On the Word "Frum"

[debka_notion]

zodiacmg was telling me about his Shabbat away at a Shabbaton at a shul in Brookline, and was telling me that some of the folks found it "too frum" and therefore uncomfortable/offensive/unpleasant. And I reflected that "frum" ends up meaning two different things- because that certainly isn't the same connotation of "frum" that I hear people occasionally say when they say someone is "Conservative- but frum Conservative" or other similar comments. There seem to be two meanings to "Frum" that people don't always seperate out:
1. being serious about religious matters

2. Subscribing to a culture that is stringent about religious matters, but which also maintains a number of cultural practices that many people find out-dated and/or offensive. The latter practices that I might see as cultural practices or chumrot (extra religious stringencies) are, however, regarded as law.

It strikes me as a likely point of confusion when the two are referred to with the same term though, since one is generally regarded as a positive trait, and the other is generally regarded as a negative except by members of similar communities. But when the same term is both a compliment and an insult- makes the world an interesting place.

Comments

[carnilius.livejournal.com]

You could look that way at a lot of terms. An example my professor keeps bringing up is:

John called Mary a Republican, and then she(stressed) insulted him(stressed).