Re: Self-Use of Ethnic Insults (was: Re: Ebonic Christmas )

On Sat, 15 Jan 2000 18:18:44 +0100 Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
writes:
> >I had *no idea* there was anything negative attached to the word
> _Jew_ in English,
> I regret that 'Jew' was often used offensively to mean 'a miser',
> 'an
> unscrupulous userer'.  That use was certainly still current when I
> was young.
> I have not heard it in recent years.  I think as the enormity of the
> holocaust began to sink in in the post-war years, people began to
> realize
> that maybe centuries of negative stereotyping of Jews had been one
> factor in making the holocaust a possibility.
> I would like to think this usage was now dead - tho, alas, I suspect
> it isn't.
> Ray.
.

Although i doubt that that old usage has very much to do with Jew's own
instinctive uncomfortability or shock at the use of the 'short term'.  At
least for me, i have only heard the infamous verb "to jew" maybe once,
twice in my life, and just like everyone else i have the same instinctive
preferance for the long-winded term "jewish person" than "jew".  Maybe
it's some kind of Western cultural thing about de-emphasizing Jewish
"separateness" or something, by turning it into a separate adjective.
Like i can imagine the Sanhedrin of Paris returning Napoleon's
"Questions" with the answer "no, we aren't Jews, we're just.....jewish
people."


-Stephen (Steg)
 "amo:, e: amo.  ama:mu:, e: no: macta:mu:."