Syncretism makes three suggestions for Ngrams. When I was in middle school, I remember my older cousin's reaction when watching an episode of The Simpsons where Cletus returns a pair of boots to a telephone pole where he found them and says, "Back you go, to wait for a woman of less discriminating taste." My cousin burst out laughing. I didn't appreciate at the time that Cletus was revealing the high regard he held for his girlfriend, thinking instead that he was insulting her for being a shoe racist or something. Recalling that, I included "discriminating" alongside "discrimination", to capture the transformation of the word from complimentary adjective, which implied perspicacious discernment, into its present form as the wicked noun, found in the hearts of acrimonious, mean-spirited souls (click on each image for higher resolution):
The identification of the hate crime, a revolutionary advance in criminal justice, came about in the late eighties. And not a moment too soon, as it finally gave law enforcement an effective way to prosecute people for assault and homicide. Despite being told that racism has been around since at least the age of colonization, it actually sprung up during the sixties. Who would have thought?
The identification of the hate crime, a revolutionary advance in criminal justice, came about in the late eighties. And not a moment too soon, as it finally gave law enforcement an effective way to prosecute people for assault and homicide. Despite being told that racism has been around since at least the age of colonization, it actually sprung up during the sixties. Who would have thought?
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