QUIPs

There is a lot about the way people talk today that pisses me off, as most of you are probably aware. Today we discuss gripes that go beyond issues of propriety of usage and semantic contradiction (as in misuses of "literally" and the phrases "very" or "sort of unique"). Today's QUIPs, or Questionably Used or Irritating Phrases deal instead with socio-cultural or political issues.

The first of these QUIPs is "World Music."

The most popular music in the world is not actually pop music. It is, in fact, world music.
--Sifl and Olly

This generally refers to any music that is non-western, or any contemporary music whose style did not originate in the English-speaking west. This is either arrogant or maliciously lazy. The assumption here is that, for all the subdivisions that can be made of American popular music, all the hundreds of subgenres of metal and punk and jazz and electronic music, all those things that end with -core, there are two words that encompass all the other music from every other society. Are you from Lapland? Perhaps Siberia? Perhaps you hail from Jakarta, or Sao Paolo, or Lagos. It doesn't matter, though, because you are just the rest of the world, so you just play "World Music." All this being said, some bands are in fact eclectic in their style, having elements of music from many different parts of the world, and thus could arguably be described as "World Music," as it is music that attempts to be simply of the world rather than its particular culture of origin.

The second QUIP: "Anti-Semitic." This, in common usage (actually, in just about all usage) means "in opposition to the Jewish people, nation, and/or society." However, it literally means a more general opposition to all Semites. Most people see the word in context and thus would assume that a Semite is a Jew. And ethnically Jewish people are indeed Semitic. However, they are scarcely the only Semites in the world. In fact, with this popular definition of Anti-Semitic, the most prominent Anti-Semites in the world are, in fact, Semitic. Care to guess who? Perhaps you have guessed it: The Palestinians. Along with Egyptians, Assyrians, Iraqis, Saudis, etc. Arabs are Semitic. A good portion of the "Anti-Semitic" statements made in the modern world are made in Arabic, a Semitic language.

Now, some racially motivated people probably are Anti-Semitic, but even these people probably seperate in their minds the cultures of the Jews and their Semitic neighbors. Preferably, if you want to describe a sentiment or person that is in opposition to the Jewish people, nation, or society, say "Anti-Hebrew," "Anti-Jewish," "Anti-Israeli," something along those lines that clarifies which Semites are being opposed.