Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
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From: jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
Subject: Musings: kyria onomata for human beings
Message-ID: <DyI5AM.B68@world.std.com>
Summary: Musings & a question
Keywords: nouns, kyrion onoma
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 16:18:22 GMT
Lines: 46

By the kyrion onoma for something I mean the default common noun for
it, used unless there is a reason to be more general or more specific,
or to use a substitute word (e.g. slang or euphemism).  I'm not sure
if this is a widely known term; but see Fowler, _MEU_, s.v. formal
words.  I gather that it comes from Aristotle.

Kyria onomata are part of the culture or, sometimes, the subculture.
To most of us, for example, the kyrion onoma for a motor vehicle is
car, truck, bus, etc.; but among the boys when I was a boy, it was the
make of a car: they would say "that Buick on the corner" even if there
was no other car in sight.  Being what is now called a nerd, I found
this taxing, because I never learned to tell the makes of cars except
by reading the hubcaps.  (Exercise for the reader: how old am I?)

To the best of my introspection & observation, the kyria onomata for
human beings in modern English are man, woman, boy, & girl.  I might
ask, without artificiality, "What is that person doing on the
hilltop?", but to ask about someone across the room, whose age & sex
are obvious, "Who is that person in the orange turtleneck?" would be
very frigid & would probably be taken as an insult.  Perhaps this
feeling is weakening in response to the agitation against sexist
language.

In some groups of people, the noun denoting a member becomes the
kyrion onoma for members of that group.  I have the impression that
among Israeli Jews, Jew (Yehudi) is, or was, a kyrion onoma.  Anecdote
in a newspaper about 40 years ago:  Some Jews are waiting for their
taxi to fill up; one of them exclaims "Here comes another Jew"
(instead of "someone else"), and there is general amusement when he
turns out to be a priest.  Likewise, it seems from _Huckleberry Finn_
& the odd uncensored folksong that among antebellum southern blacks
"nigger" was the default word for one of themselves.  These days there
is a subculture of gay men, mostly in English-speaking countries, who
call themselves bears.  In their discourse on the Internet, they
always use the word "bear" rather than "man" in mentioning one of
their number, and they have even invented "husbear" for the mate of a
bear, and "anybear" for any one of the company.  The notion of a
tribal _pronoun_ is particularly striking.

Are there any cultures in which the word for human being is the
default?

-- 
        Joe Fineman             jcf@world.std.com
        495 Pleasant St., #1    (617) 324-6899
        Malden, MA 02148
