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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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 Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:36 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
| I think Woland meant hundreds of examples of semantic shift re: various common words in English (and other languages too I'm sure), not hundreds of examples of differing use for the word Banana Republic. There only seem to be about five or so for the latter. |
But it would seem to me that if one were going to argue that there has indeed been a semantic shift, then there must necessarily be many easily-citable examples of said shift. |
Maybe. This is getting too complex now though, because it's the same word in other languages too and some of them seem to use it as more than its original meaning:
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Beispiele:
[1] Ist Deutschland eine Bananenrepublik? |
Ist Deutschland eine Bananenrepublik?
And in German it seems to be used for first-world countries as well:
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| Deshalb wird dieser Begriff abwertend auch in politischen Diskussionen und Polemiken �ber Industriel�nder wie beispielsweise die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Frankreich oder �sterreich verwendet, wenn man �hnliche Praktiken (die teilweise verdeckt oder besch�nigt werden) unterstellt oder anprangert. |
I would be more surprised if a word coined in 1904 didn't have any semantic shift over a full century though. If that guy's not too busy maybe he could join Dave's and explain why he believes the term can apply to the US government. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:43 am Post subject: |
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Very interesting.
I have only looked at "banana republic" in English and espanol, and never German. I wonder if it exists in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean as well. And if so, what does it mean and how is it used?
Still, that you have to leave the English language behind and get into German-language examples, this, too, suggests a fundamental weakness in your position.
Friedman, an English-speaker, writing in an English-language publication, is simply making too much of a stretch with this term. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:59 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Still, that you have to leave the English language behind and get into German-language examples, this, too, suggests a fundamental weakness in your position. |
I don't really have a position on the term though. It's a distraction from the article, even though it's an interesting one.
There's an article on Wikipedia in Chinese and 24,700 results for 香蕉共和国 so it seems to be in common use in Chinese as well. A term as easy to remember as banana + republic is bound to spread pretty easily. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:13 am Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
| It's a distraction from the article, even though it's an interesting one. |
Sorry. By "your position" I meant "the position" -- that is, the position that "banana republic" applies or could apply to the United States, or that the term has some other meaning than the specific one I have explicitly cited with numerous examples here. I realize you have not taken your own position on this even though you may be exploring what the others are saying.
I do not think it is a distraction from the article, though. I think the imagery it suggests represents one of Friedman's crucial points. It makes an emotional appeal. It aims to persuade people to vote against the Republicans by claiming we will become a petty, Third-World dictatorship if they do not. And indeed, this is the portion that Bucheon Bum singled out for emphasis and is now quoting in his signature line.
So it is not peripheral at all, at least not from where I am standing. Indeed, I am most concerned and even anxious that, should the Republican Party win today, SONY or perhaps even Hyundai will reveal itself as the true shaper of U.S. politics, and then W. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld -- with SONY or Hyundai's approval and backing, of course -- might delcare themselves "supreme warlords," wear ostentatious military uniforms with five or six self-awarded CMH or Navy Star's or whatever each, and start murdering their opponents, dropping them out of airplanes, or feeding them to sharks in the Caribbean, etc., etc.
Finally, I am truly surprised and intrigued that you got so many hits on a Chinese-language search for the term. Can you translate one or two of these for us?
Last edited by Gopher on Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:38 am Post subject: |
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Okay, sure. It seems to be used mostly as just a disparaging term for a country as opposed to the original term:
Here's a one-post thread in English but with the Chinese title:
(西式民主 - 税收) = 香蕉共和国
meaning "Western democracy - taxes = Banana republic
Here's another news article:
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/archive/2005-11/w2005-11-04-voa62.cfm
It seems to be about an American talking about the Chinese government, and:
但是麦健陆承认，中国毕竟不是一个独裁者可以明目张胆强取豪夺的香蕉共和国。
But (guy's name, MacJin...something or other) admits that in the end China isn't a banana republic where one dictator can just up and brazenly take control of.
Since they use it just as often without quotation marks as with, they seem to be pretty used to the term. In encyclopedia articles it talks about the original meaning but it seems to be used all the time to apply to just about any country.
Oh, also a lot of the searches turned up were for the clothing store as well, same as in English. They use the direct translation of the term over in China or Taiwan I guess. I had to sift through a few clothing ads to find something interesting to share. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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Clothing stores and chatboard colloquia?
I was hoping for something from literature, film, or television -- something that was geared for mass audiences because it would have had a clear meaning to them.
As you know, I've already cited a democratically-arrived at Wikipedia article, Merriam-Webster, Woody Allen, Vannegut, the Hollywood film The In-Laws (original version), and Jimmy Buffett. You don't have anything comparable to this?
Last edited by Gopher on Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Clothing stores and chatboard colloquia?
I was hoping for something from literature, film, or television -- something that was geared for mass audiences because it would have had a clear meaning to them. |
The second one was a news article. It's time for bed so I won't be able to find anything else until tomorrow. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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Pretty standard banana-dictator behavior, hmmm...?
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7:10 A.M. CST
THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I know it's a privilege to be able to cast our vote, and I encourage all Americans to vote today.
We live in a free society, and our government is only as good as the willingness of our people to participate in it. And therefore, no matter what your party affiliation, or if you don't have a party affiliation, do your duty; cast your ballot and let your voice be heard. So we thank you for -- we thank you for being a good citizen. It's good to be here voting in Texas. We're going to be heading back up to Washington here pretty soon and watch the results.
Appreciate it. Thank you all.
END 7:11 A.M. CST |
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061107.html
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WASHINGTON November 8, 2006, 12:07 a.m. ET � Anticipating that Republicans would lose control of the House, President Bush struck a businesslike tone Tuesday night and made plans to call the woman poised to become speaker of a Democratic House majority.
"The president's not the kind of guy who is going to be somber about things," said press secretary Tony Snow. But he added: "They have not gone the way he would have liked."
Bush, unaccustomed to political defeat, planned a morning phone call to Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi and made plans to give his take on the midterm election results at an afternoon news conference.
The president watched the results in the White House residence, where Snow described the mood as "businesslike..." |
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6446447 |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 10:46 am Post subject: |
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My, the authoritarian, dictatorial, banana republic is truly revealing itself to us...
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| WASHINGTON November 8, 2006, 1:25 p.m. ET � President Bush said Wednesday Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is stepping down... |
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6456406 |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 10:48 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Pretty standard banana-dictator behavior, hmmm...?
| Quote: |
7:10 A.M. CST
THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I know it's a privilege to be able to cast our vote, and I encourage all Americans to vote today.
We live in a free society, and our government is only as good as the willingness of our people to participate in it. And therefore, no matter what your party affiliation, or if you don't have a party affiliation, do your duty; cast your ballot and let your voice be heard. So we thank you for -- we thank you for being a good citizen. It's good to be here voting in Texas. We're going to be heading back up to Washington here pretty soon and watch the results.
Appreciate it. Thank you all.
END 7:11 A.M. CST |
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061107.html
| Quote: |
WASHINGTON November 8, 2006, 12:07 a.m. ET � Anticipating that Republicans would lose control of the House, President Bush struck a businesslike tone Tuesday night and made plans to call the woman poised to become speaker of a Democratic House majority.
"The president's not the kind of guy who is going to be somber about things," said press secretary Tony Snow. But he added: "They have not gone the way he would have liked."
Bush, unaccustomed to political defeat, planned a morning phone call to Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi and made plans to give his take on the midterm election results at an afternoon news conference.
The president watched the results in the White House residence, where Snow described the mood as "businesslike..." |
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6446447 |
Yes, but again: I don't think anyone is arguing that the USA is literally a banana republic, or even a dictatorship. It's sorta like when conservatives criticize the "politically-correct commisars of the campus establishment". It wouldn't really refute the general thrust of the argument to point out that campus feminists aren't actually of the Russian Communist Party. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 10:52 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| It's sorta like when conservatives criticize the "politically-correct commisars of the campus establishment". |
Indeed, I already made a similar analogy on this thread's second page. And your statement is fine, just so long as we recognize that these comments are hyperbolic nonsense (and from the left or the right, it's the same to me: pure and unmitigated, palpable, nonsense).
By the way, speaking of this thread's second page and whether or not people are "really" arguing or suggesting this: did you read Ya-ta's response to you...?
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Isn't the crux of the definition of a dictatorship that the governing group/individual is not accountable to 'the people'?...the manipulation of congressional districts that have effectively immunized 90 some % of the House from real competition and the manipulation of the media have preserved the image of choice, but have violated the real meaning of representative democracy in a republic...If people don't like the use of the phrase 'banana republic', fine. Give me another phrase that says what needs to be said about this current situation... |
Another phrase that says what needs to be said abou this current situation? How about "republican, constitutional democracy," Ya-ta? The same it has always been.
The Democrats lost the elections in 2000, 2002, and 2004. They could hardly believe it. It must have meant that they were living under a banana-republic dictatorship that manipulated the media to preserve the image of choice while stealing all those elections.
Same phenomenon when some Americans refused to believe that Chileans would actually elect a Socialist-Communist coalition in a free election. But an obsolete Chilean landowner saw what most American leftists have been unable to see since 2000: "Sometimes one must know how to lose."
And now -- inexplicably, if all of the charges were to be believed -- now the Democrats have won much of the legislature. Rumsfeld has fallen from grace. Perhaps other democratically-derived changes are in the air, too. All to the good, I say.
But, I am wondering, can we please stop with the poor-loser-driven temper tantrums and the out-of-control hyperbole and actually do some work in the capital now...?
Last edited by Gopher on Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:23 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:12 am Post subject: |
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| I agree with Gopher, it's hyperbole. Though it's interesting we get three pages of debate about one missued word, yet this pales in comparison to stuff that Anne Coulter says almost weekly. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:17 am Post subject: |
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well, Friedman said the us would be no better than one if the republicans won. Since it didn't happen, his point is moot. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:20 am Post subject: |
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| Satori wrote: |
| ...yet this pales in comparison to stuff that Anne Coulter says almost weekly. |
She is no better than Friedman, and in some respects far worse.
Let someone cite her hyperbole as an authority or put it in their signature line and let's see what we can see.
The problem is this is a leftist, and at times extreme left-wing board. Bucheon is right. The fact that he appears on the far right in a self-described political spectrum says a great deal about this board's political culture... |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:26 am Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| Since it didn't happen, his point is moot. |
Bucheon, his point was not stated in the conditional tense. Read your signature-line again.
At best, it was an ill-conceived, hyperbolic, election-day piece of hyperbole. At worst, he had become one of those, like Ya-ta, apparently, who had convinced himself that it was probably true.
In any case, I think retractions are in order. |
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