Adjective neutral, noun bad

 

At minute 4 of this video about a small lake in New Hampshire called Jew Pond, the director of the New Hampshire Jewish Federation makes the point that the noun "Jew" is pejorative when it's used as an adjective. His examples are "Jew politician" and "Jew lawyer," and he might also have mentioned T. S. Eliot's scornful phrase about one of his benefactors, "Jew publisher." "If the name had been 'Jewish Pond,'" the director tells the interviewer, "we would not be having this conversation."

And that's why Republicans say "Democrat Party."

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Addendum: Gary Ostrower writes to recommend the Wikipedia article “Democrat Party (phrase)," and adds,

“The difference between using ‘Democrat’ as an adjective and ‘Jew’ as an adjective is that the latter has nearly 2000 years of negative connotation behind it. Not so ‘Democrat.’ Most — maybe all — of my own students would not recognize ‘Democrat’ as slur; not so with ‘Jew.’”

And that’s true enough. Just two days ago one of my own rhythm-challenged students sent me a friendly e-mail beginning, “High Professor Morse.” No, he didn’t mean “Herr Oberprofessor,” and no he couldn’t hear the pause where the comma should go. For that matter, when I took my physical exam for the draft in 1966 the sergeant in charge of the paperwork instructed us to fill in the Race blank “Neg” if we were, as he carefully put it, Negroic.

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Further note, March 14, 2012: Jew Pond will now be renamed. Story here:

http://forward.com/articles/152987/nh-town-votes-to-rename-jew-pond