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thanks Zoran

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Good old "vibrant civil society"! https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vibrant+civil+society&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 Always wondered what exactly vibrates in the imaginations of the native speakers of English: the only language in which calling society not only "civil but also "vibrant" might make any sense?

Anyway, keep up it Frank, your interventions are as lucid and urgent as they are morally fortifying!

PS On a related note: are you familiar with the work of Anna Wierzbicka? Judging from your sensitivity to the changing connotations of politically salient words over time you might be, but if not you'll really enjoy her dissection of mental Anglocentrism in humanities and social sciencies.

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Dear Zoran

I don't know of her book. Which of Anna Wierzbicka's books would you recommend?

Frank

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I really enjoyed Imprisoned in English https://global.oup.com/academic/product/imprisoned-in-english-9780199321506?cc=ca&lang=en&

but here is a link to her article on the culturally specific connotations of the English term "story" whose pre-eminence ("true story", "his story", "the story of ... " ) has no equivalent in other cultures. repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/64280/2/01_Wierzbicka_%27Story%27_-_An_English_cultural_2010.pdf

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