mike ([info]wordzguy) wrote,
@ 2003-05-28 20:27:00
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I saw it -istan-ing there
Contribute! | Policy | Philosophy

In Slate, referring to something in the New York Times Magazine:
A cover line dubs Afghanistan "Warlordistan"
Quotation marks theirs. In the wake of our keen interest in Afghanistan in the last few years, the suffix "-istan" has been getting a bit of a workout as people play with turning it into a generic suffix. For instance, the term blogistan is, like, everywhere. Like, here, here, and here, which takes a crack at a definition ("The totality of blogs; blogs as a community").

It would be an interesting turn of events if we in English were to start using "-istan" as a general-purpose suffix meaning "place," since that's effectively what it means in actual placenames (Pakistan, Kurdistan). (There's a thread here on the etymology, if you're interested.) If so, the borrowing would be a kind of full circle -- a particle meaning "place" turned into placenames, imported into English as proper nouns, and then analyzed back into a consituent particle.

National Lampoon, um, lampoons this phenomenon here.



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the meaning of the "-istan" ending of middle east countries
(Anonymous)
2003-06-06 10:45 am UTC (link)
Most middle east countries have the ending "-stan" to them such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan (not sure of the spelling). The "-stan" ending means "place or land of". For example, Afghanistan would mean "land of afghans", Pakistan would mean "clean place" (kinda ironic as it is generally not) and Tajikistan means "the land of Tajiks."

I agree with the author of "I saw it -istan-ing there" in the defination of the suffix "-istan."

Hadi ---> all_about_david2000 @ yahoo.com

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Re: the meaning of the "-istan" ending of middle east countries
(Anonymous)
2003-06-16 08:54 am UTC (link)
A minor correction: According to V. S. Naipaul, Pakistan means "land of the pure," the idea being that Pakistan was founded with the idea of being a pure Islamic state--at least, as pure Islam would have been understood in 1947.
--jrp

(Reply to this) (Parent)

istan, youstan
(Anonymous)
2003-06-10 11:43 am UTC (link)
I think there's a large contingent of New Yorker readers among your readership, right, Mike? So many of them (us?) have doubtless seen the Dec. 10, 2001 cover by Maira Kalman and Rick Meyerowitz, depicting "New Yorkistan"? It purports a variety of new boroughs and neighborhoods in the metropolitan area (Kvetchnia, Veryverybad, Flatbushtuns), and has been so insanely popular that it is now available for purchase as both a poster and a shower curtain:

http://www.cartoonbank.com/shower_curtain.asp?mscssid=JUL455RT80128MRF93XTEFJMCLAHDJQB

--Kim

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Two new studies show why some people are more
(Anonymous)
2007-11-16 09:36 am UTC (link)
Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.

The University of Florida, Florida State University found that physically attractive people almost instantly attract the attention of the interlocutor, sobesednitsy with them, literally, it is difficult to make eye. This conclusion was reached by a series of psychological experiments, which were determined by the people who believe in sending the first seconds after the acquaintance. Here, a curious feature: single, unmarried experimental preferred to look at the guys, beauty opposite sex, and family, people most often by representatives of their sex.

The authors believe that this feature developed a behavior as a result of the evolution: a man trying to find a decent pair to acquire offspring. If this is resolved, he wondered potential rivals. Detailed information about this magazine will be published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In turn, a joint study of the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller University and Duke University, Duke University in North Carolina revealed that women are perceived differently by men smell. During experiments studied the perception of women one of the ingredients of male pheromone-androstenona smell, which is contained in urine or sweat.

The results were startling: women are part of this repugnant odor, and the other part is very attractive, resembling the smell of vanilla, and the third group have not felt any smell. The authors argue that the reason is that the differences in the receptor responsible for the olfactory system, from different people are different.

It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.

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