10 January 2006

I think there's a problem with pluralising a designation of ethnicity, like referring to "whites" or "blacks". For example, I prefer the usage "Jewish people" to "Jews", because arguably the plural category in itself dehumanises - it takes a category attribute and makes it implicitly the sole characteristic of the group's members, or at least the salient one. An adjective has become the noun. Of course, while I prefer the usage "Jewish people" to "Jews", my favourite term would probably be "persons of Jewry".

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