Hippiekinkster
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Joined: 11/20/2007
From: Liechtenstein
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quote:
ORIGINAL: kittinSol
Jewish people invariably refer to themselves as Jewish, not as "Jews". I'm Jewish; I'm not "a Jew". One's an adjective; the other a noun. There's an edge attached to the term "Jew" which one doesn't find in other religious adjectives. It must come from thousands of years of persecussions. Take our word for it, and call us what we ask you to call us. I attach extracts from a relevant article to help you understand the not so subtle difference.
quote:
One gap between the terms is obvious: “Jew” is a noun, “Jewish” an adjective. Grammatically, then, the two diverge, although that structural difference need not be ideological. So, for example, to “What is your religion?”, the usual response would be “Jewish,” not “Jew,” calling on the adjective rather than the double noun of “Religion: Jew.”
“Jewish,” in this case, would be analogous to “Episcopalian,” “Muslim” or “Catholic.” To be sure, noun and adjective in those examples are identical, but this would not explain why, without the ambiguity, Jewish should be favored over Jew.
(...)
But we also know that identity-references made by others may give offense neither given nor taken within the group. Kinky Friedman could name his band the Texas Jewboys, even though “Jewboy” from the outside would be a slur. And the magazine Heeb would have had a harder and shorter life if it had been directed from outside rather than inside the community.
Even these comments, however, do not resolve the question of why references to “a Jew” — however accurate — acquired its edge. Perhaps some of that derives from openly derogatory uses of “Jew” which — perhaps because of its conciseness or the ease of uttering one syllable? — have been more plentiful than those employing “Jewish.” “Dirty Jew,” for example, has a long history in English.
(...)
Certain oddities in this grammatical network are worth mentioning. The noun “Jew,” for example, has been pushed into other parts of speech. To “Jew someone down,” as in bargaining, has made its derogatory way as a verb, and a “Jew store” turns the proper noun into an offensive adjective.
Does forcing a noun into other grammatical forms introduce negative connotation? That clearly depends on the particular noun and its context. Then, again, some negative connotations related to Jew seem to emerge only when the indefinite article preceding it becomes definite — that is, when “a” or “an” become “the.”
So, for example, in T.S. Eliot’s “Gerontion,” “And the jew squats on the windowsill.’ The lower case “j” and the squatting make the derogatory intention here unmistakable — although “the jew” even in upper case would have sufficed, as the corporate reference is meant to capture all Jews as one. Certainly, the phrase “the Jews” at the beginning of a sentence often augurs a less hopeful future for the sentence than the term “Jews” by itself. As, for example, in “The Jews killed Jesus” or “The Jews control Hollywood.”
http://www.forward.com/articles/you-can-take-the-jew-out-of-jewish-but-you-probabl/
I'll keep what you say in mind, kitten. I know that I have used the word "Jew" repeatedly, without any intention to offend. Indeed, I was unaware that such usage was offensive. If I did offend, es tut mir Leid.
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