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Joined: May 2004
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: May 2004
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Ah but yes, Mister Faldage, a red light is indeed a word and a pretty emphatic one at that. A red light is a symbol just like these words I write are symbols and they don't exist in a vacuum, they only exist as "words" in the context of our culture. For example take Egyptian hieroglyphics, they are not words until the moment of decipher. Until that moment they are mere pictures and markings. This is because the referent constitutes and gives essence to "wordness" and not the medium itself. So whether spoken or written, or inferred from a menacing growl, a transfer of meaning from the symbol to the recipient determines that which is a bona fide word. Now a further example... It is said that "amemeba is flexanimous". Now tear off the word flexanimous from this sentence and put it in your pocket if you are not sure what it means. As the paper with flexanimous written upon it rides about in your pocket you will never know if it is a real word or not until you google it or ask tsuwm. See? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Knowing something is a word and having it be a word are two different things and a representation* of a word is not the same thing as a word and a red light is no more a word than is a slap upside the head.
*But, since it can be used to represent a word it can be taken as something standing in for that word for purposes of discussion. We must, however, never forget that the representation is not the word. The No Left Turn sign I linked to above is a representation of a phrase and one step further removed from that phrase than are the letters that make up the representation at the beginning of this sentence. The hieroglyphs are just such a representation of a word when they are in ideograph mode. We may not know what word one represents but that does not deny the existence of the word.
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Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 72
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 72 |
I thought about this New Yorker article this morning when I turned on the radio and heard about the alerts in NY/NJ.
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
re "diaspora Morrocans": Wright's use of the word as an adjective seems awkward to me at best.
Whether noun or adjective, or a hybrid of the two, or a useful coinage, "diaspora Morrocans" is an elegant term, simple and concise and self-explanatory.
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".
Personally, I think discussions about grammatical rules at this literary elevation are about as useful as comparisons of a turboprop with an F16.
That's just my opinion, of course. It's not that I have anything against the rules of grammar per se. It's just that they are irrelevant once a writer of Wright's trim has escaped "the surly bonds of earth".
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
huh. here's what bothered me about this usage, which I didn't previously comment on since it seemed outside the scope of the original plaint: Diaspora, as originally coined, referred to the dispersion of the Jews. I don't think that was meant at all in the phrase "diaspora Morrocans" -- although it *could have referred to Jewish Morrocans, from the context one gathers that it rather refers to Morrocans dispersed in Spain (who were prolly not Jewish). I wouldn't have combined the two words for a few more generations. :-}
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Joined: Oct 2001
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
Diaspora, as originally coined, referred to the dispersion of the Jews.
Well, I suppose we could coin the term "diasplura" to describe any ethnic, racial or religious group which is dispersed beyond their homeland as the result of political or other upheaval.
But a coinage which does not improve on "diaspora Morrocans" is simply a conceit.
Words evolve with normal usage and take on extended meanings which everyone understands, particularly when they are modified with adjectives, or nouns, or noun-adjectives which modify the original meaning.
A coined word is fair game for a new coinage, in my respectful opinion, tsuwm.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
and my point (which I didn't want to overly emphasize for fear of politicizing things) was that the construction may have been... strained in an article such as this.
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
my point ... was that the construction may have been ... strained in an article such as this.
As I am not so self-assured as Lawrence Wright, I have consulted the American Heritage Dictionary which includes these definitions of "diaspora":
diaspora
A dispersion of a people from their original homeland. The community formed by such a people:
“the glutinous dish known throughout the [West African] diaspora as... fufu” (Jonell Nash).
diaspora. A dispersion of an originally homogeneous entity, such as a language or culture: “the diaspora of English into several mutually incomprehensible languages” (Randolph Quirk).
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".
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Diaspora, as originally coined, referred to the dispersion of the Jews.Yes, but it's a short hop, skip, and a jump from the original Jewish Diaspora to A-H's "dispersion of an originally homogeneous entity, such as a language or culture". http://www.bartleby.com/61/1/D0200100.htmlThe word, diaspora after all conceivably existed in Greek before the Jews were dispersed outside of Israel in the sixth century BCE. Vulgate: et dispergam eos ventilabro in portis terrae LXX: kai diaspero autous en diaspora en pulais laou mou eteknothesan. KJ: And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land. Jer. xv:7.
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Joined: Oct 2001
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land.Are you sure this is "Jer. xv.7", jheem? It sounds like Nostradamus catching a fleeting glimpse of the throngs waving banners at the Fleet Center in Boston [at the gates of America]. Or would that be the Republican Convention in New York which he foresees?
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