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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You might want to look up "ersatz" before you use it again.[/quote]

Heck, I'll bite!  (More fun to discuss words than an obviously phony original post that people going for like hungry carp.)

"Ersatz" means an artificial substitute, with a connotation of lower or shoddy quality.  It's a German word going back to the 19th century.  I take it you think it should be retired from the language because it was also used to describe items in Germany in World War II, so it is associated with Nazis?  It seems to still be in use, including in the New York Times crossword, http://www.nytcrossword.com/2013/11/1114-13-new-york-times-crossword.html, so I don't think it's been retired from circulation as a Nazi word.

[/quote]

Not the PP, but I'm guessing that the PP objected to the use of the word "ersatz" because it doesn't mean what the ersatz-using PP seems to think it means.

And for what it's worth, "ersatz" in German just means alternative or substitute.[/quote]

Paging William Safire!

Here's from the Oxford Dictionary online  http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/ersatz:

1(of a product) made or used as [b]a substitute, typically an inferior one[/b], for something else:
ersatz coffee
MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES
SYNONYMS
1.1 [b]not real or genuine:[/b]
ersatz emotion

Both the "inferior substitute" or the "not real or genuine" would work here.

[/quote]

If Safire answers, that would be quite a surprise.[/quote]

Yes, yes, Safire is dead.  He would have liked this particular debate, though -- the wartime angle, the Germanic etymology, the crazy housewives bickering.[/quote]

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