Nobel, Snowden, Pynchon

[alice wellintown]

Actually, like the word bitch is not currently used by Americans to connote
a female who is, for political purposes denigrated by mysoginistic
conservatives, but is used by males when they speak with other males, as
in, jessie to mr white:

yo bitch, I'm takin all the risk, so I need to get paid, like a lot more.

Nazi, as in, the soup nazi, a character on Seinfeld, has several meanings
here.

Were I a Greek, calling that bitch nazi a nazi bith would have other
connotations. I guess.

But here, and spcifically, on the yupper west side, where BE is set, nazi
is in common use, and like lots of words, like  bitch, its meaning is
determined by its context. Should Germans own the word, prevent Jews in
ManhaatN from making it a funny word?

All attempts to hem in words, to force specific meanings, fail. This is a
good thing. The word does not belong to Germany or to Germans; it is free
to move, free to mean what its users use it to mean. Of course, this
freedom comes with responsibility. The word fire, the famous case, can
cause a panic in the disco and so on, but...as I used the phrase to
describe the chncellor, who was re-elected today, your point, Tom, is
valid, I'm sorry.


On Sunday, September 22, 2013, Thomas Eckhardt wrote:

>  Call her 'Mutti', call her 'bank-owned', call her 'industry-owned',
> insult her for executing the interests of the German economy to the
> detriment of the peoples in southern Europe etc., I won't object. In fact,
> I have been telling these things for years to everyone who cares to listen.
> One thing Merkel is certainly not, though, is a Nazi. Words have meanings,
> and 'Nazi' has a rather specific meaning. And 'Nazi bitch'? Really, how low
> can you go? "Angela. She Wolf of the SS"?
>
> Ah, I just realised, Merkel is female. You are not used to a female head
> of government, are you?
>
> (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
>
> But I assume in Alice's favour that this is part of having fun with
> language and polemics and all and has nothing to do with good old jingoism
> and even better and older misogyny.
>
> Back to the news from the election, hoping that Merkel does not get an
> absolute majority.
>
> Thomas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Am 22.09.2013 17:30, schrieb Rich:
>
> I think 'Mutti' fits rather well
>
>
>
> On Sep 22, 2013, at 9:07 AM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'alicewellintown at gmail.com');>>
> wrote:
>
>
> As newt Gingrich said of Hilary, she's a bitch.
>
>  How did he know she was a witch?
>
>  Why, she turned him into a Newt.
>
>
> On Sunday, September 22, 2013, David Morris wrote:
>
>> Agreed.
>> Bank-owned might be better.
>>
>> On Saturday, September 21, 2013, Thomas Eckhardt wrote:
>>
>>> Am 21.09.2013 13:25, schrieb alice wellintown:
>>>
>>>> That nazi bitch that Germany will soon re-elect makes the fasciust in
>>>> Japan look like Ronald Ray-Gun.
>>>>
>>> There are a lot of things to be said against Angela Merkel and her
>>> politics. "Nazi bitch", as much as I like hyperbole and dislike Merkel, is
>>> not among them.
>>>
>>> Thomas
>>>
>>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130922/df3a3c07/attachment.html>