John Crinnion wrote:
Adam Beneschan wrote:

Alex Martelli wrote:
Rob Arndt wrote:
...
Whatever you say anti-semite terror puppet.
I'd just like to point out that, since the Arabs are Semites every bit
as much as the Jews are, anybody who's pro-Arab, whatever else they may
be, cannot *by definition* be an anti-semite.
Sorry, Alex, you're wrong here. The problem here is that you're making
sense, and you assume that language should make sense too. But it
doesn't, necessarily. The dictionary says that "anti-Semite" has
specifically to do with hostility toward Jews, so that's what the
definition is, period---regardless of what it looks like it *ought* to
mean. (My source is www.m-w.com, in case it matters.)

Yes, the word ought to mean what it says. Though it of course does
not. The thing is, it was coined as a kind of coy, school marmish
euphemism - should have been 'anti-jewish', meant it, actually spoke
from shelter of one level of abstraction.

It came from a period when even Jews felt the word "Jew" was faintly
distasteful, for reasons that are unknown to me. "Hebrew" was the usual
euphemism; I suppose "anti-Hebraic" sounded silly.

--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"