Assaults on the England language

[Ann Althouse]

I like the title of this thread "Assaults on the England language,"  
which suggests the grammatical argument for why it's wrong to say  
Democrat Party. But if the grammatical point is so strong, why do we  
say "women lawyers"? "Women" isn't an adjective.

Ann

On Jul 21, 2005, at 9:20 AM, Mark Graber wrote:

> I suppose the best solution is that we all use the words we believe  
> best
> convey our meanings, keeping in mind the virtues of civility on this
> list.  Others may challenge our usages, and we then deciding  
> whether to
> accept amendments.
>
> MAG
>
>
>>>> nebraskalawprof at yahoo.com 07/21/05 10:03 AM >>>
>>>>
> I think, as the Court likes to say in EC cases, that purpose matters
> when someone uses Xmas or Xtian instead of Christmas or Christian. Did
> you use the abbreviation merely as a shortcut (if so, did you  
> abbreviate
> lots of other words in your sentence or paragraph), or did you use  
> the X
> because you think the name of Christ is offensive to non-Xtians? Do  
> you
> often use Greek letters to shorten English words? Or is this the only
> one you use?
>
> Frankly, my dears, I don't give a darn about words like Democrat Party
> or Xmas.
>
> But I am offended when the word "Fundamentalist" is used in an  
> effort to
> marginalize a Baptist or a Methodist or an evangelical. And that word
> gets used on this list all the time to describe people, like Jim,  who
> don't self-identify as  "Fundamentalists." Another word that gets  
> tossed
> around in circles like this is "homophobe" to describe reasonable  
> folks
> who merely believe in traditional sexual morality. And, of course,  
> since
> we now have a Supreme Court vacancy, we will see the words "extremist"
> and "outside the mainstream" used to describe reasonable conservatives
> like Roberts and Scalia.
>
> Cheers, Rick Duncan
>
>
>
> Eric Treene <etreene at comcast.net> wrote:
> I recall being taught in Sunday school that early Christians sometimes
> used
> an X to signify Christ, in order to avoid persecution. That, I was  
> told,
> is
> why X-mas is perfectly acceptable. Xtians would seem to be  
> acceptable as
> well.
>
> Indeed, the term Christian originated as a put-down applied to the
> followers
> of Christ (like the term "Christer" used by Madelyn Murry O'Hair and
> sometimes used by others to denigrate Christians today in some
> quarters).
> Christians eventually took on the label. Who knows, perhaps Christer
> will
> come into vogue among Christians. Language is funny that way. 50 years
> from now Democrats may prefer "Democrat party."
>
> Eric Treene
> (in my personal capacity).
> -----Original Message-----
> From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
> [mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu]On Behalf Of Will Linden
> Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 4:32 PM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> Subject: Assaults on the England language
>
>
> At 09:19 AM 7/20/05 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>> I never associated Democrat Party with McCarthy, although I'm not all
>>
> that
>
>> surprised to learn that he originated it. I always associated it with
>> middle school. It is intended to be somehow insulting without really
>> having any discernable meaning and without being very clever
>>
>
> Like "Xtians"?
>
>
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> Rick Duncan
> Welpton Professor of Law
> University of Nebraska College of Law
> Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
>
> "When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either  
> Galahad or
> Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
>
> "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
> numbered."  --The Prisoner
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