links for 2009-07-11

"Leaving the legal world for a moment, we offer a link to a very strange defense of the use of the word “squaw” by the Oxford Etymologist Anatoly Liberman (here). We could be wrong, but this article seems to be a classic case of an academic wearing blinders, or worse, an etymological ideologue. In short, Liberman concludes that the etymology of “squaw” is that the word simply means “woman,” and so therefore cannot possibly be an epithet. He mocks advocates for changing place names to eliminate the use of the word."

(tags: via:jessicayee language racism)