Quote:
Well, the question is "What does "Mexican" mean". If you're the type of person who thinks that question is fluid, then you're the kind of person I'm complaining about.

But questions such as that have been fluid ever since the figure of speech was invented. The one Nagin has employed here is the synecdoche, and wanting the synecdoche outlawed seems to me like agitating about metaphorical use of the word "literally": an attempt to "Principia-Mathematicise" language, Goedelly doomed to failure.

The argument is about what Nagin intended "Mexican" as a synecdoche for: illegal immigrants, in which case it seems a perfectly justified comment to make (if poorly-worded), or Hispanic-Americans in general, in which case it's not a justifiable comment to make, especially coming from a New Orleanian, that city owing as it does so much to its status as a cultural melting-pot. In both cases "Mexican" would be a logically fitting synecdoche, as most Hispanic-Americans, and probably in that part of the world most illegal immigrants too, are of Mexican origin. But because of this ambiguity, it was a poor wording to choose.

The other issue is whether, logical fitness aside, it's a bit insensitive to use the name of a cultural or national group as a synecdoche for a negative concept. And my feeling is that it is a bit insensitive, a bit like saying "the black areas of New Orleans", when what you mean is "the (predominantly black) poor areas of New Orleans". So seen from that angle, Nagin's remark was unfortunate, whichever meaning he intended.

Peter