[78-L] Newspeak (was:Racially Offensive Language/Robeson)

[Michael Biel]

Donna Halper wrote:
> And Julian wrote--
>   
>> ==============
>> I may be wrong but I don't recall hearing the term "The Holocaust"
>> before the TV series.
>>     
>
> True that.  Nobody in the 1930s  or 1940s referred to it that 
> way.  In fact, a well-respected Boston author and talk show host, 
> Paul Benzaquin, wrote a book about the Cocoanut Grove Fire and called 
> it "Holocaust," which meant "a huge fire" back then.  When the book 
> came out for re-issue in the 70s, he had to change its title because 
> the meaning of the word had completely changed.
>   
Likewise, Shoah was not a word used in this meaning until the lengthy 
documentary with this title.  While both the word Shoah and Holocaust 
can be traced to occasional uses mainly as descriptiive terms in the 
1940s, they only meant "__*A*__ catastrophe"  back then, not __*THE*__ 
catastrophe" as their usage now assumes.  

That film displayed another aspect of the sociology of language.  Filmed 
by a largely French team, much of the film's overly excessive length was 
due to the practice of including the asking of the questions in French, 
then the translation of the question into the subject's language which 
often was Polish or Yiddish, followed by the response by the person in 
their language, and finally the inclusion of the hurried and sometimes 
incorrect translation of the answer back into French.  But the most 
amazing part of this infuriating technique was seeing that the only part 
of the exchange which was included in the English language subtitles was 
the original French and the subsequent French translation.  The answers 
remained unsubtitled until the French translation was subtitled.   Using 
and translating the responses themselves in their original languages 
would probably have left the audience with a much more accurate -- and 
shorter -- film.  Why couldn't the Polish been translated into English 
instead of being translated into French and that translation being 
translated into English???  Was the Polish answer less accurate than the 
French translation of that answer??  Was the French translation more 
worthwhile than the Polish language answer??  Is the French language 
more worthwhile than the Polish language? 

Closer to our theme of 78s is another word which seems to have popped up 
for no reason -- Klezmer.  For the entire 78 era and well thru most of 
the LP era, this music was referred to as Freileich.  This was seen in 
song titles, album titles, musical descriptions on record labels, liner 
notes, and record catalogs. and even in the names of musical groups.  
Then suddenly in the mid-80s there was a documentary on PBS about Henry 
Sapoznik and several musical groups and this mystery word Klezmer shows 
up over and over for the first time.   What was wrong with the word 
Freileich  which we already knew???  In the recent book about Jewish LPs 
"And We Shall Know Them By The Trail Of Their Vinyl" they use the term 
Freileich and show many records that used that term in the 50s -70s.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com