Post- facto?

Question

From the Grauniad:"(The magazine) lost its way long ago, analysts said, unable to navigate the mores of a post-Aids, post-feminist age."http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1018378,00.htmlMy impression is that "post-" is used here to mean "after the introduction of" rather than "after the end of." (AIDS is certainly still around.) Am I alone in thinking this usage is (not to put too fine a point on it) wrong?-skipka

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[nq:1]My impression is that "post-" is used here to mean "after the introduction of" rather than "after the end of." (AIDS is certainly still around.) Am I alone in thinking this usage is (not to put too fine a point on it) wrong?[/nq]
AIDS is still around? More amazingly Magic Johnson is still around! (he had a birthday yesterday)

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[nq:1]From the Grauniad: "(The magazine) lost its way long ago, analysts said, unable to navigate the mores of a post-Aids, ... around.) Am I alone in thinking this usage is (not to put too fine a point on it) wrong? -skipka[/nq]
It seems as if a useful distinction could be made. For "introduction of" could we say post-alpha, or maybe post-limn, the latter indicating it has been delineated?

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[nq:1]From the Grauniad: "(The magazine) lost its way long ago, analysts said, unable to navigate the mores of a post-Aids, ... still around.) Am I alone in thinking this usage is (not to put too fine a point on it) wrong?[/nq]
I certainly find it strange. Woukld 1940 be "post-war"?

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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(Email Removed) (Steve Hayes) burbled
[nq:2]From the Grauniad: "(The magazine) lost its way long ago, ... (not to put too fine a point on it) wrong?[/nq]
[nq:1]I certainly find it strange. Woukld 1940 be "post-war"?[/nq]
No. That war was in its first stages of fighting in 1940, and it wouldn't even have been pre-war in the USA, which didn't get into it until December 7, 1941.
The meaning of /post-/ has to be determined from context. In the context provided above, /post-/ most definitely "subsequent to the discovery/introduction of. There is nothing wrong with that usage, IMHO. No one reading it now would misunderstand that it might mean that AIDS has been conquered or that feminism has disappeared; both are still very much with us.
The W3NID definitions I provided in another post support that interpretation despite the lack of examples. I can no longer access my OED2 CD-ROM, but there should be examples in the OED that will also support it. While we expect a war to be over shortly, we have no reason to expect that a disease or a philosophy will ever die. We cannot say, for example "post-bubonic plague era" simply because the bubonic plague has not disappeared entirely, only the epidemic that occurred about 700-800 years ago. The same with AIDS.

To quote that "anything-goes descriptivist" \P. Schultz, "That's the way the language is used." (Are you reading this, Raymond?) In this case, I agree with \P.

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[nq:2]From the Grauniad: "(The magazine) lost its way long ago, ... (not to put too fine a point on it) wrong?[/nq]
[nq:1]I certainly find it strange. Woukld 1940 be "post-war"?[/nq]
Not the way I use "postwar", and believe you me, I use the word "postwar" more often than most human beings. "Postwar" means "on or after V-E Day, 1945", plain and simple.

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[nq:1]If the original example I quoted had left out "post-AIDS," I would have concluded that the writer felt that feminism was dead.[/nq]
Many people think that it is dead (in the West, anyway). That's why I found the sentence so confusing: it seemed to use 'post-' in both the post-advent and post-demise senses. It was all the more confusing because feminism's perceived demise was big news here very recently, even in The Guardian. See:
http://www.eoc.org.uk/EOCeng/EOCcs/Research/talking%20equality%20report. pdf
(Warning: 2.4Mb.)
The Equal Opportunities Commission is Britain's leading anti-sexism quango. That report, published in July, found that

The concept of 'feminism' was seen virtually unanimously in negative terms as old fashioned and 'ball-breaking'. It is seen as politics from the past suggesting that the idea of women's inequality is seen as out of date.
The AOC was very shocked by these findings and, according to The Guardian, 'it considered withdrawing parts of the report but then decided to publish.' (That presumably means 'publish in full'. Perhaps the original sentence read 'publish and be damned' but it got chopped for being too trite - even for The Guardian, that stale, time-warped fishwrapper for the Establishment's pan-seared tuna steaks marinated in Umbrian olive oil with basil and coriander.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk news/story/0,3604,989268,00.html

Some comments from women in the study's focus groups:

'Every time I think of feminism I just get this really awful feeling.'

'I associate feminists with that kind of ... ball-breaking, you know - I don't need you, I will do this on my own.'
ObAUE: The interviewee who gets the really awful feeling is labelled by the report as 'Southern young woman'. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not right either. I would have labelled her 'Young southern woman', or perhaps 'Young Southern woman'.
Another interviewee is labelled 'Lesbian woman'. Nuff said.

Mickwick

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mickwick (Email Removed) burbled
[nq:1]Another interviewee is labelled 'Lesbian woman'. Nuff said.[/nq]
If "gay" can mean "homosexual male" or "homosexual female", isn't it sexist to assume that "lesbian" must be applied only to homosexual women? After all, in this day and age, we are what we think we are and what we call ourselves, not only what we eat or are called by others. For lesbianism to be truly an equal-opportunity ~~ism, it must not discriminate against straight or gay or bi~~ men or women. Why can't we all be "lesbian" if we wish? That's the true American way.

Franke: "Equality for egalitarians".

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[nq:2]Another interviewee is labelled 'Lesbian woman'. Nuff said.[/nq]
[nq:1]If "gay" can mean "homosexual male" or "homosexual female", isn't it sexist to assume that "lesbian" must be applied only ... gay or bi- men or women. Why can't we all be "lesbian" if we wish? That's the true American way.[/nq]
I'm certainly far too scruffy to be gay, and I often find it difficult to identify with male heterosexual attitudes. So I have sometimes considered the possibility that I might be a Lesbian man. Works for me.
Mike.

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[nq:1]If "gay" can mean "homosexual male" or "homosexual female", isn't it sexist to assume that "lesbian" must be applied only ... gay or bi- men or women. Why can't we all be "lesbian" if we wish? That's the true American way.[/nq]
Which reminds me of a recent Mark Steyn column in the Chicago Sun-Times about New York's first all-gay high school. Steyn believes that, rather than bussing persecuted gays and maybe-gays and just plain weedies to a special school, it would be more effective to bus all school bullies to a special school. (Flashman High?)
There they could bully each other to their heart's content - or, as the educators would say, celebrate their identity in a mutually threatening learning environment.

Mickwick

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mickwick (Email Removed) burbled
[nq:2]If "gay" can mean "homosexual male" or "homosexual female", isn't ... be "lesbian" if we wish? That's the true American way.[/nq]
[nq:1]Which reminds me of a recent Mark Steyn column in the Chicago Sun-Times about New York's first all-gay high school. ... to their heart's content - or, as the educators would say, celebrate their identity in a mutually threatening learning environment.[/nq]
If only bureacrats and politicians could think this way.

Post- facto?

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