lightcastle

How to explain your research at a party.

Schott's Vocab (which I really should be reading more often), points out an alternative to "racial passing" - "pheneticizing", which was taken from this book review in Quill & Quire.

Compton argues that the term “racial passing” (a mixed-race person presenting as white) is often misused because it assumes racially ambiguous folks are always actively trying to be something they’re not. Instead, he suggests a new term – “pheneticizing” – that shifts the focus from the viewed to the viewer, and dispels the gross assumptions at work in attempts to slot Canada’s racial populations into easy binaries.

I am probably going to mine the pages of that blog for fun things in the future (especially since I don't have my own subscription to the OED.)

I mean, come on, he put up grimalkin just because it's neat.

In other english language news, the fine folks at take down another linguistic pedant in a review of Simon Heffer's new tome. (In related news, I might have to take up Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage.)

You know, sometimes I really lose faith in humanity.

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

And just in case you think people don't really say things like this.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Because, as Buffy says, nothing says "progressive, forward thinker" like letting "The Other" use your bathroom.