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[CortJstr]

These days, there's some sort of complicated explanation of the yellow weakness involving an immortal yellow fear demon that lives trapped in the main power source of the Green Lanterns and... overcoming it by overcoming fear and then the power works on anything which... seems about as creatively interesting as Superman being able to overcome kryptonite if enough of the children in the audience clap their hands but... like... perhaps I'm old and cynical now.

They should go the Tick route and just give everybody Drama Power. His powers are directly proportional to how dramatic using them is. Which is how he gets his ass kicked for 12 pages before suddenly coming back and beating the bad guy while still having enough breath to crack wise. Kind of like in sci-fi movies all spaceships fly at the speed of plot.

[MattFish]

Also: Jewish.

[theinevitable]

yeah, for real. slap in the face, jewish people! even otters are subtly anti-semitic.

(why does Anti-Semitic mean Anti-Jewish, if Arabs are also Semitic? Or at least, Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic Languages...)

[Ben-San]

(why does Anti-Semitic mean Anti-Jewish, if Arabs are also Semitic? Or at least, Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic Languages...)

Originally anti-Semitism did also refer to Arabs, as it was coined in reference to eugenic ideas about the inferiority of the "Semitic races" to the "Aryan race". The key point, though, is that in most of Europe before the World Wars, if you were hating on the Semitic races you were actually hating on Jews because those were the Semites who were available to blame your woes on - Arabs were just too far away to be properly persecuted.

Later, "anti-Semitic measures" were taken to purify the Aryan gene pool. Now, if there's anything that permanently dysphemizes a word, it's being utilized in the context of the highest-profile act of genocide and most destructive war of the modern era. Just as "concentration camp" was intended as a euphemism (see, we're just concentrating their population in one place!), "anti-Semitism" was a term intended to euphemize the killing and sterilization of Jews and so forth. Also like "concentration camp", the result was that the term ended up permanently associated with that use of it - in this case, Jew-hatin'. Or, on the Internet, Jew-h8in'.

[littlefallsmets]

If I was against making up euphemisms for unpleasant topics, would you call me anti-semantic?

Or would you make up a nicer word for it?

[MattFish]

If I was against making up euphemisms for unpleasant topics, would you call me anti-semantic?

oh my god I almost barfed on the ground

[Fooker]

What kind of bullets does Chris buy? Because, $50 could buy you a lot, especially if he's just shooting Tic-Tac.

[stringph]

I am intrigued by Philippe's "caramel" disillusion.

Did he believe that caramel was an elemental substance that could not be broken down into simpler constituents? ... that it fell from the sky like manna?

He's got a shock to come if he ever learns about sausages.

[innes]

Originally anti-Semitism did also refer to Arabs
 
Actually, anti-semitism was invented as a term specifically to refer to hatred of Jews. I believe it may have been intended as a less nasty-sounding term by some european who was in favour of hating Jews but wanted a euphemism.

It's a more recent thing to quibble with the Semitic/Jewish terminology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitic

I feel I should now push my figurative milk-bottle-thick spectacles up the bridge of my nose at this point, and sniffle adenoidally like the wordnerd I so obviously am.

(Oh and my post is probably a complete load of rubbish anyway)

[wombat]

I can understand thinking caramel is an element. I used to feel the same way about mayonnaise.  I couldn't imagine what you could put together to make it.  And see, for both caramel and mayonnaise it kind of makes sense, because they are the products of kind of fancy chemical reactions.  Alton Brown would get to use props to discuss them whereas for sausage he'd have to do one of those shows where he just makes food like a normal person.

[CortJstr]

I can understand thinking caramel is an element. I used to feel the same way about mayonnaise.  I couldn't imagine what you could put together to make it.  And see, for both caramel and mayonnaise it kind of makes sense, because they are the products of kind of fancy chemical reactions.  Alton Brown would get to use props to discuss them whereas for sausage he'd have to do one of those shows where he just makes food like a normal person.

Mayo is white styrofoam balls with silver pushpins in them.

[nuero]

does a lot of this just sound a lot like not philippe to anyone else

[Ben-San]

some stuff reiterating things I said in my post

Yeah. As I said, if you said "Jews and Arabs out of the gene pool" in Europe, what you really meant was Jews because there were so few Arabs in the central European gene pool at the time. However, Arabs were left in the initial definition for, as I also said, euphemistic purposes.