Re: Unamerican

----- Original Message -----
From: "nicole perrin" <nicole.eap@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: Unamerican


> AcadonBot wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Christophe Grandsire" <Christophe.Grandsire@...>
> > To: <CONLANG@...>
> > Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 12:55 AM
> > Subject: Re: Unamerican
> >
> > > There is no idea of "un-French" in French (*infrançais is juste
> > > meaningless). <clip>
> >
> > It's my impression that this word (unAmerican) is generally
> > misunderstood outside the US context. (Not that it has much
> > consistent use within.)
> >
> > The compounding involved (un- + nationality) does not IMO
> > define the word, and does not mean that there should be similarly
> > formed words elsewhere.  <snip>
>
> I think it's important to realize here that *people* are rarely (at
> least in my experience) referred to as unamerican.  In the above
> example, it would be relatively common to say that the KKK was
> unamerican, but less common to say that a particular person in the KKK
> was unamerican (probably because that would imply that s/he was a
> foreigner).  The most common example, of course, of unamerican-ness, is
> communism, coming from the House Unamerican Activities Committee.  Even
> in the name of that committee, *activities* are what are considered
> unamerican, not people.  Perhaps that's where the misunderstanding that
> foreigners seem to have comes from, the fact that we use the term to
> apply to things and they assume it to apply to people?     Nicole
Yes, good point. It is not very likely, IMO, to be applied to a person
as to "activities" or to groups dedicated to activities or attitudes.