Update Update

[Three Valves]

Out of curiosity: why isn't the U.S. flag available in Minnesota?

Only foreign made US flags are banned. Everyone here knows the Gofer State is full of hateful xenophobes AND WORSE!!

[windshieldbug]

I had to look up the meaning of xenophobe. You people keep throwing them $5 words out there like you were passing out free cookies.

Eschew obfuscation!

[Donn]

That would make more sense if "xenophobia" meant "fear of the unknown." According to the dictionary, "intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries."

[Donn]

Well, there you go, a site on the internet where confusion reigns unchecked. Can you believe that? The fearof.net site that tops that list starts off making sense, but then dives off the deep end.

Xenophobia is derived from the Greek word ‘Xenos’ meaning “foreigner or stranger” and Phobos which means ‘morbid fear’.

Xenophobia is the irrational sensation of fear experienced about a person or a group of persons as well as situations that are perceived as strange or foreign. It is the fear of anything that is beyond one’s comfort zone.

The fear of unknown comes in many guises. A person may not be afraid of swimming pools, but might experience great fear when he sees a dark lake. The fact that s/he cannot see the bottom of the lake triggers a fear of the unknown. Such thoughts can overwhelm the person to an extent that one’s daily life and activities are hindered by it.

Xenophobia is what the dictionary says it is, dislike of foreigners. Anyone who uses it in to mean something else, is pretty near guaranteed to be misunderstood. The wikipedia entry is all about racism and the ethnic equivalent, which seemed off base to me, but I think the discussion below makes a reasonable case for it.

(in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001)
2 Theoretical Framework
One reason why xenophobia was given virtually no theoretical foundation is probably because the phenomenon cannot be discussed without taking into account normative concepts that focus on attempts to mark ‘one's own’ off from ‘the other.’ Race, nation, ethnicity, and culture are such concepts. In social and political reality, xenophobia manifests itself in accordance with the division of the world into one's own race, nation, ethnic group, and culture, and other races, nations, ethnic groups, and cultures. This type of symbolic and normative worldview promotes self-centeredness, and constitutes precisely the kind of cognitive framework within which xenophobia is spawned, articulated, and disseminated. Since fear and hatred, the two emotional states contained in xenophobia, are qualities that rely on subjective experience, they require cognitive signposts and social values to allow them to focus on their object. Focus on an object is less relevant when one fears something, than when one hates. Hatred of what is strange or foreign, therefore, always calls for naming and objectification. Labeling is the first step towards constructing the object against which xenophobic hate can be directed. Social valuing of the object then modulates the intensity of xenophobia; it triggers the change from fear of the other—i.e., latent xenophobia—to hate of the other—i.e., virulent xenophobia.
Two scientific fields in particular deal with xenophobia: social psychologists examine forms of ingroup/outgroup behavior in which xenophobia can appear in its latent form, while researchers in the social sciences and humanities explore and interpret the social construction of xenophobia as well as its effect in modern societies.

[Donn]

It would be interesting to know what they base that on, to arrive at a definition that varies that much from the others. It's possible to imagine you could reasonably use the term if, for example, you wore a turban and someone took offense, and in that case the xenophobia would be applied to a thing and not a person. But if I claimed to hate palm trees or walruses because they're weird, it would be absurd to call that "xenophobia", even though they're strange and foreign to the area I've lived in most of my life.

In any case, that isn't "fear of the unknown." Merriam-Webster's definition is questionable, but that usage would at worst likely occur in a context where it could be understood. Use it to mean "fear of the unknown", and expect to be misunderstood.

[Ken Herrick]

Watch out - the trifids will get you.

[Donn]

Just trying to be helpful. Language serves us best when we use words to mean what others understand them to mean.

This is really an open and shut case. There are a couple where I'm somewhat crosswise to common usage. For example, "jealous", where it's easy to find dictionary support for usage synonymous with "envious", but the language would be more expressive if we reserved it for the meaning where it has no synonym. Where if you're jealous of your sweetie, it does not mean that you would like to enjoy the attention she's getting from that other fellow - that's envious, almost the opposite of jealous. Since envious and jealous thus have nearly opposite meanings, and we have no other word for that meaning of jealous, it seems to debase the language somewhat to use "jealous" for everything, as most people seem to.

Or "beg the question", which has a rather esoteric meaning that no one would guess from the words.

I will give MacMillan credit for a less than usually absurd definition of "espresso." Many dictionaries have a definition that talks about "forcing steam through ground coffee beans", which is absolutely false. MacMillan says "a small cup of very strong coffee, or this type of coffee", which is (like their definition of "xenophobia") too general to be correct, but not false. Espresso is the result of a brief extraction in hot water, at higher than ambient pressure. The common definition gets the "forcing" right, but misses the boat with "steam" - steam forced through is not going to give you a cup of anything. You can make coffee very strong in for example a French press, and pour it into a small cup, but whatever MacMillan says, that isn't espresso. MacMillan seems to be providing explanations that aren't really definitions, in both these cases - you could use their "definition" to understand an instance of correct usage, but as a guide to correct usage it fails. Dislike of walruses is not xenophobia.

(The "trifids" crack reminds us that xenophobia also applies to beings of extraterrestrial origin. It isn't really necessary that such a being be present in reality - a fictional extraterrestrial being can be an object of xenophobia, for the reader or viewer of the work of fiction. [edit] And perhaps should also remind us that the definition mentions "irrational", which might not apply in the "trifid" case though it has been a long time since I read that. It arguably isn't xenophobic to object to being preyed on.[/edit])

[gwwilk]

Just trying to be helpful.

by trolling the rest of us

Language serves us best when we use words to mean what others understand them to mean.

...particularly when words are repurposed to point towards a narrative or agenda, correct?
Orwellian Newspeak vs. English completely reminds me of English vs. Americans: two countries ~separated~ by a common language.

This is really an open and shut case.

Yes, "open and shut" - just as with the the abuse of the words, "settled" and "consensus", as they are so often shoehorned into "science", whereas genuine/no-agenda scientists would eschew those words, as that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Scientific Method.

In these post-Orwellian days, "clarity" and "propaganda" have become synonyms - just as have "agree" and "or else", and "disagree with me" and "hate", haven't they?

English is fortunately, and unfortunately, a living language. Therefore words are protean depending upon their usage. Unfortunately the media have co-opted our agenda(s) and terminology, so whatever they deem 'proper usage' becomes the de facto lexicon. Bloke has it right! Ignoring the constant leftist media drumbeat is the only way I can see to remain sane amidst all of the insanity they depict as 'normal'. (BTW, there is no such thing as 'Normal'. Statistically an average or mean, along with median and mode, have a precise definition. 'Average' when used as the average man in the street, is meaningless because it has no universally applicable definition and is population/place/time etc. dependent. Using the term 'Normal' contains an implicitly biased viewpoint as does using the term 'Average' in anything but a precise statistical context.)

[umlaut_kraut]

Wow. Isn't it amazing what can of worms one can open by asking a seemingly simple question?

FWIW, a cousin of my mother's was a resident of Duluth, MN. Sadly, I never got to go there in his lifetime.

[TheTuba]

asking for a friend:
Does Allstate Insurance hire out that "Mayhem" guy for subcontract work?

No, but it never hurts to ask with an extra wad of cash!

[Three Valves]

(BTW, there is no such thing as 'Normal'. Statistically an average or mean, along with median and mode, have a precise definition. 'Average' when used as the average man in the street, is meaningless because it has no universally applicable definition and is population/place/time etc. dependent. Using the term 'Normal' contains an implicitly biased viewpoint as does using the term 'Average' in anything but a precise statistical context.)

I see you are a contributor to my favorite on line resource, The Urban Dictionary!!

Normal; A word made up by this corrupt society so they could single out and attack those who are different
Normal is nothing but a word made up by society.

[Donn]

(BTW, there is no such thing as 'Normal'. Statistically an average or mean, along with median and mode, have a precise definition. 'Average' when used as the average man in the street, is meaningless because it has no universally applicable definition and is population/place/time etc. dependent. Using the term 'Normal' contains an implicitly biased viewpoint as does using the term 'Average' in anything but a precise statistical context.)

When used outside that context of statistical science, the meaning of average isn't statistically scientific, that's for sure.

The etymology is interesting - according to what I'm reading, it's from a standard used to split the liability for shipping damages, at sea, between the owner of the vessel and the owner of the goods. As I'm read it, the original owner, not the recipient. So that guy on ebay and UPS split the tuba damages according to some formula, referred to in French as "avarie".

At any rate, it isn't like this is a term invented by statistical scientists that has been smuggled into common usage, it already had other meanings by the time it acquired that definition. There's a lot of room between "not precise enough for scientific purposes" and "meaningless."

As for "normal" ... Let's say we looked through someone's tuba book, and included in there was the piccolo part for Stars and Stripes Forever. I don't have the widest exposure to all tuba repertoire, but my guess is that anyone looking at this would agree, that's not a "normal" tuba part. QED

[alfredr]

Bumper sticker I saw once, "A normal person is just someone you don't know very well."

[Three Valves]

H Ross Perot died today.

I didn’t vote for him, but he was right about one thing, at least.

That giant sucking sound was your job moving to Mexico!!

In the end, one Global elitist was replaced with another Global elitist.

Thanks for the heads up, Ross!!

[bort]

Anyone know when the women's world cup starts?

[Ken Herrick]

Anyone know when the women's world cup starts?

In about 4 years.

[humBell]

Anyone know when the women's world cup starts?

In about 4 years.

Took a moment to look up what happened last time.

Sad i wasn't paying attention. Might have enjoyed it.

[scottw]

Doubt it!

[bisontuba]

Nice!

[bort]

Minneapolis temperature is 75 degrees, feels like 73 degrees.

"Summer"