Saturday, July 19, 2003

Jew-Hater Just Replaced Anti-Semite In My Vocabulary

First a plea:

Will everyone please stop using the word "anti-semite". Use "jew-hater" instead. "Anti-semite" is too flattering to jew-haters, and confusing to boot.

In the comments for this Dean Esmay post dowingba said:
I'm glad you're so mad at me for denouncing the idea that Jew-haters should have a more flattering term for themselves. I hope you're not one of the same people who were angered beyond belief by the flattering term "Brights" gave themselves. An anti-Semite is someone who is anti...Semite. A Jew-hater is someone who hates...Jews.
My reply (reformated to put the plea at the top) was this:

I see your point, but I am mystified by your claim that you denounced "the idea that Jew-haters should have a more flattering term for themselves." I scanned your posts before that one twice and could not garner this meaning from them. Unfortunely we cannot assign the meanings to words that we want. Anti-semite means Jew-Hater.

Since you have denounced the idea now I denounce it myself. From now on I will cease to use the term anti-semite, and I will exhort others as above.