Don't You Just Love It When...

[howeird]

Over on cinchntouch's pages, someone is trying to argue with me by re-defining a common, well-established word with their own meaning. It worked for Humpty Dumpty in the Alice books, why shouldn't it work for them too?

Following my policy of not attempting a battle of wits with an unarmed person, I'll let that thread fester where it is. Besides, it is well off the point of the original topic, and I don't need to clutter up a friend's page.


The word is "race". The issue being discussed is whether Jews are a race. The answer is no, Judaism is a religion (or faith, if you want to be picky). People of any race may follow this faith, the same way people of any race might follow Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. Race is defined by the color of your skin, and certain other physical features, not by your belief system.

I mentioned in my reply that one can't tell a Jew by looks, and the very ignorant retort was that you can't tell a Black or Asian by looks either. Gag me.

Yes, there is a poetic/literary use of the word "race" to describe any class of people, but the person in question is not arguing for that, and I rather doubt, judging from the quality of the person's posts, that this person even knows of this somewhat archaic use of the term.

I'll screen comments on this one. I'm not posting this to have people argue about race or religion, I just wanted to gripe on my own journal.