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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: May 2004
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One day, someday, Dear Faldage, that special day when you are speaking to yourself, ask yourself... What three elements are logically and semantically necessary to delimitate the term "word"? List them. (1) a referent (2) a symbol for the referred. (3) a mind that recognizes the association. Now ask that grumpy Scotch-Irish-German person that lives inside of you this simple question... If we remove a single one of these three elements from the mix do we still have a "word"? Now see how pleasant life is when we all come to an understanding. 
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Joined: May 2004
Posts: 89
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 89 |
Well now damnit boys we are speaking English here and the bounds of the English language knows no license. Here music has liberty over meaning and meaning means even better if it can be incorperated into a cute turn of phrase.
Damn we are lucky.
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Posts: 1,475
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Are you sure this is "Jer. xv.7", jheem?
You're kidding, right? Sometimes it takes me a moment or two. But the citation of chapter and verse is correct. Anyway, the Hebrew has "I will winnow them with a winnowing fork" and I see that one of the meanings of fan is a machine for winnowing, so I guess King James' committee of translators got it right.
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veteran
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veteran
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Personally, I think discussions about grammatical rules at this literary elevation are about as useful as comparisons of a turboprop with an F16.
Sorry to have bothered you, but I thought the original posting asked a question about whether the noun diaspora could modify the noun Moroccans. I could be wrong, I probably am, or I could be digressing, but heck, that's pretty much SOP aboard the good ship HMS AWADtalk. Folks purdy much talk about what they feel like talking about.
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Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
Rules of grammar are made to be broken by accomplished writers with the talent and boldness to transcend traditional limits, not so much by breaking the rules as by breaking new ground ... just as a figure skater breaks new ground landing the first "quadruple".
Well I agree with you, being a "descriptivist" rather than a "prescriptivist" when it comes to grammar in general.
Some will take it as instructive, myself included, that the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary cited as a leading example of this usage, a usage which precisely mirrors Lawrence Wright's usage, to wit: "West African diaspora" - "Morrocan diaspora".
I disagree. That example, "West African diaspora" uses an adjective (West African) to describe the noun (diaspora). In fact it would have been better if Wright had said "Morrocan dispora." What he wrote was "diaspora Moroccans." My gripe is due in part to the fact that Wright could have used a simpler and more direct term: immigrants.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
that grumpy Scotch-Irish-German personDear amemeba: Speaking as one with Scottish ancestors, I protest your imputation of Faldage's temperment to his Scotch-Irish-German forebears. You could throw in a whole stew of far-flung nationalities and there would still be no accounting for it.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Sorry to have bothered you
You didn't "bother" me, jheem.
I simply expressed the personal opinion that such discussions are not "useful" when we are scrutinizing the articulations of an accomplished writer whose articulations are more worthy of emulation than quibbles.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
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My gripe is due in part to the fact that Wright could have used a simpler and more direct term: immigrants.Since you are a "descriptivist", and not a "prescriptivist", our differences are not ideological, and that is certainly a relief, AW. Still, I can't agree that "immigrant Morroccan" means the same thing as "diaspora Morroccan". An "immigrant" is one who emigrates, usually alone or with their family, to make a new life in a new country offering new opportunities for individual advancement. A "diasphora" is an entire community of people who feel stigmatized as a community in their homeland. They emigrate to escape persecution. A good example, I suggest, is the Quakers who landed on Plymouth Rock. BTW I do not think there is any qualitative difference between "diaspora Morroccans" and "Morroccan diaspora".
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Joined: Jan 2004
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veteran
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veteran
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I simply expressed the personal opinion that such discussions are not "useful" when we are scrutinizing the articulations of an accomplished writer whose articulations are more worthy of emulation than quibbles.
OK, just wanted to make sure the linguistics horseflies weren't goading you. Now that I know I can adjust my behavior accordingly. For the record I never said anything about the writer of the phrase "diaspora Moroccans". But perhaps that's a quibble.
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Joined: Oct 2001
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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OK, just wanted to make sure the linguistics horseflies weren't goading you.
I don't consider you a "linguistic horsefly", jheem ... particularly since you and I are in full agreement [and have been from the outset]:
"just two nouns (in compound) the first modifying the second, like arthritis sufferer ... It's a pretty common phenomenon. I'd find diasporic or diasporal Moraccans to be less satisfactory than diaspora Moroccans."
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