English vocabulary question...

[yosemite]

Originally Posted by turtlecat

mm.. I'm not sure that it IS an incorrect word, keep in mind that it was a VERY OLD article, and word meanings change in 50 years let alone 100.

That was my thought also. If you are using a quote, then use it as it was written. You shouldn't lose any points IMO for that.

Words used before our time were often used differently than we would use them today.

 

[marie-p]

Originally Posted by Yosemite

That was my thought also. If you are using a quote, then use it as it was written. You shouldn't lose any points IMO for that.

Words used before our time were often used differently than we would use them today.

that's what I was thinking.
It's an history assignment anyways... I'm sure the prof is used to reading quotes in old English.

 

[yosemite]

Originally Posted by marie-p

that's what I was thinking.
It's an history assignment anyways... I'm sure the prof is used to reading quotes in old English.

Marie, I believe you are from la Belle Province - perhaps that is the way it was translated into English at the time? Non?

 

[marie-p]

Originally Posted by Yosemite

Marie, I believe you are from la Belle Province - perhaps that is the way it was translated into English at the time? Non?

I am from Quebec but this assignment is for an American history class. The quote is from an African-American newspaper back in 1900.

 

[bumpy]

The more I think about it, I am not too certain if the correct word is aligned given the context that the article was in 1900. It was only from the 1940s to 1960s after the Civil Rights movement did African Americans became aligned with the Democrats. This was because prior to that the Democrat's traditional power base were from the Southern Conservative Democrats that were opposed to civil rights. Which suggests to me that in the 1900s African American support should be instead with the Republican party.

 

[marie-p]

Originally Posted by bumpy

The more I think about it, I am not too certain if the correct word is aligned given the context that the article was in 1900. It was only from the 1940s to 1960s after the Civil Rights movement did African Americans became aligned with the Democrats. This was because prior to that the Democrat's traditional power base were from the Southern Conservative Democrats that were opposed to civil rights. Which suggests to me that in the 1900s African American support should be instead with the Republican party.

actually, that's right. Most African-Americans around that time were supporting the Republican party. But in 1900, some switched sides because they were strongly opposed to the war in the Philippine waged by the Republican administration. The majority still supported the Republicans (less enthusiastically than before, but it still seemed like the lesser of two evils) but the article in question is written by a democrat... so he might have been exagerating democratic support a little.