So you are offended by the use of the verb “Jew down,” but you “don’t need word police to decide what commonly used words suddenly become unacceptable.” Don’t you feel the tension between those two positions? Isn’t it the “word police,” as you call them, that discouraged the use of the term “Jew down,” meaning aggressively and successful…
So you are offended by the use of the verb “Jew down,” but you “don’t need word police to decide what commonly used words suddenly become unacceptable.” Don’t you feel the tension between those two positions? Isn’t it the “word police,” as you call them, that discouraged the use of the term “Jew down,” meaning aggressively and successfully negotiate? I think we all should try to be sensitive to how others, especially those in minority groups, feel about our use of language.
Nobody told me this was not acceptable, I was able to figure that out on my own. I am discussing words that are in common use and then declared inappropriate. Do you think “Jew down” was once acceptable and we needed the word police to tell folks not to use the term?
And yes, there is absolutely a tension between when to use a common word that someone says is not acceptable.
I hate to break it to you, Peter, but there was a time in the United States when use of the term “Jew down” was culturally acceptable. As stated in the article below, “The Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest usage of the term came in 1825 and that it was used in 1870 on the floor of the U.S. Congress to describe a bill setting salaries in the military. The legislation supposedly prompted someone to say that Congress is “ready to Jew down the pay of its generals.” So the term was in common use and subsequently became unacceptable.
I like (and agree with) the article below because it quotes Deborah Lipstadt as saying that “[a]nti-Semitism has gone so deep into the roots of society that [some] people don’t recognize that they are engaging in it when they engage in it.” Kind of like people not recognizing that they are engaging in racism when they use the term “thug” to describe black people because racism has gone so deep into the roots of our society.
First, you do not hate to break it to me, you love to post this article.
But is it relevant? I figured out “Jew down” without that article or any other advice on what is acceptable.
I figured that out by direct experience. I went to elementary school with lots of Jewish kids. Many were my friends and I soon picked up what were hurtful phrases, “Jew Down” was one of them. I also learned that “Kike” was a hurtful expression when I was not served at a restaurant because they thought I was Jewish (I am not).
So you can use your academic articles to define what was and was not acceptable. Me, I learned by experience and I never found “Jew Down” or “kike” to be acceptable with the Jewish people I knew.
I tend to rely on my experience with people rather than articles or people outside the directed groups telling what is and what is not acceptable.
Joanie you are way off base in comparing "Jew down" with "thug". Until recently,. "thug" never was connected to a specific race/nationality/religion etc. It was co-opted in its use and now has become offensive to some people it is now supposed to demean. There has NEVER been any generic meaning behind "Jew down". It was targeted and offensive from the beginning and it's symbolic meaning has not changed.
As I think I’ve made clear, my approach is not to use words that other folks find offensive, whether the term is the n-word, the verb “Jew down,” or thug referencing black people. I don’t bristle at the “word police” and act as though my freedoms are being curtailed.
So you are offended by the use of the verb “Jew down,” but you “don’t need word police to decide what commonly used words suddenly become unacceptable.” Don’t you feel the tension between those two positions? Isn’t it the “word police,” as you call them, that discouraged the use of the term “Jew down,” meaning aggressively and successfully negotiate? I think we all should try to be sensitive to how others, especially those in minority groups, feel about our use of language.
No Joanie, word police had nothing to do with it.
Nobody told me this was not acceptable, I was able to figure that out on my own. I am discussing words that are in common use and then declared inappropriate. Do you think “Jew down” was once acceptable and we needed the word police to tell folks not to use the term?
And yes, there is absolutely a tension between when to use a common word that someone says is not acceptable.
I hate to break it to you, Peter, but there was a time in the United States when use of the term “Jew down” was culturally acceptable. As stated in the article below, “The Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest usage of the term came in 1825 and that it was used in 1870 on the floor of the U.S. Congress to describe a bill setting salaries in the military. The legislation supposedly prompted someone to say that Congress is “ready to Jew down the pay of its generals.” So the term was in common use and subsequently became unacceptable.
I like (and agree with) the article below because it quotes Deborah Lipstadt as saying that “[a]nti-Semitism has gone so deep into the roots of society that [some] people don’t recognize that they are engaging in it when they engage in it.” Kind of like people not recognizing that they are engaging in racism when they use the term “thug” to describe black people because racism has gone so deep into the roots of our society.
https://www.jta.org/2019/09/25/culture/what-does-jew-down-mean-and-why-do-people-find-it-offensive
First, you do not hate to break it to me, you love to post this article.
But is it relevant? I figured out “Jew down” without that article or any other advice on what is acceptable.
I figured that out by direct experience. I went to elementary school with lots of Jewish kids. Many were my friends and I soon picked up what were hurtful phrases, “Jew Down” was one of them. I also learned that “Kike” was a hurtful expression when I was not served at a restaurant because they thought I was Jewish (I am not).
So you can use your academic articles to define what was and was not acceptable. Me, I learned by experience and I never found “Jew Down” or “kike” to be acceptable with the Jewish people I knew.
I tend to rely on my experience with people rather than articles or people outside the directed groups telling what is and what is not acceptable.
Joanie you are way off base in comparing "Jew down" with "thug". Until recently,. "thug" never was connected to a specific race/nationality/religion etc. It was co-opted in its use and now has become offensive to some people it is now supposed to demean. There has NEVER been any generic meaning behind "Jew down". It was targeted and offensive from the beginning and it's symbolic meaning has not changed.
As I think I’ve made clear, my approach is not to use words that other folks find offensive, whether the term is the n-word, the verb “Jew down,” or thug referencing black people. I don’t bristle at the “word police” and act as though my freedoms are being curtailed.