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Re: USAGE Re: [CONLANG] Bunty.

From:R A Brown <ray@...>
Date:Sunday, June 22, 2008, 7:52
ROGER MILLS wrote:
> And Rosta wrote (re bint) >> Mildly disrespectful rather than very insulting, I'd say. Comparable >> to _fiddle_ versus _violin_. It's a synonym of _woman_, and similar to >> _wench_ (in being a synonym of _woman_ with different sociolinguistic >> value), and unlike innumerably many other derogatory words for women >> that add some further element of meaning (sexual laxity, garrulity, >> irascibility, etc.). Actually though, I might be wrong, for upon >> further introspection I conclude that it means 'foreign (nonanglo) >> woman'; I would never talk about a 'Yorkshire bint' or a 'Texas bint', >> but I would call my missus an 'Eyetie bint'. However, neither Dennis >> the repressed serf nor the OED agree with me on this. >> > I'g duess, then, that the word came via military slang, from all those > years in India (Muslim/Urdu speaking areas?) abd/or the mid-east. >
Or just from Anglo-Indian jargon? I was familiar with the word as a school kid in the 1950s here in Britain. It was part our schoolboy jargon (it was an all boys school) and there was no awareness that the word was foreign - I learnt that later. It's not a word I'd normally use now - it seems rather dated to me - but I'd not find it particularly odd if I heard it. As far as I remember, we'd use the word for youngish (nubile) females, say in their teens or twenties, maybe early thirties. Once a woman reached middle age she was definitely, to us school boys, a biddy, not a bint ;) Expressions like 'Yorkshire bint' or a 'Texas bint' do not seem odd to me, as long as they're used when _referring_ to individuals (i.e. in the 3rd person). My own recollection is that to use 'bint' when addressing a female would have been mildly derogatory. ------------------------------------------------- Ph. D. wrote: > Lars Finsen wrote: >> >> Den 20. jun. 2008 kl. 17.26 skrev Peter Collier: >>> >>> I just love 'Bintland' - it conjures up such a >>> marvellous mental image of some kind of theme park of 'ill repute'. >> >> I see, so the connection is that obvious. Certainly a land populated with nubile maidens - the 'ill repute' bit wouldn't figure very strongly, if at all, in my understanding. >> I thought 'bint' was rather >> an obscure word. At least Matthew Reilly, my latest translation >> victim, seems >> to think you need to be somewhat familiar with Arabic to recognise it. No - just to have been brought up in the right part of the world and, possibly, in certain generations (Is the word readily known among teenagers in modern Britain? I don't know). > Well, I've never run across that word here in the United States. So it didn't get across the Pond, I guess. -- Ray ================================== http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora. [William of Ockham]

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>