>
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > The word "illegitimate" is pretty repulsive, but "illegal" is a
> > statement of fact. Why is it so insulting? Lots of things are illegal
> > that shouldn't be, but I don't see how it changes things to call
> > someone "undocumented" rather than "illegal."
>
> It's probably nothing to go to war about, but "She is an illegal immigrant"
> is not quite the same as "She is an illegal." Doubtless the possibility in
> English of using adjectives as substantives enriches the language -- but it
> can be obscurantist also, and is I think in this instance.
Yeah. But at least the use of adjectives to stand in the place of persons has given us some excellent names / slogans: 'Kein Mensch ist illegaal!' (thus either 'no person is illegal' or 'no person is an illegal immigrant' - quite an attack on the notion of immigration control).
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844