[lit-ideas] Up Trouser Mistress

--- "... what Austin, with  artless sexism, called the 'trouser-word'"
 
 
In a message dated 2/26/2009 8:35:22 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx writes:
The ability to generate an infinite number of  novel utterances is an 
essential characteristic of natural languages.  

----- 

Whose ability? Languages' ability?
 
-----


>Here is a case in point. My wife and I are talking  about recent debates 
>within anthropology over the ownership of cultural artifacts (including 
>intangible artifacts) by the groups that anthropologists study. 
>Partly what is at stake here is the meme which says that 
>anthropologists should be ashamed of themselves for, in effect, 
>ripping off a culture and going off to write their books and articles 
>with no reward for the people whose lives are being analyzed—
>seen as a form of gross colonialist/neoliberal imperialist  exploitation. 
 
Well, it does seem. That's what I disliked about Slumdog Millonaire! The  
grossest colonialist/neoliberal imperialist exploitation I've seen in  _weeks_!
 
I _never_ witnessed that sort of analysis as _not_ being a gross  colonialist 
neoliberal imperialist exploitation! -- Starting with Malinowski and  onto 
Margaret Mead -- Anthropology, it _is_ recognised, started, unlike  philosophy, 
like _that!
 
McCreery:
 
>The stakes in this debate have, however, risen, 
>especially in North America, where Native American 
>assertion of  rights to rituals, songs, myths, therapies, 
>recipes, etc. have converged with the similar claims of 
>intellectual property lawyers working for the likes of 
>Disney, who want to assert an eternal and exclusive 
>right to control all use of, for example, Mickey Mouse. 
 
(c) Mickey Mouse, you mean.
 
                       You're the tops,
                       You're (c) Mickey Mouse!
 
>Then, reflecting on our own research in Taiwan, Ruth 
>suddenly says, 
>"You weren't upskirting your Daoist  master."
>I know what she's saying. Do  you?

>John
>John McCreery
>The Word Works
 
 
c. To turn up at the skirts. 
 
1848 CLOUGH Bothie ii. 96 With blue cotton gown skirted up over striped  
linsey-woolsey.

But back to 'productiveness' -- re: 'up-' in the OED:
 
"Of the numerous formations with up- which have been employed in English,  
only a limited number are of a permanent character. A large proportion consists 
 
of forms employed for nonce, especially for metrical reasons, and the same  
compound may recur several times without any historical continuity; such  
isolated occurrences, indeed, are often separated by an interval of several  
centuries. A number of these are given in the following sections, as  
illustrations 
of the various uses of the prefix in the different periods of the  language."
 
Cheers,
 
JL

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