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Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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Does anyone know if there is a difference between descendent and
descendant or if there is a preferred usage? I'm also interested in
the variations of Afro-descended or African-descended.
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Bertel Lund Hansen
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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Raymond S. Wise skrev:
| Quote: | One is a noun, the other an adjective (misspellings aside). Any
decent dictionary can tell you which is which.
Hey! You're insulting Webster's Third!
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.... and Merriam-Webster on the net which does not have any note
about usually or always. Both the noun and the adjective has
"descendant" as main entry and "descendent" as variation.
--
Bertel
Denmark |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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JF wrote:
| Quote: | X-No-Archive: yes
In message <1131337096.888931.95170@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
Raymond S. Wise <mplsray@my-deja.com> writes
jfrench6@gmail.com wrote:
Does anyone know if there is a difference between descendent and
descendant or if there is a preferred usage? I'm also interested in
the variations of Afro-descended or African-descended.
I've dealt with "dependant" and "dependent" in another post. The
question about "Afro-descended" or "African-descended" seems strange.
Too right. What's wrong with Negro or Negroid?
--
James Follett
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Most educated English-speaking people now find "Negro" offensive in
most cases and "Negroid" offensive in all cases, that's what.
It's not only the case in English, either. In French, "nègre" is
almost as offensive as the English "nigger." The word used instead is
"Noir" (that is, "black"). In Esperanto, "negro" has been replaced by
"nigrulo" (literally, "black person").
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
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JF
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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X-No-Archive: yes
In message <1131337096.888931.95170@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
Raymond S. Wise <mplsray@my-deja.com> writes
| Quote: |
jfrench6@gmail.com wrote:
Does anyone know if there is a difference between descendent and
descendant or if there is a preferred usage? I'm also interested in
the variations of Afro-descended or African-descended.
I've dealt with "dependant" and "dependent" in another post. The
question about "Afro-descended" or "African-descended" seems strange.
|
Too right. What's wrong with Negro or Negroid?
--
James Follett |
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| Back to top |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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jfrench6@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: | Does anyone know if there is a difference between descendent and
descendant or if there is a preferred usage? I'm also interested in
the variations of Afro-descended or African-descended.
|
I've dealt with "dependant" and "dependent" in another post. The
question about "Afro-descended" or "African-descended" seems strange.
If you're talking about current racial designations, or about what
terms genealogists might use when speaking of an African-American
family, neither "Afro-descended" or "African-descended" would be used.
Did you have a question about something those terms relate to, rather
than to the terms themselves?
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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Robert Lieblich wrote:
| Quote: | jfrench6@gmail.com wrote:
Does anyone know if there is a difference between descendent and
descendant or if there is a preferred usage? I'm also interested in
the variations of Afro-descended or African-descended.
One is a noun, the other an adjective (misspellings aside). Any
decent dictionary can tell you which is which.
--
Bob Lieblich
Both noun and adjective
|
Hey! You're insulting Webster's Third!
*The Century Dictionary* of 1895 ( www.century-dictionary.com ) also
has both spellings for both the noun and the adjective, although it has
the following comment in the etymology of "descendant": "The adj., not
common in either spelling, is usually spelled _descendent,_
after the L.; but the noun is nearly always _descendant._ "
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Robert Lieblich
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:08 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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jfrench6@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: |
Does anyone know if there is a difference between descendent and
descendant or if there is a preferred usage? I'm also interested in
the variations of Afro-descended or African-descended.
|
One is a noun, the other an adjective (misspellings aside). Any
decent dictionary can tell you which is which.
--
Bob Lieblich
Both noun and adjective |
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Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 7:28 pm
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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Thanks for your help. I'm writing about Afro-Brazilians, but in Brazil
most people are mixed race. Meanwhile there is a lot of discussion
these days about discrimination against darker skinned people, although
in Brazil people are reluctant to use the word "black." The
international community has been using African descendant for all
people in the New World (sometimes called the African Diaspora) whose
ancestors came from Africa (I know a very large place, so quite
homogenizing). So I'm trying to decide which form of descent,
descended, descendant to use in that context. |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:10 pm
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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<jfrench6@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Thanks for your help. I'm writing about Afro-Brazilians, but in Brazil
most people are mixed race. Meanwhile there is a lot of discussion
these days about discrimination against darker skinned people, although
in Brazil people are reluctant to use the word "black." The
international community has been using African descendant for all
people in the New World (sometimes called the African Diaspora) whose
ancestors came from Africa (I know a very large place, so quite
homogenizing). So I'm trying to decide which form of descent,
descended, descendant to use in that context.
|
"Afro-descendants" is already the winner.
"afro-descendants" 14,100
"afro-descendents" 497 Ratio 28:1
That's an even stronger preference than the the way "a descendant"
outnumbers "a descendent" on the Web, which is 5:l.
Those "Afro-descendants" pages look quite official, too: I see the World
Bank, OAS, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, other congressional
offices, wire services, universities...
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux |
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Salvatore Volatile
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:13 pm
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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jfrench6@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: | What do you think of the difference between "people of African descent"
and "people of African heritage" - how would you articulate the
difference between the concepts of descent and heritage? Do you think
it's the difference between "blood" and "culture"?
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It ought to be, but there's a tendency in informal speech to use
"heritage" more broadly or fuzzily. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:25 pm
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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What do you think of the difference between "people of African descent"
and "people of African heritage" - how would you articulate the
difference between the concepts of descent and heritage? Do you think
it's the difference between "blood" and "culture"? |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 1:44 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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<jfrench6@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | What do you think of the difference between "people of African descent"
and "people of African heritage" - how would you articulate the
difference between the concepts of descent and heritage? Do you think
it's the difference between "blood" and "culture"?
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Yes, I think that sums it up pretty well.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 7:25 am
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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Raymond S. Wise wrote:
[...]
| Quote: | It's not only the case in English, either. In French, "nègre" is
almost as offensive as the English "nigger." The word used instead
is
"Noir" (that is, "black"). [...]
|
Nonetheless, "noir" was, I understand, once as rude in French as
"black" was in English. Plus ca change, quoi? And French was slower
than English: I remember a perfectly respectable Frenchwoman saying
"petit-nègre" to describe her grasp of English in about 1980, when
only jerk-offs had said "nigger" in English for about a hundred
years.
--
Mike. |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 4:04 pm
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
| Quote: | Raymond S. Wise skrev:
One is a noun, the other an adjective (misspellings aside). Any
decent dictionary can tell you which is which.
Hey! You're insulting Webster's Third!
... and Merriam-Webster on the net which does not have any note
about usually or always. Both the noun and the adjective has
"descendant" as main entry and "descendent" as variation.
--
Bertel
Denmark
|
MWCD11, which represents a newer edition of the same dictionary, has an
interesting change. Instead of introducing "dependent" (for both the
noun and the adjective) with "or," it introduces it with "also." This
means that the spelling "dependent" must have become a more rarely used
variant in the years since MWCD10 was published. Note again that this
is the case not just with the noun, but with the adjective as well.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 4:09 pm
Post subject: Re: Difference between descendent and descendant |
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Raymond S. Wise wrote:
| Quote: | Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Raymond S. Wise skrev:
One is a noun, the other an adjective (misspellings aside). Any
decent dictionary can tell you which is which.
Hey! You're insulting Webster's Third!
... and Merriam-Webster on the net which does not have any note
about usually or always. Both the noun and the adjective has
"descendant" as main entry and "descendent" as variation.
--
Bertel
Denmark
MWCD11, which represents a newer edition of the same dictionary, has an
interesting change. Instead of introducing "dependent" (for both the
noun and the adjective) with "or," it introduces it with "also." This
means that the spelling "dependent" must have become a more rarely used
|
Good grief! Make those "dependent"s "descendent".
| Quote: | variant in the years since MWCD10 was published. Note again that this
is the case not just with the noun, but with the adjective as well.
|
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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