As a former linguist, I'm interested in this recent phenomenon of denial/denier constructions. So far I've only seen two things you can be a "denier" of: the Holocaust and climate change. Does anybody say "relativity denier" or "evolution denier" or "red shift denier"? Can you? Or does the "denier" construction require some specially privileged component of our system of beliefs? If so, which components are specially privileged in that way, and why?
Not quite relatedly: when did the term "Holocaust" start to be used in its present specific proper-noun sense to refer to what was called -- earlier, I think -- the Shoah, at least in Hebrew? I have a vague feeling it was sometime in the 60s. Does anyone know where this usage originated and how it came to be generally accepted?
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org