From: Maurice A. O'Sullivan (mauros@iol.ie)
Date: Mon Feb 21 2000 - 11:23:10 EST
<x-flowed>At 09:43 21/02/00 -0500, Stephen C. Carlson wrote:
>To my American ear, this neutral meaning of "monger" is unfamiliar,
>and the word when used does have a pejorative connotation. For
>example, in the 80s, it was not uncommon to hear Ronald Reagan
>called a "warmonger." Your mileage will vary, of course, in other
>English speaking countries.
Stephen:
The realm of shops labelled "ironmonger" these days in the U.K is
deliberately preserved village shop-fronts, usually in tourist haunts,
theme-parks, and seff-consciously "archaic" name-plates.
The pejorative connotations of --monger are long establshed; the SOED gives:
usu. derog., a person who promotes or carries on a petty or disreputable
traffic in something specified. Usu. as 2nd elem. of comb. OE
And the two examples cited are hardly fresh-minted:
.C. KINGSLEY My only fear is people will fancy me a verbal-inspiration-monger.
V. WOOLF He's a priest, a mystery-monger.
As you say, "warmonger" is widely understood everywhere, as is the even
older "scaremonger".
No, I think "Christmonger" is good coinage --- and robust, too, as befits a
term of abuse!
One alternative that comes to mind is " Christ-peddler", [ on the lines of
"dope-peddler",] but i suspect the "-peddler" bit is not as common on your
side the Atlantic
as it is on mine.
Regards
Maurice
Maurice A. O'Sullivan [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros@iol.ie
[ subscribed to MSN Messenger
o_sullivanmauric@hotmail.com ]
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