Re: Young Turk defined, Re: Development of Tochiazuma

["RJ Friedman" <rjf@comasia.com>]

On Sat, 31 Jul 1999 11:10:33 -0700, Garrett J. Dressler wrote:

>> Last year there was an expression "Young Turks" that were popular on the
>> list. Was it Kintaro who created it ?


>Good Question.  I have heard that expression all of my life.  I always
>understood it to mean "strong young newcomers" without questioning it's
>derivation.
>
 From Webster's Ninth New College Dictionary:
>
>     Young Turk n [Young Turks, a 20th cent. revolutionary party in Turkey]
>     (1901) : an insurgent or member of an insurgent group especially in a
>     political party : RADICAL; broadly : one advocating changes within a
>     usually established group


 That definition is ok as far as it goes, but it doesn't really go far
enough.

 The term originally comes from the description of a young generation
of leadership in Turkey at the turn of the century, who wanted to put
an end to the policies of the conservative entrenched political
leadership, and lead Turkey into becoming a modern "western style"
state.

 They weren't really `radical' or `revolutionary' since many/most of
them came from the ruling classes to begin with; had studied in
European universities for the most part; and brought the ideas they
learned about back with them.

 From there the term has generally come to mean a `new wave' (new
methods, ideas, etc.) type of challenge by the younger leadership to
the older established leadership.


>PS.  Speaking of definitions, etc.,  I have seen "loose" meaning "not win" many
>times on this ML. Is this a British version?   In the USA we spell it "lose."
>
>Will somebody please help me on this?  Thanks.  G.

I don't see a smiley, so I'll assume this wasn't said in gest (if it
was, please forgive me). It's just a spelling mistake - it happens
all the time. Most people (writers and readers) don't get care that
much about spelling mistakes in news posts - since they don't
consider it formal writing - and just let it go by.