Amusing note on another board I read.
Woman was relating a college experience to a supervisor and referred to her "Spanish professor" only to be corrected by her supervisor, "... let's say professor who taught Spanish ..."
Is "Spanish professor" too ambiguous?
k
When I read "Spanish professor," I immediately thought that this was someone who taught Spanish. I don't think it would be a bottom line requirement to say, "My professor who teaches Spanish..."
JMO,
WW
Not to me. I think the supervisor was pulling a Faldage on her.
California must have many Hispanic professors, but I doubt that any of them are Spanish.
Well, my math teacher wasn't a logarithm...
(my teacher who teaches math?
)
My math teacher was a polymath.
If this was an oral thing (as opposed to written down) there is a difference in how they are said:
SPAnish professor - professor who teaches Spanish
spanish proFESSor - professor who is Spanish
At least when I would say them out loud there is a subtle difference. (The emphasis is somewhat more subtle than the caps I used, but there is no intermediate size!)
I'm assuming this was a spoken exchange (or would that be an exchange that was spoken?) and I would say:
A) if it was spoken with the main emphasis on Span- it should be taken as meaning the professor who taught the Spanish language.
2) If it were spoken with the emphasis on the -fess- and the rest of the phrase were spoken with a relatively low emphasis then it could be taken as meaning my professor who is Spanish.
But Note:
If the phrase is to be taken as meaning a professor who was of Spanish nationality, the implications of the phrase "my Spanish professor" smack of some rather unsettling ideas about ownership.
All of the above.
The usual meaning of Spanish Professor is "Professor of Spanish." The rest is commentary.
Wordsworth said "We murder to dissect." I thought at first it was T S Eliot. Or maybe Dylan Thomas. Good thing I checked!
Truly we do, sometimes.
dumping a Faldage on her
Since it's not anything I would ever do, I'd call it inventing a Faldage on her.
So what would a little bit of faldagerie be -
a faldageot or a faldagette ?
If used often -perhaps faldagealot?
Oh, geez...another Faldagegate!