Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site proper.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!amd!pesnta!hplabs!intelca!proper!judith From: judith@proper.UUCP (Judith Abrahms) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Critics and SF Message-ID: <212@proper.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 07:57:43 EDT Article-I.D.: proper.212 Posted: Wed Aug 14 07:57:43 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 07:40:37 EDT References: <3206@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <> Reply-To: judith@proper.UUCP (judith) Distribution: net Organization: Proper UNIX, Oakland CA Lines: 35 In article <> wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) writes: >There's been a fierce hostility toward intellectuals in American >culture for a long while; I doubt many other languages can rival >American's variety of pejorative slang for intellectuals (although I >suspect the Chinese language acquired quite a few back around the >cultural revolution :-). "Bumping up and down in a corner seat, she looked gloomy, introspective, amazingly old. When he asked her why she was so withdrawn, she told him she hadn't been satisfied with their lovemaking. She said he'd made love to her like an intellectual. "In the political jargon of the day 'intellectual' was an expletive. It designated a person who failed to understand life and was cut off from the people. All Communists hanged at the time by other Communists had that curse bestowed upon them." -- Milan Kundera, "Lost Letters" (_The_Book_of_Laughter_and_Forgetting_) I imagine the word "intellectual" has been used as pejorative slang for "intellectual" by most speakers of American ever since it became a noun. I'd like to hear some synonyms from the people who brought us "running dog lackeys of the imperialist warmongers." What real variety has our native anti-egghead invective displayed in the last 50 years (aside from "nattering nabobs of negativism," of course! :-)? Judith Abrahms {ihnp4,ucbvax}!dual!proper!judith ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it. -- Chesterton -------------------------------------------------------------------------------