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Article: What's in a word? On etymological slurs.
- Article from:
- ETC.: A Review of General Semantics
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Institute of General Semantics. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Michael Moore *
CAN ETYMOLOGY benefit anyone? Philologists, philosophers, and other assorted thinkers have spilt gallons of ink over the value of etymological inquiries throughout the ages. We can learn something about the attitude of the ancients toward this issue from the etymology of etymology: "true meaning." In this age of post-modernist constructivism we view with skepticism such strivings after truth.
Indeed, how does it serve contemporary speakers that his clients boycotted Captain Boycott (Irish land agent, d. 1897), but that nobody lynched William Lynch (American vigilante, d. 1820). Or that nowadays one does not need wooden clogs (sabots in ...