06 March 2024

Word of the day - "monger"

A dealer or trader in a commodity. The Random House Dictionary states the ultimate origin is from the Latin "mango", meaning .... salesman! ["Death of a mango?"]

"Monger" was once used as a verb, but it now is typically only employed as the second element of compound words. My OED says examples of such formations are "unlimited", with examples beginning in the 13th century: hay-mongers, holy-water mongers, insect-mongers (?) etc. The most familiar would likely be cheesemonger, costermonger (fruit/veggies), fishmonger, ironmonger, and whoremonger.

As the last-named example suggests, the OED notes that from the 16th century onward, the term nearly always carries the implication of a petty, disreputable, or comtemptible trade in the material - as in the modern "rumor-monger" "gossip-monger" and "scandal-monger."

Here is a costermonger:



...and there is a fearmonger at the end of this brief [2008] video:


Reposted to add yet another example:


Cartoon by Rob Rogers in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via the political cartoon-laden Jobsanger.

Reposted from the last election cycle to add some examples of current fearmongering:


The Democratic party went through a heart-wrenching primary process, during which the voters ultimately rejected the radical left in favor of a moderate Joe Biden.  But the Wisconsin Republican Party combined Biden with images of their standard behemoths of radicalism to claim that they control him.

And Trump is using this same tactic:
“People that you’ve never heard of” are controlling Mr. Biden, he told the Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “People that are in the dark shadows.”

“What does that mean?” Ms. Ingraham asked. “That sounds like conspiracy theory.”

“No,” Mr. Trump answered. “People that you haven’t heard of. They’re people that are on the streets. They’re people that are controlling the streets. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They’re on a plane.”
This is not conventional confrontational politics.  These are the ramblings of a deranged mind.

Reposted from 2020, because Donald Trump is at it again.  But this time his fearmongering tactic isn't directed towards Biden but towards.... LANGUAGES???
We have languages coming into our country. We don’t have one instructor in our entire nation that can speak that language,” Trump said before a crowd of thousands of supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C., last month.

“These are languages — it’s the craziest thing — they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing,” he added.

Trump repeated the comment the following week during an appearance at the southern border alongside Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, saying that migrants are entering the country speaking “truly foreign languages.”

“Nobody speaks them,” he said after a tour of the border in Eagle Pass.
It is certainly true that uncommon languages are coming into our country.  Some of you will have seen John Farrier's recent post at Neatorama: "Of the 700 Speakers of Seke, a Nepalese Language, 150 Live in Two Apartment Buildings in Brooklyn."

In 2013 I posted this map of counties in the U.S. in which at least 10% of households English was spoken as a second language:


We all know what's going on here.  He's not referring to some exotic Czechoslovakian or Slovenian dialect.  His reference is to languages spoken by brown-skinned or African residents.  This speech was a dog whistle to the racist and xenophobic elements in his base.

I know there are sensible and well-spoken Trump supporters who have been faithful readers of this blog.  I invite you to offer any explanation I've overlooked as to why migrants speaking "truly foreign languages" is a "very horrible thing."

22 comments:

  1. More specifically, in Latin "mango" had a very negative connotation. The word was used to describe a dishonest salesman, a swindler (Pliny the Elder) or a slave trader (Seneca)... Relevant? Maybe.

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  2. Nothing better than a mango monger

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/scraggot/6417467753/

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    1. If only the photograph had been taken in Munger...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munger

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    2. Or in a manger.
      Funny; as soon as I typed that, I realized that the English word manger no doubt derives from the same word in French - manger - meaning to eat.

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  3. My father-in-law is seriously worried about post-election riots, due to the flavor of "news" he prefers to ingest.

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    1. You mean "light, not filling!" news?

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    2. I think she means "Fair and Balanced" news, aka Fox News.

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    3. I would like to suggest a good podcast for anyone interested in the history and meaning of words: http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

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    4. Thank you, Dutch [my father's childhood nickname, btw, because he was "deutsch.") I've downloaded all 80+ episodes to iTunes and burned a couple onto CDs to listen to while driving. Much appreciated.

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    5. Why worry about post-election riots when there are current riots to join?

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  4. you can add the ever popular 'warmonger' and 'hatemonger' to your list of moderns.

    I-)

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  5. In junior high, the family business was a fish market, so the teacher referred to me as the fishmonger's son.

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  6. I think it's worrying that we have nationals from multiple hostile and adversary nations entering the country without any sort of oversight or tracking, but I'm sure one of the well spoken and thoughtful readers of this blog can explain why it's a good thing actually

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    1. That's not the same thing, and you know it.

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    2. It's the important thing. What Trump is referring to of course is the wide range of nationalities that somehow find themselves at the southern border. I'm not particularly happy about it, but if you want to explain why it's good I'm all ears.

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    3. I too am worried about the influx of Russian operatives, having lived an entire lifetime concerned about the Cold War, which apparently now we think is just fine if Russia wins. That's what you're referring to, right?

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    4. I'm sure this sounded like a "gotcha!" in your head but I honestly have no idea what you're talking about

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    5. I haven't found the fulltext of the CPAC speech yet, but others interpret his comments as referring not to the southern border, but to NYC:

      "Now Donald Trump is warning about this linguistic diversity, arguing that New York’s classrooms are overwhelmed by foreign students who speak obscure languages. “They have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of,” Mr. Trump said, referring to migrants who have recently arrived. “It’s a very horrible thing.”..

      Queens is home to over two million people, with many hailing from distant corners of the globe, validating the fundamental American ideal that people from deeply different backgrounds can coexist. The people who makeup “the world’s borough” speak languages like Mixtec, Kichwa, Tibetan and Fulani as well as a trove of endangered languages invisible to the census but mapped by my organization, the Endangered Language Alliance. This depth of linguistic diversity shows how differences may sustain a society, just as biodiversity fosters resilient ecosystems.

      Mr. Trump, who was born in Queens to a mother whose first language was Scottish Gaelic, understands all too well how to rally people against the Queensification of America. Attacks on languages are all too often attacks on their speakers, but monolinguals like him may be especially fearful of losing their linguistic privilege. "

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/opinion/language-diversity-america.html

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  7. Are you also worried about the increase of Russian presence in the States and their influence on everything from our real estate markets to politics to hacking our most sensitive databases? And if not, why not? What other immigration is more dangerous to our country right now that you feel you can ignore this serious problem?

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  8. Obviously he means that people whose language no government worker speaks are easy for crooked bosses and lazy cops and slumlords to victimize, and this is a human rights issue. Right?

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