in celebration of the birth of a reverend

4 Comments

1. Jerusha says:

   2006.06.26 at 03:06 pm

   Sounds like you’ll have an evening full of surprises. And, I bet just to be cute, some of your guy friends will come without underwear, and give you a couple free shots. Or, at least my friends would do that.

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2. kim says:

   2006.06.26 at 05:06 pm

   i will be there with bells on!

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3. Josh Davis says:

   2006.06.27 at 04:06 pm

   email meee. I dunno if we have sitter action, and it’s the night before the maxday party, but I can still check with the missus on our options.

   Squaw (from Pidgin Massachusett (a Pidginized version of a language belonging to the Algonquian family) squa, meaning “young woman”) is an English loan-word whose present meaning is “(an) American Indian woman”, regardless of tribe.

   During the 1970′s, some American Indian activists objected to the term, alleging that it came from a Mohawk (Iroquoian language family) slang word meaning “cunt”. The earliest known objection is from Thomas E. Sanders and Walter W. Peek, Literature of the American Indian (Glencoe Press, 1973), p. 184:
   

   “That curious concept of ‘squaw’, the enslaved, demeaned, voiceless childbearer, existed and exists only in the mind of the non-Native American and is probably a French corruption of the Iroquois word otsiskwa [also spelled ojiskwa] meaning ‘female sexual parts’, a word almost clinical both denotatively and connotatively. The corruption suggests nothing about the Native American’s attitude toward women; it does indicate the wasichu’s [white man's] view of Native American women in particular if not all women in general”.

   However, the above authors are erroneous — the English word squaw was not borrowed from Mohawk (and Mohawk is not from the Algonquian language family). Although Algonquian linguists reject this proposed etymology, this incorrect information has been repeated by several journalists (e.g. Oprah Winfrey) and inspired a number of local initiatives to rename places with “squaw” as a part of their names (such as Squaw Peak in Phoenix, Arizona).

   Excerpt from Wasi’chu, The Continuing Indian Wars,
   Bruce Johansen and Robert Maestas:
   

   The first European people to meet the Lakota called them “Sioux,” a contraction of Nadowessioux, a now-archaic French-Canadian word meaning “snake” or enemy.

   The Lakota also used the metaphor to describe the newcomers. It was Wasi’chu, which means “takes the fat,” or “greedy person.”

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4. erica says:

   2006.06.29 at 04:06 pm

   We won’t be able to make it. :( Josh will be flying in from Georgia late Friday night– and I will be trying not to freak out as I get everything ready for Saturday’s party.
   Do I get to stomp my feet and whine about unfairness now?
   Maybe in a few weeks we could have an UnBirthday Party. Just because. xo

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