On Sunday 22 May 2005 22:53, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes] 38 Moby Thesaurus words for "acculturation": Americanization, admission, adoption, affiliation, assimilation, citizenship by naturalization, citizenship papers, civility, civilization, complex, cultivation, cultural drift, culture, culture area, culture center, culture complex, culture conflict, culture contact, culture pattern, culture shock, culture trait, education, enculturation, enlightenment, ethos, folkways, key trait, mores, nationalization, naturalization, naturalized citizenship, papers, polish, refinement, socialization, society, trait, trait-complex -==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-
It's somewhat interesting that Moby Thesaurus suggests a U.S.-centric sense for the word.
First of all, Grady Ward is an American, or at least he was living in California in 1996 according to the Moby project web page, and secondly isn't it more interesting that out of 38 synonyms you see the first one (sorted in alphabetical order) and assume it is what it "suggests"? :) None of the other are specific to the the US, and I even see a few in there that might be deemed completely opposite to it :) Besides, is there another ethno-centric synonym? Anglification? Canadization? Australising?