has anything to do with stones in American English; today it means
“broken down, fallen into decay or disrepair,” and it can be applied to any object, garment, or
structure, whatever it is made of.




http://www.clovisnews.com/trails/words_mean.html

March 5, 2001
Words Mean Things
And What They Don't.
By Jesse Shieldlower
CLOVIS -- It's official. The University of North Dakota will be featured on ESPN's "Outside the
Lines" investigative sports-news program this Sunday. At issue is the Fighting Sioux nickname
controversy.
A few day ago State lawmakers in Idaho rejected a proposal to change place names that include
the word "squaw," which some Native Americans believe to be an insult deriving from a vulgarism for
female genitalia.
Other states have faced similar challenges; in 1998, for example, Arizona rejected a proposal
to rename that state's Squaw Peak, while Gov. Angus King of Maine signed a bill last year to ban the
word from two dozen place names.
Some dictionaries do label squaw as offensive, but that reflects its derogatory usage, not its
derivation. In fact, linguists agree that the etymological meaning of the word, a borrowing from the
Massachusett language, is simply "woman," with no insulting implications.
The link to genitalia was promulgated, with no evidence, in a 1973 polemic, and circulated
broadly after being mentioned in a 1992 episode of "Oprah." But for those trying to squelch the use
of "squaw," it probably wouldn't matter if the word really did have a vulgar background.
English has a variety of words that are used freely despite etymologies that might give users
pause. The verb "gyp," for example, comes from "Gypsy," members of which people (who prefer to be
known as Roma) were stereotyped as swindlers. "Poppycock," which seems like the sort of quaint
expression a character in a Norman Rockwell painting might use, derives from a Dutch word meaning
"soft excrement."
The juvenile insult "dork" is from a slang term for the penis, as are the Yiddish-derived
terms "schmuck" and "putz." The military "snafu" is an acronym often euphemized as "situation
normal, all fouled up."
In general, only when someone gets upset are these stealth offensive terms noticed. Thus the
outrage in the 1998 New York Senate race when Alfonse M. D'Amato called his opponent, a Jew, a
"putzhead." (The insulted party, Charles E. Schumer, won.)
Conversely, words whose actual origins are truly inoffensive can get the cold shoulder if they
sound like words that are viewed as offensive. The tendency to avoid such words has been described
by the Yale linguist Larry Horn as a variant of Gresham's Law (bad money driving out good), in which
an offensive word drives out an inoffensive word that sounds like it — verbal guilt by association.
Thus in 1999 a Connecticut schoolteacher was reprimanded for employing the saying "When you
`assume,' you make an `ass' of `u' and `me,' " though this "ass" is the word for "donkey," used for
500 years (including by Shakespeare and in the King James Bible) as an insulting term for a person,
and unrelated to the identically spelled word for the buttocks.
Most prominently, in 1999, a white mayoral aide in Washington was forced to resign after using
the word "niggardly" — a Middle English-derived word for stingy — in a conversation with a black
official who thought it was related to the racist term it sounds like.
Some words also fall prey to what linguists refer to as the "etymological fallacy," the belief
that a word's history has a strong bearing on how it is, or should be, used. Some purists criticize
the use of "decimate" to mean "destroy" or "seriously harm," on the grounds that the only proper
meaning is "to kill or destroy 1 in 10 of," a sense that has never been used apart from a direct
reference to the ancient Roman custom from which it derives.
These examples have very little to do with the way English is actually used. Most words change
their meanings over time without bothering anyone, so we don't now care that "boy" originally meant
"servant" (of either sex) or "nice" meant "ignorant, foolish" or that "prestige" meant "a
deception."
Sometimes even when the meaning of a word doesn't shift, its offensiveness can change
dramatically. The words "Tory" and "Whig" entered the language as highly opprobrious slurs, but were
later adopted by the parties to which they referred.
More recently, we have seen a variety of disparaging terms adopted with pride, from "fag" and
"dyke" by homosexuals, to "crone" and "hag" by members of some neo-pagan groups.
Guidelines for words' usage are determined not by their history (real or imagined), but by
someone who cares one way or the other having the power to convince an audience. Groups that have —
or gain — political power can have an influence on what they are called.
It's no coincidence that it was in 1967, with the civil rights movement growing, that the
United States Board on Geographic Names changed "******" to "Negro" in 143 American place names.
People continue to use "squaw" in place names because the concerns of Native Americans have
not been taken as seriously (which is also why "Redskins" and "Braves" are still used as the names
of professional sports teams), not because the word is or is not a vulgarism.
"Gyp" is in wide use for the same reason, while the similar expression "to jew down" is widely
shunned; the people of Wales haven't yet had much success arguing against the use of "welsh" meaning
"renege," which in any case is etymologically unconnected to "Welsh."
A word's "real meaning" according to its etymology may not match the "real meaning" of its
context and usage. And in matters of taste, it is the usage — the way that we and the words we speak
every day exist in the world — that is always the deciding factor.