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i LOVE it, max!! from The Hacker's Dictionary ( http://info.astrian.net/jargon/) Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful. And speaking of laws, this thread (thus far, at least) boasts an impressive .25SI (that's 1 post for every four views, according to the Stales Index)
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I remembered that in Florida, people who come down for the winter are called snowbirds.
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old hand
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old hand
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Sorry Rapunzel - I was in a hurry. The Harris Ford thing was a typo - Mr Ford is a hero of mine, to the point that I wanted to name my sons after him. 'er indoors vetoed it both times.
I think I was muddling my Puritans and Calvanists as well.
stales
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old hand
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old hand
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Max and Cap K - tell us about "pakeha". Does it fit the context?
stales
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My Random House translates gaijin simply as foreigner. The gai character, when looked up in my Tuttle, resolves to outside, foreign. The jin is human being.
Many of the words noted here, which have taken on negative connotations, are simply words meaning foreigner. Auslander and gaijin have no implicit negative connotations; any negativity that becomes attached to these words comes, as Helen pointed out so clearly, comes from our own attitudes toward foreigners.
The fault, dear Horatio...
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stranger
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stranger
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stales asks: In reply to:
Somebody will be able to help me with the chinese phrase - something like "gwai loh" (=foreigh devil)
gwailo (in any of several different romanizations, depending on who's doing the romanizing) literally translates as "ghost person" (most foreigners having lighter complexions than Han). As with most such terms, the denotation is innocuous; the connotation, however, definitely implies the "foreign devil" meaning.
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Great thread! I've been missin' some good ones I've been so busy lately. Thanks, Hyla...and welcome back, Froggy Daddy!  First, here's a thread that covers a lot of initial discussion about what Flatlander was saying about regional furreners, so to speak: http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=33328And while reading through this I was also wondering about the old Amer-Indian English-language perjorative for Europeans, paleface. Though I think it was used more as a neutral descriptive than a slur. The key, I assume, would lie in a similar word in any Amer-Indian native tongue that gave rise to the English translation. Does anyone have any clue as to what this Indian word might be, and it's original language (Delaware, Lakota, Navajo, etc.) Or is paleface, as we've come to know it, just an old Hollywood fabrication?
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