{"id":263,"date":"2006-05-22T20:54:46","date_gmt":"2006-05-22T20:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=263"},"modified":"2006-05-22T20:54:46","modified_gmt":"2006-05-22T20:54:46","slug":"geocalumny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"Geocalumny"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the moment, geocalumny<\/b> is a googlewhack<\/a>, albeit a self-referential googlewhack (i.e., it doesn’t really count, since I coined the term, to fill a much-needed gap<\/a>). Since the first instance (quoting from a John McPhee article in the New Yorker<\/i> for 3 October 2005, and mashing it up with a Google map<\/a> [9 Nov 2005]), I’ve noticed quite a few other passages that exemplify the highly-developed art of geocalumny<\/b> (and\/or the closely related ethnocalumny, linguocalumny, and general trash talk). Today’s beauties come from Madding Gerund<\/b> and from London Review of Books<\/i>:<\/p>\n

(of Texas, ca. 1840)
…filled with habitual liars, drunkards, blasphemers, and slanderers; sanguinary gamesters and cold-blooded assassins; with idleness and sluggish indolence (two vices for which the Texans are already proverbial); with pride, engendered by ignorance and supported by fraud.
(Nicholas Doran P. Maillard, quoted<\/a> by Mark Liberman, who ends the posting with an addendum: “I need to add that I don’t subscribe to Maillard’s description as an accurate characterization of Texans, whether in 1840 or 2003, and especially not of my wife.”)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

(an “anonymous scribbler” annotating Leigh Fermor’s Roumeli<\/b>, to contradict LF’s assertion that modern Greek is \u2018undisputed heir of ancient Greek\u2019)
…Nonsense. It is the barbarous pidgin of the Albano-Slavs who defile the land of their occupation with the deformity of their “dago” bodies and the squalor of their politics.
(quoted by Mary Beard<\/a> in “Don’t forget your pith helmet”, LRB<\/i> 18 Aug 2005)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is very much in the “Wogs begin at Calais<\/a>” vein that certain Blimpish<\/a> Britons<\/a> are sometimes thought to have invented. One can appreciate the spleen without endorsing the sentiments, right?<\/p>\n

Update: yesterday there was only one Google hit for ‘geocalumny’, but seemingly this posting has provoked a few more.<\/p>\n

Addendum: John Dowie’s British Tourist<\/a> will please connoisseurs of musical variants of the genre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the moment, geocalumny is a googlewhack, albeit a self-referential googlewhack (i.e., it doesn’t really count, since I coined the term, to fill a much-needed gap). Since the first instance (quoting from a John McPhee article in the New Yorker for 3 October 2005, and mashing it up with a Google map [9 Nov 2005]), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}