OK, let me elaborate, because on second thought, the above is not really a good enough answer.
This is not how things work in the world. People don’t start interpreting a word in a certain way, instantaneously.
Jews and Arabs may technically both be Semitic peoples but their cultures are very different. The fact that they believe in different religions, for example, is one huge thing that sets them apart from each other. The fact that they have been fighting each other for half a century, is another.
Lumping them together into one group in a MODERN DAY term is absurd. The term “Semitic” is appropriate to use to describe both Jews and Arabs when you’re talking about the ancient world - but now, in this day and age, as has been pointed out so many times, the word’s meaning has changed.
I’m just curious why you care so much, Terrifel. I’ve explained why it’s important to us; why is it imporatnt to you? Do you truly believe that the fact that there isn’t a specific word for the hatred of Arabs (or blacks, or Asians, or Polynesians) makes people feel entitled to hate them more?
Personally, it’s only [del]important[/del] interesting to me in an academic way. I’m trying to raise my child with an interest, and dare I say, a love, for language. This is necessarily going to involve her continually acquiring knowledge of word origins.
Okay, “antisemite” will always only refer to Jews, but the Semitic peoples will always include Arabs, as well.
Unless. . . we can rewrite Genesis, and give Noah another son, who was the real ancestor of Ishmael!
It’s “important” to me because I got my nuts crushed earlier for citing a Wikipedia factoid, is all. I was trying to figure out why it’s important to anyone. It’s just not obvious to me, the outsider.
I’m embarrassed to recall that I also bitched at you needlessly in that Forgotten Realms thread the other day, so you know that it’s not just the etymology of ‘antisemitism’ that I’m obstructively sarcastic about. Again, I owe you an apology. I will endeavor not to make a habit of it.
Argent Towers: thanks also for the sustained attempt to explain the matter. I can’t say that it’s any clearer to me, but the effort is appreciated nonetheless. You may well have been right in your earlier post: there are nuances here that I just don’t “get.”
I don’t like nasty flakes (just Wheat Chex for me, no sugar–I shit like a dump truck), but I’ll heartily second this part word-for-word.
Why? If someone happens to get off on something that’s a little weird, but you’re enough of an asshole to completely write him off because you don’t like his porn, I’ll side with the “sicko” if I have to choose.
It doesn’t matter. Modern usage of the words “antisemitism” and “antisemitic” clearly refer to Jews and Jews alone, whether they’re semites or not. Drilling a hole into the etymology and fucking it senseless will get you nothing but a cabal of angry Jews and linguists. What, do you return your mayonnaise if you’re not satisfied that it was made in Mayo, France? Technically, the word “mayonnaise” only applies to thinks that originate in Mayo.
I’m pulling your word-nerd card. Do you have any understanding of what the purpose of descriptive linguistics, or even of language in general, is? Why don’t you tell me, in a short paragraph or less, why you think we need a generally agreed-upon language and what purpose it serves? Have you taken a linguistics class? Read a textbook on it?
People are bigoted against smokers? As in, even when they’re not smoking, and not as a reaction to a genuine difference (‘gah, man, you stink like smoke’)? Is this any different from being ‘bigoted’ against people who park on your lawn?
So tell me, are Arabs Semitic or not? I’m not advocating the use of the word to refer to Arabs, as I noted in the post you quoted. Overreact much? I can’t be a word-nerd without having had classes in formal linguistics? Who died and made you the gatekeeper to language?
Irrelevant. I’m not a genealogist or a biologist, anyway. What does “antisemitic” mean, and why? Do you return mayonnaise when you are not convinced that it came from Mayo, France? Are you bothered by the fact that mayonnaise made in America is not called “americannaise”? Does it register at all?
Jesus, get a grip. I have a minor and admittedly silly little quibble with the difference between the meanings of a word’s components and the meaning of the word taken as a whole, a quibble that I’m not even defending on a daily basis and haven’t even considered important enough to mention to anyone ever except as a two-bit soundbite in a silly message board thread, and you want to give me the 3rd degree? Fuck you. Seriously. I don’t have to defend anything to you. Go jump off a cliff onto a 16" ice blue jelly dildo. That’s my answer to you.
Gender bias – especially against females – is so ingrained that it’s not even being seriously discussed here. That’s because it is truly socially acceptable even among females.
Did you have a date last weekend to see a movie? Were most of the characters men or women? Look at the movies that are in the theaters in any given week. Are they primarily about males or females?
Look at the 2008 Conventions. Are they primarily about males or females?
You could free the world of prejudice against Jews and Arabs, but half of them would still live the second class lives of many women.
Hollywood plots tend to be male-centric. Japanese shoji (girl) manga (comics) is female centric and shonen (boy) manga often has strong female characters. Heck, in harem comedy, the male center tends towards blandness while the plot tends to drift towards the female characters.
Yet American females tend to have fewer glass ceilings than Japanese females, or so I understand.
I think I got it. I see from the dictionary that a bigot is, “…a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.” Yet people sometimes say that the racist David Duke is a bigot, when actually he’s very tolerant of other opinions. And there’s nothing in that definition about race.
People call Ted Bundy a serial killer – nothing could be further from the truth. Serial means, “Of, forming, or arranged in a series” – since when did Bundy put his victims in any sort of pattern? He didn’t form or arrange anything - it was all random and happenstance. “Sequential killer” might be another matter.
Some may say that I’m obtuse and a total dick, but I actually just have a fondness for the English language.
Then again, what about the way the courts treat men when there is a family breakdown? I’ve worked hard, forty hours a week for over twenty years, but I live in a rented one-room apartment. I’ve helped two women buy free-standing homes in this city. And cars. And I can’t see my son. And I’m on a trumped up violence order.
The separated dad is the new unspoken victim. Just saying, is all.
