You know in "The Wizard of Oz" how Dorothy ends up in "Munchkin-land"? What is that about? I mean, why on earth would vertically challenged individuals actually call themselves "munchkins"? Surely, this is a term that can only be applied to a race that is vertically short IN COMPARISON to a taller race. If they had no contact with taller peoples, why would they call themselves "short"? They are not short! They are a perfectly acceptable size.
AND, assuming they did know about taller races (witches and things) why would they use such a derogatory term to describe their own civilization? Munchkinland? Smacks of Disney propoganda to me!
I really need to stop procrastinating like this.
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3 comments:
Hey Sarah ... I hate to burst your procrastination-induced bubble (and first of all, why were you thinking about this???), but I think the reason that "munchkin" became synonymous with "vertically-challenged individual" WAS that the people in the Wizard of Oz were indeed called Munchkins ....... I don't think you can call the original setting derogatory, only the successive instances where one taunted someone who was short by calling them a munchkin, referring to the stature of those in the book/movie. (Perhaps I am wrong, and the use of "munchkin" came before the Wizard of Oz. I know that we don't call short people "Lilliputians" after the characters in Gulliver's Travels, but maybe that is because the word doesn't have the ring to it that "munchkin" does). :-)
::Blank stare::
Uh.... okay... Greg. Yeah.
thpbbt!
Hahahahaha, yeah, I was in a "special" mood in my office (read: bored out of my mind and tired) when I wrote that :-)
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