@temporary_user_name There are a number of rules about which nouns are more likely to get turned into verbs; H&P notes that morphological complexity plays some role here, but nothing that directly explains the dream/nightmare case.

So this is interesting!

@temporary_user_name Here is an example of verbing nightmare: "I had bad dreams last night. I was nightmared so hard I woke up in a sweat." In context, that is clear and understood by any but the dumbest or most literal listeners. Nevertheless, it's still not an "official" verb; it would require a lot of people to use it so that it is often heard.

In particular, there's a rule that nouns with suffixes (like -ness) almost never get turned into verbs. But nightmare isn't like that--it's a compound noun, and those can be converted to verbs like to blacklist.

@Robusto In that hypothetical sentence, "nightmared" is presumably really an adjective, not a verb, no? It's not a passive construction corresponding to "That dream nightmared me," which is far less acceptable.

Really it should take a content clause, like dream: "I nightmared that a monster was chasing me."

@alphabet "The drink and food fouled my sleep, nightmaring me awake in a cold sweat."

In any case, preterites can be adjectives, that much is true. But that is not necessarily always true.

BTW, I personally wouldn't verb nightmare in any of these contexts, but someone else might, and it could even be deemed witty by some.

@Robusto To me that sounds quite bad, worse than the result of verbing most nouns, but I'm not sure why.

I didn't say it was good; I merely said it was possible.

I'm sure there's some reason why that sounds so bad. But I'm not smart enough for this question.

But others will have their own opinions. When someone in basketball is said to have "bricked" a shot, that communicates an image perfectly, which is why it has found its way into the vernacular.

@alphabet Nightmare and blacklist are quite different. List is a noun and a common verb—thus one can waitlist, backlist, etc.

@Xanne Yeah, that's probably part of it.

@Robusto It's always hard to tell real problems from moral panic.

Does anyone here have access to the OED?

I would like to see the etymology of the verb "to grandfather".

I used the phrase today, and a colleague told me that I was being racist, because of the etymological history of the word. That seems like nonsense to me (etymology is not everything), but I am also not sure that the claimed etymology is correct (the claim is that it has to do with Jim Crow era voting laws).

@XanderHenderson use etymonline etymonline.com

@XanderHenderson this seems to be it etymonline.com/word/grandfather#etymonline_v_11900

@XanderHenderson well it's complicated.

It'd be nice whenever anyone says that if they would suggest the currently accepted term for the concept

Not everybody is aware of the same things

@Mitch that was my ultimate response. If you don't have a better suggestion, go away

@Mitch I don't see the verb form there. And I trust the OED a lot more.

@CowperKettle In Haidt's case, it's hard to separate his (probably reasonable) case against smartphones from his other political views, which are just...deeply annoying, in my humble opinion.

"We all need to understand others' political perspectives. By the way, everyone who disagrees with me has mental problems."

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, mostly non-latin answer, mostly punctuation marks in answer (175): Are there any English equivalents to Chinese proverb"throwing a brick to attract jade"?‭ by Wes‭ on english.SE

@Mitch I suggest communicating exclusively with emojis and hand puppets.

Just not the OK sign emoji.

Autoflagged FP: flagged by @SmokeDetector, @Spevacus

fp feedback on autoflagged post: Are there any English equivalents to Chinese proverb"throwing a brick to attract jade"? [MS]

Raccoon shuts down power company in brave protest against climate change

Restaurant provides humans with steak, but only gives bread to raccoons

@XanderHenderson Did you mean revisionist instead of revisit?

OK, now this is one that should go to ELL but somehow got answered instead: english.stackexchange.com/questions/621794/…

I think we can all agree that this is not the sort of question a native speaker or a proficient non-native speaker would ask.

Social media bans don’t address youth mental health problems - by Eiko Fried

@Robusto I see a lot of conjecture and over-exaggeration

Uzbek Cuisine

They say cockatrice would taste like chicken. Who the heck were they, gargoyles?

@Robusto no, the word was "racist". Mobile sucks. :(

Help. I cannot distinguish French [ʁ] and Arabic [ʕ] with my own articulators.

@XanderHenderson you'd think it'd be easy enough for people to employ common sense

@DannyuNDos they feel distinct to me, with the Arabic Captain Hook's missing hand being more to the back of the throat. But people commonly joke around here that they're very similar.

@M.A.R. People in education get really sensitive about language, and for reasons that make no sense to me.

Etymology is not destiny.

If it were, the word "niggardly" would still be considered acceptable in American English.

Sure, I just decided to be racist right in the middle of this conversation. It's a huge change but they have to start somewhere

Inded.

She also told me that I should never, ever call my bedroom the "master bedroom", because it is a remnant of slavery.

And that one I know is wrong---the term master bedroom didn't even exist before the 1920s.

And the word "master" has many uses beyond just a plantation master.

That one is one of my pet peeves too.

"Master branch" does not bring Dicaprio from Django Unchained into mind.

Well, I said it and it will from now on

It just feels like someone looking for an excuse to be offended.

:/

@DannyuNDos They are close. [ʕ] is the sound you produce when you are hit on your back by a javelin.

@XanderHenderson nah it's probably more like one of these "micro-obsessions" we sometimes have. Like the kitchen has to look spotless no matter how impractical it is

@jlliagre in the gut, maybe. But in the back? I'd yell a variant of "ow"

@M.A.R. That may be, but it still feels like someone looking for an excuse to be offended.

@M.A.R. Let's find some volunteers for an experiment!

@jlliagre I feel like I'd pronounce the glottal stop right after the javelin.

@M.A.R. Are you sure it wasn't just exaggeration?

@XanderHenderson Since when are grandfathers racist by default? Tell that person he's a fool.

@Robusto The verb is "to grandfather (in)". Most of the internet seems to believe that this usage was born out of Jim Crow laws, e.g. "You have to take a test to prove that you can vote, but if your grandfather could vote, then you don't."

But I would really like to see the OED citations.

@XanderHenderson Etymonline says "Grandfather clause originally (1899) referred to exemptions from post-Reconstruction voting restrictions (literacy, property tax) in the U.S. South for men whose forebears had had the right to vote before 1867 (thus allowing poor and illiterate whites to continue to vote)."

So it had to do with whites, not blacks.

@Robusto Yes, this is exactly what I just said.

It was a way of preventing black people from voting.

@XanderHenderson Not really. Did you see the part where Etymonline said it applied to whites?

@Robusto I think that you are misunderstanding what is said there.

You create a test which you require people to take in order to vote. You make this test impossible to pass (for anyone), but then you say "Well, you white people can vote, because your grandpappy could vote. Sorry, black people. You don't get to vote, because your grandparents were slaves, and couldn't vote."

The idea is that white people are "grandfathered in", but black people are restricted from voting.

Well, even if that is true, to protest the usage is to beat a dead horse. The fact that someone has to look up an etymology, and then stick to it for all eternity means they don't understand how language works. The word cheap started off meaning just "a purchase" and now it means inexpensive. So what? It's the etymological fallacy rearing its head once again.

@XanderHenderson oed.com/search/advanced/…

I don't have access to the OED.

@XanderHenderson ????? oed.com/dictionary/master-bedroom_n?tab=factsheet#37749993100

So I can run the search, but I can't actually read any of the articles.

It is paywalled.

None of those links are of any use to me, @Laurel.

They are paywalled.

@XanderHenderson Neither do I anymore. But you can see most of many of the quotes, and all of those quotes are available in their entirety in another publication, some of which aren't paywalled

They changed the online OED substantially a few months ago

There's a lot you can see without an account

@Laurel That may or may not be true, but the links which you have provided to me are mostly paywalled, and don't show me much of anything.

@XanderHenderson It is not unreasonable to imagine that there may not be an acceptable alternative, but it'd still be nice to at least be told that instead of just being slapped down.

@XanderHenderson 1) the verb meaning is the verbified version of the 'grandfather clause' meaning

2) etymonline gets most of its etymologies from the OED. so it is the most trustworthy free resource.

and OED rarely has more.

I don't trust google search's attempts at etymology... they're usually a hodgepodge of whatever, from freedictionary or wiktionary (maybe with some real stuff sprinkled in)

@alphabet 👍 @M.A.R.

@XanderHenderson That's so revisionist.

@XanderHenderson It shows you that "master bedroom" is older than 1920. Etymonline often is sourced from OED2 data, from a1989, which is extremely easy to antedate with modern tools

From 1821:

(Morning Chronicle July 5)

@Mitch Eh, see above

@Mitch The Oxford Language ones are from NOAD/ODE, which are Oxford dictionaries, but not the Oxford English Dictionary

@Laurel Which is why I asked for OED references, because etymology online does indicate that master bedroom is from the early 20th century.

> Master bedroom, "bedroom designed for the use of the owner of the property," as opposed to bedrooms for children or guests, is by 1919 in U.S. home-builders publications (e.g. Building Age, April 1919). It seems to be based on the English master's bedroom (by 1903) "bedroom of a headmaster or other master at an English boarding school or other similar institution."

etymonline.com/search?q=master+bedroom

I got enough of a citation from the free access part of the OED and then used it to track down the original source to view it in its entirety

Google books has another early example: books.google.com/…

@Laurel 👍🏾 - the meanings in etymonline I usually trust because they're from OED, but etymonline doesn't give any citations. But yeah online OED will be more up to date with possibly older citations.

@Laurel Yes. Are you saying that google search uses those dictionaries you mention?

@Robusto well, he's fundamentally right. But it's like sex ed, you can't put it off until it's not your problem anymore. It's much better to educate them early and well instead.

Of course I dunno who this guy is. He might be a broken clock.

@Mitch 🤟

@Mitch what happened to your hand, did you tan?

@XanderHenderson even if that's true, that's pretty obscure

@Mitch Just the ones labeled "Definitions from Oxford Languages". Otherwise there should be a source listed somewhere, such as if it's a snippet from a specific website or from the machinations of their AI

@M.A.R. I chose that color because I can see it better against the ELU background. The default version doesn't contrast at all.

@Mitch 👍🏽

@M.A.R. That was the point that I kept trying to make. And, for the record, it does seem to be true, but the racial overtones are completely gone in modern English. The word means what it means, and I can't believe that anyone thinks about Jim Crow poll exams when using it.

@XanderHenderson To be fair, a lot of people are thinking about stuff like that.

I don't know how or why or when exactly it happened, but 'oriental' is deprecated now, with 'Asian' being the most common replacement (or other more specific geography). Maybe it was 'Orientalism' by Edward Said?

@Mitch Indeed. "Oriental" was deprecated at least 20-30 years ago.

@XanderHenderson Any clues as to the cause?

Like, I remember it still being used by old farts when I started college, but that's about it.

I think that Said's book was probably the start.

But the transition was kind of "before my time", so I don't really know.

'oriental rug' is still a thing

Names of various Chinese restaurants (from a desultory google search)

@Mitch Likely because it has become disconnected from the original meaning.

As often happens with language.

less desultory googling shows that it seems to be pretty popular in names of companies and products.

presumably, just the use as an ethnicity is what is deprecated? referring to a person as oriental?

Asking "What is the source of deprecation for the term 'oriental'?" would be a good ELU question, except that 1) the attempted answers wouldn't actually answer anything, and 2) it would be closed as a) opinionated or b) racist.

if it hasn't already been tried

which tells me more but I'm not enlightened by it

You're already tanned, you don't need more light

@XanderHenderson Shrug, I think of those grandfather clauses when I hear the word. But I'm hardly representative of the populace at large

Supposedly, according to that ELU question, "Oriental" is offensive because saying the region is "to the East" implies a Eurocentric view. But the term "Middle East" is fine?

@Laurel I think a lot of people don't even know that those clauses existed; it got a passing mention in my US History class, but I doubt most people paid enough attention to commit that particular fact to memory.

I mean, people hopefully know that Black voter suppression existed in the South, but I don't think most people can recall all the details of its implementation.

@alphabet And even knowing the details does not immediately call to mind the genesis of particular phrases which are in common use today.

@alphabet If that's really true "East Asia" (recommended as a replacement by NOAD) feels like malicious compliance

@Laurel Well, "East Asia" isn't called that because it's East of Europe, but because it's the Eastern part of the Asian continent.

On a parallel track, I very much believe in separating art from the artist. E.g. I have no problem listening to Michael Jackson, nor reading Lewis Carroll, the monstrosity of those people aside. I think that it is very possible to separate (to an extent) art from artist, and words from etymology.

@alphabet cynically, because people have never cared what's offensive to us

The verb "to grandfather (in)" is very useful, and there isn't really a good alternative. The fact that this very handy verb (maybe) has a disturbing origin is interesting, and worth knowing and thinking about, but not really relevant to the way in which it is used today.

@XanderHenderson wait, Carroll too?

Is anyone famous actually a decent person

@M.A.R. There are credible allegations that he was a pedophile, and abused (among others) the young girl who was the model for Alice.

pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/stories/articles/2017/2/6/…

facepalm

I haven't facepalmed in a long time

My palm smells like chocolate

Yum.

My smells like coffee.

@XanderHenderson Of course, an artist's personal life can certainly cast their works in a new light: take R Kelly's "Age ain't Nothing but a Number."

@alphabet Indeed. When the art is specifically tied to the bad behaviour, it certainly becomes more difficult to separate the two.

facepaw

@XanderHenderson And you don't want to support an artist when they're still making money. I don't intend on playing Ye's latest hit.

@alphabet I certainly understand and respect that point of view. I don't know quite where my line is in that respect, but I know that I have one.

And as much as I try to separate art from artist, I am not always able---e.g. we found a couple of old Bill Cosby LPs in my father's collection when he died. I can't imagine wanting to listen to those again, despite the fact that I thought they were hilarious 30--35 years ago.

@XanderHenderson For me that line certainly gets crossed when someone says "I like Hitler."

@alphabet I never really appreciated Kanye as an artist, so I don't know. Nothing about him makes me want to listen to his music, but I didn't want to before.

Similarly, Alice Walker's antisemitism hasn't really turned me off of her works, because I didn't much care for them, either.

Me neither, to be fair. But I think that, even if an artist I like started praising Hitler, I'd probably lose appreciation for their works and avoid giving them my money.

On the other hand, the Ring Cycle is fantastic, Wagner notwithstanding.

You know what I like? Those catchy Taliban nasheeds. (Kidding, please FBI don't put me on some sort of watchlist.)

Heh.

@alphabet I wouldn't take ELU as some sort of authority on the matter. Think of it as Urban Dictionary but with a slightly more sober population.

@alphabet Asia is called 'Asia' because... aw snap the Roman (and Europe) again?

Has someone made a rap version of Dā də bātorāno kor yet?

@M.A.R. I've heard Keanu Reeves is very chivalric.

@M.A.R. Don't put choclate on your forehead then.

Patton Oswalt seems to be a mensch.

@XanderHenderson Exactly. There is a vast difference between "grandfather" (verb) and, say, the "N-word" in modern parlance. If we have to dig up bombs that were long since defused, maybe there are better things we could be doing.

@Robusto Precisely.

@Robusto C'mon. Those DEI consultants gotta make money somehow.

@alphabet Ye on the other hand has serious mental issues and should probably be defended rather than scorned. That said, the only work I can think of is 'Golddigger' which is kinda misogynistic.

@Mitch Well, he says he's inspired by Louis Farrakhan, and his latest album says he isn't antisemitic because he "just fucked a Jewish bitch." Scorn seems appropriate, especially when he seems to want to inspire others.

@alphabet Not to mention the Zionist conspiracy theorists.

@Mitch The thing is that having a mental illness does not cause one to be an antisemite. The mental illness just lowers the bar for expressing those ideas. Certainly, the underlying mental illness should be treated, but one can still scorn someone for the opinions they have.

OK let's move on to Michael Jackson. He didn't do it.

Same with what's-her-name (why can't I remember it right now...?): Ambien doesn't cause racism.

@XanderHenderson Oh yeah, she's the worst.

@Mitch Well, he also used "f*ggot" in plenty of songs, but so did pretty much every artist in a certain genre and era.

OK so rap is off the table.

@XanderHenderson It's easier when the artist is dead. On the other hand, I don't like giving money/influence to people who are just going to use it to be huge bigots (ooop, that's what @alphabet said too)

@Mitch Can we keep Bay Area hip-hop from the 80s and 90s, pleasae?

@Laurel After citing Lewis Carroll and Wagner, I nearly made the same comment. Time heals wounds.

@XanderHenderson Nope. All evil is by association.

@Mitch Sponsored by the All Evil Association, of course.

@Robusto Whatever pays the bills.

@Laurel Huh, TIL.

@Laurel Isn't he teaching at Brandeis now?

@Robusto Pretty sure he's dead.

Streets were named after him before Adolf came along.

@XanderHenderson That's what they want you to think.

@Robusto Who's "they"?

You know who.

You know, they.

winks

Enjoying his retirement in Argentina.

I thought they got them all. I saw it in a movie.

Seriously, though, did you really think that I was suggesting that A: There actually was a guy named Dr. Gay Hitler and B: I suspected he might be teaching at Brandeis?

@alphabet Inflation must be eating up all his savings. Oh wait, he has all those gold teeth to fall back on.

Are they Them!?

@Robusto It's not like Brandeis is a center of Jewish thought.

They are Them.

@Robusto So did that other Hitler

@Mitch My son applied to Brandeis and when we went for a visit there was a large percentage of the student body wearing yarmulkes. I suppose they might not have been Jewish, just making a fashion statement, but whatever.

Anyway, let's all look up joke in the dictionary again.

Brandeis is very much a Jewish institution.

brandeis.edu/about/index.html

I had a good friend in high school who went there.

@Robusto Sounds like Gay erasure to me

@Laurel Gay Erasure? Wasn't he an author in the '60s or '70s?

No idea

@Robusto He's elated to Al Gore Vidal.

And Vidal Shampoo.

@Mitch takes notes

@XanderHenderson That's not wrong but it's leaving a lot out. Misdirection by oversimplification.

The undergrad population is only about 1/3 Jewish (grad pop is much less)

@Mitch Which is why I followed up with the link, which expands on my one sentence.

And being "very much a Jewish institution" is not just about the current student body. It is also about the history and philosophy of the institution.

Brandeis was specifically established as a Jewish-serving institution, and continues to be a Jewish-serving institution.

OK

It's not that Jewish is all I'm saying.

@Mitch Compared to what?

The general population of the US is only about 2% Jewish. Jews at Brandeis are incredibly overrepresented.

Though I suppose that it also depends on what you mean by "Jewish". Brandeis has never been, to my knowledge, a religious institution.

@XanderHenderson at 1/3?

Look, if you guys are going to beat my jokes to death, I'm eventually going to stop bringing them in here.

@Mitch Yes?

@XanderHenderson Ethnically Jewish and religiously Jewish are very different things.

@Mitch I'm very aware.

@XanderHenderson It ain't like an HBCU.

@Mitch I"m not sure what distinction you are making there...

@XanderHenderson eg Howard University has 86% black students. It is a mostly black campus.

You can't say that wrt being Jewish at Brandeis.

Okay... but I'm still not sure that I see what distinction you are trying to make. I never claimed that Brandeis was "like an HBCU". What I claimed is that it is a Jewish-serving institution, and that it has a history and philosophy deeply rooted in Jewish identity.

Don't forget the yarmulkes.

@XanderHenderson All I'm saying is that it is not as 'Jewish' as you think. Sure, they get high holidays off -and- Christmas. Just it's very secular and most students are not Jewish.

Note that an American university is eligible for grant funding under Title V if the student population is 25% hispanic. And a university can be considered a non-tribal, tribal-serving institution with 20% native enrollment.

@Mitch You are arguing against a strawman. "Secular" just means "non-religious", which says nothing about the underlying Jewish identity (which is a largely ethnic or cultural identity) of the institution.

@Robusto Brandeis is usually the first place Orthodox kids meet Jews who are not Orthodox. It's also usually the first place that non-Orthodox Jews meet Orthodox Jews.

@XanderHenderson Sure... did you note the proportion of undergrads that are Jewish? And the commmon English meaning of 'most'?

A Jewish programmer I used to work with said Brandeis was "too Jewy" for him. So he went to Carnegie-Mellon instead and joined a Jewish fraternity.

@Robusto He could have stayed away from that at Brandeis. No fraternities.

@Mitch Again, I don't understand the point you are making. I never made any claim about "most" of the students being Jewish. I said (a) that Jews are highly overrepresented at Brandeis, and that (b) a Jewish identity is important to the institution.

@Mitch Well, they recently extended their transfer deadline specifically to accommodate Jewish students facing antisemitism

@Mitch I'll send him a memo.

@XanderHenderson My fault. I was reacting when I hear 'Brandeis is very much a Jewish institution' and wanted to dispel the extreme impression you get from a statement like that.

@Mitch I think it's a fair statement; there's pretty clearly a close historical and cultural affiliation.

I don't think that I can think of a secular American institution that is more Jewish than Brandeis. The ADL, maybe? Yeah, probably the ADL.

Then Brandeis.

@XanderHenderson Sure, if by 'Jewish' you mean 'represents Jewishness in the public mind'.

@Mitch That is certainly one way in which Brandeis is "very Jewish", yes.

I'll concede that Brandeis is the first 'Jewish' college/university people think of. And yes it has a history of being founded to get all the Jews Harvard wouldn't bother with.

I'm just saying it's not as Jewish as you think.

I'm not sure that you know what I think. I think that you are arguing against a strawman version of myself that you have created.

@XanderHenderson Possibly. I'm also arguing with only the words you have stated here.

And by arguing I mean only adding a nuance.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that Fiddler on the Roof is playing non-stop in the student lounge.

@Robusto Wait, it isn't?!

See? You can get a good education in EL&U chat.

If you're looking for a representative of a university/college that has a high proportion of Jews but is also secular, then Brandeis is one of them (but NYU, Cornell, Brown, Tufts, etc etc) will also be about the same.

@Robusto I think it is at Boston University though.

@Mitch Once again, the composition of the student body is not the only (nor the most important) factor in what makes Brandeis "Jewish".

@Mitch Which all the Boston wags refer to as "Be Jew" ...

@XanderHenderson even less so for faculty and staff

@Mitch Also not really the most important factor.

Top 60 Colleges by Jewish Population

Per their own marketing materials, Brandeis was specifically established to be a secular and diverse, but still Jewish-serving, institution, guided by Jewish philosophy and thinking.

brandeis.edu/about/jewish-roots.html

Brandeis is 5th, but it is just 35%.

@alphabet You are really hung up on the demographics of the place, and I have already said that the demographics aren't really the what I think is most important. I have already conceded that point several times.

@XanderHenderson I'm agreeing with you, not with Mitch.

@alphabet Oh, sorry. Your avatars look similar on my screen.

Despite the numbers I cited.