Besides being Jewish, my various ethnicities include: English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, Norwegian, and German. Is there a word for mixed ethnicities? Now--a "Mulatto" means having an African-American and Caucasian parent (the dictionary said "black" and "white", but I guess that's no longer politically correct)--though that doesn't describe me. What am I? A mutt?

There is a difference here between UK and US English, although, according to Oxford, the term has the same origins (an abbreviation for mutton-head) for both.

In the UK it a term used to describe a stupid or ignorant person. Alternatively, it is a jocular term for a dog.

In the US is means a mongrel.

I suspect that the US meaning would maybe be the more appropriate...

Richard English

Alternatively, it is a
jocular term for a dog.

In the US is means a mongrel.
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I've often heard mutt aplied to purebred dogs in the USA, so it seems the term is often used the same on both sides of the pond.

Like Kalleh, my ethnic origins are mixed, being of English, Scotts, Irish, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and Russian lineage. So, Kalleh, I'm "muttier" than you are!

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
(the dictionary said "black" and "white", but I guess that's no longer politically correct)

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In this case, it may not sound politically correct but, since we are talking about racial designations and not political ones, I believe the term "black" is more relevant than "African-American." "Black" isn't a bad word especially when used in the context of simple physical differences among people.

I once had a long knock-down drag-out battle with a friend who insisted that a certain "black" celebrity was "African-American" when it was clear that the individual had been born and raised in England (great accent, soccer enthusiast, etc.) and possibly had never set foot on the American shores in his life. The geopolitical term "African-American" is just not synonomous with "black." "Negroid" is the counterpart to "Caucasian" but nobody outside of anthropological circles uses it.

Precisely, CJ. We have friends from South Africa who are Caucasian. They said it was great getting their kids into college because they could mark the minority box of "African-American".

Asa, you have heard "mutt" applied to purebred dogs? I thought "mutt" like "mongrel" means a mixed-breed dog??? I even looked it up on dictionary.com before posting it as such. Am I wrong, once again?

Your ethnicities are damned close to mine, Asa. Could it be that we are siblings?

Possibly the term "mutt" applied to a pure-bred dog is used affectionately as in "He's a good ol' mutt!"? Similarly, Shufitz might refer to Kalleh as his "ol' lady" with similar affection without risking being slapped upside his head.

Unrelated sidenote: The use of !"? following the word "mutt" at the end on my first sentence above is awkward in appearance and, by some usage guides, totally in error and yet it is the only way to express that exact thought. B.H., you posted an interesting thread on the FOTA board about just this topic. Any chance of you transferring it over here or, barring that, providing a link on this board to your post on that one? I thought you raised several interesting points.

Funny, CJ, I would also like to read something on that. I have recently been wondering about the placement of quotation marks. Our in-house style manual gives the following example which I think looks awkward: The nurse, who wrote the article "Why is licensure important?," submitted a new article for publication last week.

I believe I give in too quickly when it comes to words. I am right about "mutt" meaning a mixed-breed dog. I just went through every dictionary list in Onelook.com, all but 3 say it means mixed breed. The 3 that don't say "mixed breed" say "mixed breed" or "inferior dog"--but they are Rhymezone, WordNet, and LookWAYup Translating Dictionary; one can hardly count those last 3 as real dictionaries. Now, of course, I realise that it might be different in England. (Will you look at my "realise"! I am getting brainwashed here!)

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Wed Jan 15th, 2003 at 9:09.]

quote:

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The nurse, who wrote the article "Why is licensure important?," submitted a new article for publication last week.

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The second comma is misplaced in that example. It should read The nurse, who wrote the article "Why is licensure important?", submitted a new article for publication last week. The comma is part of the main sentence, not the quote, so it should appear outside the quote marks.

I Believe the style guide to be wrong.

My usual question when trying to decide the order of punctuation is simply this: Is the sentence inside the quotation or is the quotation inside the sentence? The same rule can apply to clauses.

So, as the quotation is inside the clause the extract should read: 'The nurse, who wrote the article "Why is licensure important?", submitted a new article for publication last week.'

The quotation "Why is licensure important?"is inside the clause "the nurse who wrote the article" and the comma, which is part of the clause - not of the quotation, thus belongs outside the pub=nctuation marks that define the quotation.

Richard English

"Quite agree, quite agree!" (spoken as Monty Pythonite Graham Chapman portraying the Colonel; K., you're not the only one whose language ocassionally shows a British influence.)

B.H. did transfer that post over to this site. I do recommend it and look forward to hearing what the rest of you have to say.

I can only cite what my manual says; I agree with you, however. Here is the explanation for that example:
"Quotes ending in question marks do not usually require a comma either inside or outside. If a title ends with a question mark, the punctuation is placed where it makes the sentence clear." Before that the book said that commas and periods go inside quotation marks, while semicolons and colons never go inside quotation marks.
I, as a nurse, hate the word never. Most of the time, there is an exception.

Back to the subject...

We could always call you a "Heinz 57"!

It sounds to me as though it's a rotten style guide!

Anything that is quoted verbatim should be enclosed within quotation marks. For example:

He said, "We must be sure to do this; there is no alternative"

What the guide might have meant is that quoted passages should not END with a colon or semi-colon and this I can understand. Both of these marks exist to forewarn of the style of a subsequent passage and, if either were to be followed immediately by a quotation mark (which thereby ends that piece of narrative), then there could obviously be nothing to follow the colon or semicolon.

Richard English

Kalleh notes, "A 'Mulatto' means having an African-American and Caucasian parent."

I understand that there are many like terms that were once common enough that one could use them in ordinary conversation and expect to be understood. For example, AHD notes:

quote:

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The terms mulatto [one-half black] quadroon [one-quarter black] and octoroon [one-eighth black] originated with the racial policies of European colonizers in the Americas, especially the Spanish. Because civil rights and responsibilities were based directly on the degree of European blood that a person had, such classifications were highly elaborated, and minor distinctions in ancestry were carefully recorded. While these terms have highly precise definitions, in actual practice they were often used based on impressions of skin color rather than definite knowledge of ancestry.

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Sambo meant the offspring of a black and a mulatto Mestizo meant (say some dictionaries) as a person of mixed ancestry or (say other dictionaries) specifically european/american-indian mix.

And some further complications on the word 'mulatto'.

First, Some sources define it as including a black-white mix, in any proportion. Second, I understand the term use to mean general mixed ancestry. The latter would of course include mixed indian/european ancestry.

The latter is of interest in the case of Crispus Attucks, c. 1723-1770, who, killed in the Boston Massacre and is considered the first US casualty of the US's struggle for independence. The sources generally refer to Attucks as being a black man, but probe deeper, and you'll find that he was called a mulatto in his lifetime; probe deeper still and you find him called half-indian/half-black. In any event, blacks list him among prominent blacks in this country's history.

However, it appears that "Attucks" was an Indian name -- and occasionally you'll find it questioned whether Attucks had any black ancestry.

A friend of mine, who majored in history and pursued his master's degree in the field, tells me that his research showed that in fact Attucks was half-indian/half-white, without black ancestry. He adds that that as this fact was not politically correct, he was unable to get his research published.

Sambo meant the offspring of a black and a mulatto
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I've yet to understand why Sambo came to mean anything other than an Indian - a REAL Indian, since Kipling's story, Little Black Sambo, had nothing whatsoever to do with an African of any kind. As most US of Americans know, there was a restaurant chain called "Sambo's" that was shut down over protests of impropriety concerning its name. Political correctness devolving into pontifical corruptness, I suspect

Little Black Sambo was by Helen Bannerman. We had quite a discussion of it in this thread back in August.

Funny, arnie and I are posting here at the same time, and I had just found the previous thread, too. You beat me to it, arnie! Be sure to scroll down in that thread to arnie's post of the Black Sambo site. It is wonderful.

...use racial terms for specific purposes; I am not convinced that heritage has meaning.

Consider the math of biological parentage.

If a person has 2 parents and 4 grand-parents and so on...it would take, perhaps, a millenium for your ancestors to out-number the entire human population of that time.

This, of course, doesn't take into account the relative isolation of most communities; but it seems likely that the more adventurous travelors have spread their seed through-out human history.

There is some evidence that the Chinese, Phoenicians, Micronesians, as well as other Europeans and cultures found the "New World" long before it was popularized by Vespucci.

Raping was as common as pillaging and plundering; and I suspect that we may all be mutted by our forefathers adventures with complete common ancestry at about 3 or 4 thousand years ago.
(your time may vary)

If this be the case, then we are all Jewish-Phillistines and aboriginal-vikings, or some other strange brew, seperated only by time.

You are probably right, gr8dane. I recently saw a wonderful show on public TV about the origin of man. It is hard for me to summarize it here, though I highly recommend the show. However, they traced, by DNA, all through Europe, Asia, Australia, the Americas, and found what they consider to be the first group here on earth--in Afghanistan. It was really amazing.

For what it's worth, (and I don't know what it's worth because I'm neither a geneticist nor a mathematician),I once read that we are all 35th cousins.

O, Canada! You're welcome to this board!
Here ev'ry aspect of English is explored.
With give and take, friendly argument,
We hope that you'll approve.
From east to west
O, Canada, our English we improve!
Wordcrafters all, ever on the move,
O, Canada, our English we improve!
O, Canada, our English we improve!


I believe you are our first member from the Great White North (Do you actually use that term or was that just an SCTV thing?), hence the musical welcome.

I never hear it called the "Great White North" but, hey, what the heck! It's GREAT, it's NORTH, and, right at the moment around here, it's as WHITE as I've ever seen. 300 cm. of snow on the ground. I gotta say, C.J., I am impressed with your close approximation of O Canada! You haven't got the words but you got the beat!! Bob and Doug would be proud of ya!
P.S. As an old FOTA hand, I'm just so saddened by what has happened to our old board.

Welcome aBoard Duncan! I don't know what part of Canada you are in, but I am just, well....I wanted to say South of the border, but actually I am East of the border! I live just outside Buffalo, NY (don't say "Buffalo Wings"), which is just East of Fort Erie, Ontario. Who knows, are you a close neighbor of mine? Any way, welcome, friend.

Thanks, Morgan, for the warm welcome. In geographic terms, we are most assuredly not neighbours! You may be EAST of the Canadian border, but I'm EAST of the whole country. I live in Newfoundland, and on the EAST coast of the Island. I'm about as far East as possible. But, distance means nothing these days, or else we wouldn't have these instant electronic chats, now would we?

Oh, Duncan, my prayers have been answered! I had wanted an Australian (and Whitney has joined us) and a Canadian--and here you are! Welcome, welcome, welcome!

Hello again, Duncan.

Nice to chat again - you will note that the beer thread is still alive and well!

Richard English

you will note that the beer thread is still alive and well!
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Too bad Giacomo Meyerbeer wasn't a brewer, because he could could have been entered in the apt names thread.