(no subject)
A while back I wrote a brief entry regarding the word 'scientism' which I utterly despise. There's another word that also irritates the hell out of me for much the same reason: 'Islamist'.
By taking a neutral noun, making it adjectival and having it denote something bad, there is strong implication that the original neutral noun is, at the very least, guilty by association. The media's continued use of the word 'Islamist' serves only to fuel anti-Arab racism, just as use of the word 'scientism' fuels anti-science sentiment. Of course, this is exactly what these words were designed to do, and they do it well.
By taking a neutral noun, making it adjectival and having it denote something bad, there is strong implication that the original neutral noun is, at the very least, guilty by association. The media's continued use of the word 'Islamist' serves only to fuel anti-Arab racism, just as use of the word 'scientism' fuels anti-science sentiment. Of course, this is exactly what these words were designed to do, and they do it well.