Re: Conlang Typology Survey

Tristan McLeay scripsit:

> >Somehow, this spelling "Hebrew" just looks... wrong to me, which is why I
> >keep making the mistake.
>
> I think so too, though I tend to make the mistake of typing it
> 'Hewbrew', which is probably more influenced by the final -ew then
> anything else :)
At one time "Hebrew" was used in the U.S. as a sort of euphemism for "Jew",
now surviving AFAIK only in the names of the Young Men's and Women's
Hebrew Associations, aka the YMHA/YWHA.  (These names are patterned on
the better-known Christian associations, though all four types can be
known as simply "the Y".)   The now-insulting "Hebe" originated among
the (mostly Jewish, at the time) writers of the professional stage
newspaper _Variety_ as a parody of this.  Another parodistic form
_Variety_ used was "Shebrew" (for "Jewess", itself now deprecated and
obsolete along with other ethnic terms in "-ess").

_Variety_ was famous for its headlines, of which the most notorious was
HIX NIX STIX PIX, which translated into English is "People living in the
country aren't interested in motion pictures with rural settings."

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