From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue May 21 2002 - 21:39:53 MDT
At 08:05 PM 5/21/02 -0700, Olga wrote:
>I never use "chauvinist" to mean sexist,
>because wouldn't the "sexist" designation then have to include
>discrimination against women OR men, and so wouldn't that make the term
>"chauvinist" utterly useless? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
You're wrong, because `chauvinist' is the abbreviation of a 1960s' women's
lib coinage, `male chauvinist'--i.e., a male who acts in respect of his
imagined pre-eminence *qua male* as Nicolas Chauvin, the proverbial
hyper-patriot, acted in respect of France.
Continuing with my nauseating pedantry:
>Of course, among the hoi-polloi art taste is
>supposedly more "refined" ...
Au contraire. `Hoi polloi' means the rabble.
Damien Broderick
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