Re: Words
| From: | Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, September 7, 2000, 5:38 |
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At 12:18 am -0700 7/9/00, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
>From: "Nik Taylor"
>
>> Mike Adams wrote:
>> > Anyone have words that are only used by their conculture/lingo? I know
>> > there is others, such as Gaijin is not used by Japanese to mean
>> > Japanese, or so I believe, but it is applied to only white/europeans
>>
>> Gaijin means "foreigner", "gai" = "outside, foreign", "jin" = "person".
>
>Still, there are foreigners and then there are foreigners. Technically, a
>Thai or a Chinese could be labelled "gaijin" in Japan, but the term is
>normally applied to large hairy foul-smelling lumbering lummoxes with big
>noses, strange, uncouth ways, and wads and wads of cash, i.e.
>white/Europeans.
And what about the fair-skinned Europeans without wads & wads of cash?
They're not exactly an uncommon species.
When I was young "foreigner" was used much more democratically - it simply
meant 'someone not born & bred in our village' irrespective or ethicity,
skin color, religion, language, economic status etc etc ;)
Ray.
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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
[J.G. Hamann 1760]
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