From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Tue May 21 2002 - 22:51:58 MDT
From: "Damien Broderick" <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au>
> 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.
As in "male chauvinist pig ("MCP") sense ... of course, I remember it well.
Yet, I thought chauvinist can be used, as well, in a political sense - like
the chauvinist and expansionist elements in the Hellenic-Cypriot disputes.
I seem to remember writing a paper about this in college, before I even knew
about the "MCP" version of chauvinist.
> Continuing with my nauseating pedantry:
>
> >Of course, among the hoi-polloi art taste is
> >supposedly more "refined" ...
>
> Au contraire. `Hoi polloi' means the rabble.
Groan!... and I know it, too (I meant hoity toity, but was not focusing...).
I started to write "petty bourgeois," but was afraid someone on this list
was going to accuse me of having collectivist leanings. (I'm joking! I'm
joking! No one on this list would do such a thing! ...)
Olga
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