Acerbic Dane

Weary and Fatigued

2007-01-11T05:18:00.000-05:00

I am the first to admit that I am an acerbic Dane, a bundle of pet peeves and grumblings. I am one of those people who gets annoyed to watch out-of-shape lifelong bench warmers give each other the high five at football games, as if the excellent execution on the field by two superbly conditioned and disciplined athletes was somehow the accomplishment of the former. Usually, I hold these snide feelings to myself, but I think I must speak out...
Although I am a Kool-Aid free non-supporter of the current appointee to the White House, I do think it a bit much that his heretofore (love using that word) martial supporters now want to step down out of a sense of "fatigue" and "weariness".
Please...
You can be weary of a marathon only if you are running in one, you can feel fatigue from a triatholon only if you have just completed two of the three legs of the trial.
You cannot be weary of a war if you are not deeply in the horror, or if the alpha male in your life is over here repairing photo copying machines, rather than walking point in some Buddha-forsaken hill in Afghanistan. When people say they are weary of the war, they do not mean they are personally weary of having three sons gone overseas for over four years, or that they are tired of the rationing of every necessity, or that they are fatigued of not being able to fill the tank of their Packard to jaunt to anywhere they wish for their summer vacation.
In transfat America (never never spell Amerika with a K, it is an affecation), weariness and fatigue mean I don't like how this episode of 24 Baghdad is turning out! Change the channel! Iraq was sold to us as a trial TV series that jumped the shark in the third season. People want to switch the channel not because they had any personal investment from the get-go, but merely because they are bored. Get over it folks. There are no, I repeat, no action heroes out there. They do not exist.

With All Due Respect

2007-01-04T08:07:00.000-05:00

About three years ago, I gave up cable/dish TV. I was disenchanted with the nonsense, the false dichotomies, the poorly made melodramas, the heartless sitcoms that made up the programming schedules. Oh, I'll wait a year, and watch the DVD releases of shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, and The Badge.

At Burger King last night, I sat beneath their TV to see why I gave this up in the first place. There sat the horrible Paula Zahn whipping up a fake shouting match over Latino high scholl graduation rates. One of the panelists used a phrase that has long grated on my ears, the phrase "With all due respect". I first noticed African-American intellectuals using this phrase, which in the black community is apparently a way of telling a person that they are completely full of shit.
The phrase had moved up a notch in meaningless discourse, as now it is used before saying something completely horrible.

"With all due respect, Senator, I think you are a sodomizing necrophiliac."

People think that this phrase is a sort of "Get Out of Jail" card for violations of polite conversation. So kudos to the writers of the otherwise execrable Talladega Nights for lampooning this phrase, as Ricky Bobby uses this term before every insult.

Let's retire this phrase today.

Etymology

2007-01-03T07:03:00.000-05:00

I have always been interested in what linguists call "elevation", how insults become complements (and conversely how accolades becomes pejoratives, viz. "liberal" and "intellectual"). Notice the word nice, as in "Ohhh, she's so nice. This word was once an insult. In the Victorian Age, this word meant a person who behaved properly only as a means of fitting in, or setting up a sale; it was an affected mannerism of the fawning tradesman, as opposed to behavior practiced as an end of itself, which is the sign of a gentleman. Same thing with the word stupid. It once meant not a lack of intelligence, but a refusal to apply one's intelligence beyond that which made a worldly profit.

By the way, I'll post later on viz., as well as op. cit., cf., ibid., and the rest of the unholy host later...

What I am Reading Lately

2007-01-01T22:22:00.000-05:00

I bought Lambs of London from Borders last Sunday...I enjoyed Ackroyd's earlier Clerkenwell Tales. I hope to run down a copy of Mad Mary Lamb by Hitchcock to accompany this work. Ackroyd has a deft ability to use sentence structure to weave a series of strong paragraphs that flow one upon the other...

Poetry and Painting

2006-12-22T11:10:00.000-05:00

The first blossom was the best blossom
For the child who never had seen an orchard;
For the youth whom whiskey had led astray
The morning after was the first day.

The first apple was the best apple
For Adam before he heard the sentence;
When the flaming sword endorsed the Fall
The trees were his to plant for all.

The first ocean was the best ocean
For the child from streets of doubt and litter;
For the youth for whom the skies unfurled
His first love was his first world.

But the first verdict seemed the worst verdict
When Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden,
Yet when the bitter gates clanged to
The sky beyond was just as blue.

For the next ocean is the first ocean
And the last ocean is the first ocean
And, however often the sun may rise,
A new thing dawns upon our eyes.

For the last blossom is the first blossom
And the first blossom is the last blossom
And when from Eden we take our way
The morning after is the first day.

Musee des Beaux Arts

2006-04-12T07:54:00.000-04:00

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

What I am trying to read right now

2006-02-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

Remedy by Michelle Lovric; Hoodlum by K'Wan; Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz; Our Inner Ape by Frans de Waal; Wines of the World by Dorling Kindersley

Queering the Deal

2006-02-19T18:43:00.000-05:00

Remember the Betty Boop cartoons? The old black and white Popeye cartoons? Good example of losing the sale, destroying your original market, by trying to expand from your original fans, in the process diluting the product. The Fleischer brothers destroyed their shop, their craft, by trying to "go mainstream", moving away from some pretty edgy weird shit that at times looking like fleshed out animated Kraft-Ebbing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krafft-Ebbing,), trying to go all Disney. They failed. Stick with your product. Look a the Simpsons; no attempt to go mainstream; no kinder Barth or gentler Homer hokumly sneaking saccharine in the water supply. Stay with your product and let them mainstream come to you.

Thoughts from the day book

2006-01-01T19:54:00.000-05:00

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked
Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" -- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

And then I think of Tolstoy, in War and Peace -- The unvarying smile of Princess Liza Bolkonsky

2005-10-22T17:02:00.000-05:00

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddle
stipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess

Honorable Mention

2005-10-18T19:57:00.000-05:00

"You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed for the the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generation infinitely remote; or, if you please, jut to get the sight out of their heads." - The Good Soldier

equivalency -- equivalent

2005-10-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

One of the most misused concepts out in the political aether is the concept of equivalency, the view that two-sides deserve equal portions of alloted time, merely because a very small and negligable minority believe something out of the mainstream. Once again, we of the Left have no one to blame but ourselves, when we recognize that back-in-the-day when we were in our finest fettle, we once heralded that flavor of the month now called "relativism", once a word denoting a virtue, now reduced to a sneer.

To flesh out this notion, let's turn to the so-called evolution-intelligent design debate. Because a fraction of a minority within the community of life science scholars that almost runs into negative integers affect to plug into this thing called intelligent design, it is therefore declared that there are two sides and that a debate with equal time is now necessary. No such thing is true.

First, we need to allot time relative to the acceptance of a theory versus a religious fever dream set within the rules of scientific debate. Since no top-flight, groundbreaking-research life science institution accepts intelligent design (referred to in this posting as IT), we cannot allot each side half an hour for each side in an hour long debate. We need to establish intellectual equivalency, or proportionate representation, for each, in this case 59 minutes for evolution, and one minutes for intelligent design.

Look at cosmology. You do not allow people to feel about the heliocentric versus the ergocentric view of the solar system. There is no debate in this area; there are no two sides. Likewise, in the realm of earth sciences, there is no hollow earth debate, no matter what my late cousin Stevie said about the matter, despite his reams of "documentation" to the contrary.

Now, public schooling, which is essentially adult day care used to depress unemployment numbers, is irrelevant in terms of assessing the leigitimacy of this so-called debate. Weirdly enough, I believe if a publically elected school board wishes to make their charges more stupid, they have every right to do so as expressions of the public will. As long as they do not impose their stupidity on that minority of students racing on the fast track to challenging careers in real scholarship beyond the age of seventeen. Let's face it, 99% of high school students are not going to elite top-flight universities, so it doesn't matter whether they believe in IT or not. However, to require that the elite students have this dreck imposed on them is tantamount to theft, theft of their time, theft of their brain cells, and a theft and a threat to their aspirations to enter challenging academia. And, no, elitism, like pluralism and intellectual, are not pejoratives. When any of us end up in the emergency room, given the choice, we want an intellectual graduate of an elite Ivy League institution attending to our needs, not the regular guy from an avearge medical school who blathers on about how he is under grace.

Once again, follow the money...no politician asks for imposing this IT dreck in the life sciences department of state universities, a policy which will drive out the top drawer faculty, and thus drive away the grants from any life science-based corporations. It is cheap grace to require IT in high schools because they are in the main second rate institutions that do not matter.

Honorable Mention

2005-10-14T18:46:00.000-05:00

After grumblings about defects in political langauge, I wish to point you to an oasis 0f thirst-quenching good writing: a little Thomas Babington Macaulay: very clever, he used the format of the book review to stake out the definitive Whiggish history of England for the 150 preceding years from the point where he wrote the review, let's say 1650-1800 , that is, to his age, modern history...an MP, India administrator, orator and essayist, proving you can have both a bias and an agenda as long as the sum adds up to a point of view--he writes---

Here he is on the Earl of Chatham.

Such was the posture of affairs when, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1760, George the Second suddenly died, and George the Third, then twenty-two years old, became King. The situation of George the Third differed widely from that of his grandfather and that of his great grandfather. Many years had elapsed since a sovereign of England had been an object of affection to any part of his people. The first two Kings of the House of Hanover had neither those hereditary rights which have often supplied the defect of merit, nor those personal qualities which have often supplied the defect of title. A prince may be popular with little virtue or capacity, if he reigns by birthright derived from a long line of illustrious predecessors. An usurper may be popular, if his genius has saved or aggrandised the nation which he: governs. Perhaps no rulers have in our time had a stronger hold on the affection of subjects than the Emperor Francis, and his son-in-law the Emperor Napoleon. But imagine a ruler with no better title than Napoleon, and no better understanding than Francis. Richard Cromwell was such a ruler; and, as soon as an arm was lifted up against him, he fell without a struggle, amidst universal derision. George the First and George the Second were in a situation which bore some resemblance to that of Richard Cromwell. They were saved from the fate of Richard Cromwell by the strenuous and able exertions of the Whig party, and by the general conviction that the nation had no choice but between the House of Brunswick and popery. But by no class were the Guelphs regarded with that devoted affection, of which Charles the First, Charles the Second, and James the Second, in spite of the greatest faults, and in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, received innumerable proofs. Those Whigs who stood by the new dynasty so manfully with purse and sword did so on principles independent of, and indeed almost incompatible with, the sentiment of devoted loyalty. The moderate Tories regarded the foreign dynasty as a great evil, which must be endured for fear of a greater evil. In the eyes of the high Tories, the Elector was the most hateful of robbers and tyrants. The crown of another was on his head; the blood of the brave and loyal was on his hands. Thus, during many years, the Kings of England were objects of strong personal aversion to many of their subjects; and of strong personal attachment to none. They found, indeed, firm and cordial support against the pretender to their throne; but this support was given, not at all for their sake, but for the sake of a religious and political system which would have been endangered by their fall. This support, too, they were compelled to purchase by perpetually sacrificing their private inclinations to the party which had set them on the throne, and which maintained them there.

After the death of Murray Kempton, there is no one, and I mean no one, writing like this. You have to go back to Gibbon, DeQuincy, Hunt, and Lamb, (yes...wonderful hothouse orchids), but Macaulay is a wonder to behold...

Word Inflation

2005-10-09T02:53:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the long gap in between posting - what with harassment at work and what not...

I would like to address the inflation of language that George Carlin often has analyzed, in this case the term:

person of interest

Now, this phrase uses six syllables, and replaces the old noun of two --

suspect

"Suspect" sound so harsh, so judgmental, and in this age the only unacceptable behavior is that of judging. "Person of interest" sounds so much more fun, as if the human under suspicion is actually an intriguing character, a man of many facets...

Rather than a suspect under suspicion of nefarious crimes!

I noted this annoying upgrade after reading a recent article in the city newspaper - a scion of one of our august village tribes noted for siring generations of horse thieves, car thieves, cattle rustlers, check converters, and body attachment fugitives, is now proclaimed a person of interest in the disappearance of a 79 year old woman after he was arrested for a out-of-state traveling parole violation while driving in the woman's car. Now this man has been living off older woman since his early twenties, a sort of mullet haired gigolo for the wealthy widow with a taste for honky tonks and Indian casino slots.

By the by, has anyone noticed the rise and fall of the euphemism gaming for gambling? Apparently, now that the gaming lobby of Mr. Abramson is under indictment, with pols becoming persons of interest, it is now acceptable to refer to the shell game for the delusional thinkers as gambling again.

Some observations on the wikipedia article:

After the SCOTUS Sullivan decision, the legal culture rendered libel a meaningless word. In Europe, one may say baldly a true thing, and still be libelous...the purpose of throwing out the term person of interest is for legal authorities to destroy reputation without doing the hard work necessary for a criminal indictment. It is legal shorthand for "I am in authority, but I have no idea what I am doing". Apparently, it is a lazy phrase from that noted paragon of laziness, Mr. Ashcroft, from an administration notorious for laziness.

By the by, there is no worse form of malice than laziness.

RETIRE THAT PHRASE

2005-08-18T07:21:00.000-05:00

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Another phrase in political currency devalued by over-printing...

What they mean to say is UNANTICIPATED

The key word to look for is the noun, CONSEQUENCES...in this case definite observable results, "facts on the ground", that resulted from an action or an inaction. There is a direct line drawn from the thing done (and not doing a thing is an act of volition, read your Kierkegaard) and results we must live with.

The trouble is with that adjective, UNINTENDED.

Recall the ad campaign in Old Blighty during the battle with Mr. Hitler, extolling the Brits to conserve petrol..."Is this journey necessary?"

This is the question we should ask ourselves whenever using an ADJECTIVE.

What does UNINTENDED add to the noun?

NOTHING

The adjective in this case is so much white noise, used to obscure clarity. We must deal with the fact that there are consequences. In the case of Iraq, the fact that the servants we chose to practice good stewardship over our defenses piddled away a much improved resource is a fact, a fact manifest. Whether the consequence was UNINTENDED is not germane to assessing the damage. Using the adjective does not diminish the carnage on the ground, or the responsibility of the servants.

A better adjective is UNANTICIPATED. A less pleasing adjective, for this word implies responsibility. I always like to use the building contractor analogy (allegory? metaphor?). We can all agree that shelter is a good thing. A building contractor voices commitment to this shared ideal. But he blindly refuses to anticipate the consequences of using cheap materials tossed about by dodgy subcontractors with bad records. However, this is not UNINTENDED, it is UNANTICIPATED. And it is the contractors job, and professional duty inasmuch as a building contractor chooses to call himself a professional, to suss out the consequences of his action. After the building collapses, it will serve him little in a court of civil law to announce that the implosion was UNINTENDED. At this point, also, the survivors of the devestation will care little to hear form the contractor that he is "under grace", and make mistakes, but is forgiven by his personal savior. And the jury of his peers will be little impressed that he truly believed the building would stay up, with the aside observation that he is "the type of guy I could have a coffee with".

Damages to the plaintiff...next case, Rusty....

Dead Jewish Guys

2005-07-13T07:20:00.000-05:00

Sustained Rant...bear with me...

The springboard for this 6:45 a.m. caffeine stoked rant is the fundie-backed stupidities percolating through our less professional state legislatures, to wit, the back door imposition of voices-in-the-head delusions posing as defenses against religious persecution. I think I have some right to rant this way oin this topic, albeit limited, being raised in a Christian Fundamentalist home...
Example: apparently, pharmacists are now allowed in some states to deny birth control and even psychiatric drugs based on their religious beliefs. Their minister gets a voice-in-his-head, possibly undiagnosed early onset Alzheimer's (Ironic, aint' it!), telling him that a clinically depressed human needs nothing more than a few Bible verses chanted in a prayer circle, and they'll be one happy camper from that point on...and that if the pharmacist parishioner is required to fulfill an order contrary to this belief, the prescription is equivalent to an auto de fe of religious bigotry. Therefore, said pharmacist needs protection from a secular humanist legal structure to protect his right to deny medication.
Also, a student at a taxpayer funded secular humanist institution like a state university apparently now needs protection when to fulfill a credit hour requirement, they are forced to take a life science class. Some state legislators believe it the acme of religious hatred to deny that student the right to take over the class, to steal time and money from the students who actually wish to pursue a career in the life sciences, by chattering on about "intelligent design" or some other equivalent of past pseudo-sciences like phrenology or the study of the four humors of the body. Why does brain dead legislation almost immediatedly suggest Florida?
Now I know quite of few fundamentalists, who believe that getting in your face about their own particular Dead Jewish Guy is a spiritual requirement. To deny this right to jaw about their Daed Jewish Guy when you want to read your neewspaper is persecution manifest. It is their Daily Holocaust. Or to use a phrase first coined annoyingly and admitedly by my fellow Leftists in the late 70's, it is "their Vietnam".
Forget that they are only 15% of this nation for a moment.
Some day it will happen. A fundie minister will conclude that God the Intelligent Designer would never allow PI to be a sloppy number like 3.14159265358979323846..., let alone allow such a number to go to a billion decimal places. No Sir-eee! GOD would round it up! Because he loves us! God wants INTELLIGENT PI - 3.5! And the state legislature must protect faith-based engineers and carpenters who believe this! To force them to use secular humanist billionth decimal place PI is the first step on the road to another Auschwitz!
What is it that Phillip Roth once said about American reality outpacing the creative arts desire to test the bounds of the imagination, where all bets are off? You can't fantasize about the next outrage of these people!
All in service of a Dead Jewish Guy. Well, I base my daily life on a Dead Jewish Guy too, several. Only my chief Dead Jewish guy went by the name of George Gershwin. His Aaron went by the name Ira, and I have found their combined efforts more servicable to meet life's deadening woes...especially whenNelson Riddle abetted any voice massaged by the wizardry of Norman Granz.

So treat me rough
Muss my hair
Don't you dare to handle me with care
I'm no innocent child, baby
Keep on treating me wild
Treat me rough
Pinch my cheek
Kiss and hug and squeeze me`Till I'm weak
I've been pampered enough, baby
Keep on treatin' me rough

Makes as much sense as Luther's Catechism....oh well, at least there is the consolation that every Reign of Terror gets the Thermidor it deserves.

I'll stop for now....

Stop Your Moaning and Bitching

2005-07-08T06:12:00.000-05:00

Link to the above--just stop your whining about gasoline prices, folks. You don't need to go the mall every three days in your Dad's Humvee. I found a chart showing gasoline prices in 1995 dollars over a long historical period, and we are nowhere near the spike of 1979-1980. More later.

stupid and nice

2005-07-05T07:38:00.000-05:00

Two misused words, or like a favorite condiment, indiscriminately applied...

stupid

Two men engage in the same enterprise, and grow wealthy. One uses his wealth to develop an awareness of things outside of his trade; the other talks of nothing but. Both men are highly intelligent, but only one is stupid. Stupidity has nothing to do with brains, rather its a stubborn commitment to any offering of knowledge which does not add to ones wealth.

nice

Mistakenly used for the word pleasant. As Newman said (paraphrase) a gentleman is a man who valiantly attempts to cause no harm, a nice person in contrast merely wishes to do no thing that would threaten its bank account. They do the right thing not because it is right but because some consensus tells them that it is the right thing. Nice implies a certain cunning in one's actions - the action of a fusspot, a craftiness.

I'll develop the both later...

I got a little list...

2005-06-30T07:31:00.000-05:00

The Set-Up: This 44 year old male was young enough back in the day to savor hours and hours of television before the days of the Infomercial on commercial television, and the antique road shows of public television. In the days of the the 70's, WGN in Chicago ran streams of 1930's, 1940's black and white movies from Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia, and Universal; while WTTW the public station ran a foreign film every night. So my cinematic references became Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, the earlier David Lean, George Cukor...got to see Michael Powell too, Fellini, Bergman as well.

The American Film Institute has released lists on Best Films. Best Love Stories, Best Comedies, Best Songs, Best Lines of Dialogue...all set at 100. I am trying to compose a list of 100 best pieces of shtick - hoary old sight gags that never seem to pale, when performed by a deft comedian. Strictly, from a Yiddish word meaning piece of a whole as in a crust of bread--the little gag implies something greater about the character, I suppose.

Does anyone wish to contribute? Here is my preliminary shtick list:

Falling on your backside
Two people trying to squeeze through the same door at the same time
Pie in the Face
Answering the door, seeing who it is, and slamming the door shut in the face as they begin their greeting
THE SLOW BURN
Man trying to retrieve vital object from a woman' cleavage
Inept man trying to change a baby diaper
Mistaken identity greeting

I'll need to go through my favorite DVDs on this...I'm surprised how I built up a strong Howard Hawks collection...my "boring old black and white movies" as my family opines. Going over this list, I note how much funnier they are when the social setting is higher. The tonier the country club, the more elite the characters, the bigger the laugh.

PAGANS and INFIDELS

2005-06-23T07:25:00.000-05:00

FIRST DRAFT, JUNE 23, 2005, PALIMPSEST TO FOLLOW

From the Latin, paganus, a country dweller. American Heritage defines this as one who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim. A seemingly inadequate definition, at first sight.

Jim: Huck? What's a Muslim?

Huck: (after thinking a while) A Muslims someone who ain't a Presbyterian.

True, on the surface, but inadequate. This is another word we use that is akin to some vaguely familiar object found at a yard sale, rusted and dusty, yet for all that servicable if one takes the time to dust it off and give it a pit of polish. Connecting with the old gods may have its uses if authenticity plays into the adventure. Overweight dental hygenists leaping barefoot around the maypole to the tunes of Lilith Fair may not be exactly what the genuine pagans had in mind. There's something to be said for the dedication of the pagan who cares enough about their faith to work a curse on their enemy. Anyway, the word is not to be confused with infidel, one who doesn't believe at all in anything, or apostate, one who abandons the faith of their fathers for an alien belief (like the editors of the Gospels).

Sadly, we live in a world which demonstates Lenny Bruce's observation that there are no hicks in America anymore. Most of cutting-edge Christianity is prosperity-obsessed paganry celebrating getting and spending; under grace is now a koan one iterates after some financial felony. One might as well be pagan as this type of Christain, connecting to Thor, or Mercury, or Chalchiuhtlicue.

I will amend this later....the thrid cup of coffee has not kicked in yet.

Retire this phrase

2005-06-22T07:43:00.000-05:00

If you worked at Arby's, and accidentally dropped your hairnet in the Curly Fries, then served it up, you would get fired. But once you make (as opposed to earn) over $200,000 a year, you enter the world of the "mistakes were made" club. This is a term used in places of power like Washington, in cases where the entire management team demonstrated they had not a clue to what they were doing, nor cared about the consquences, intended or unintended, of their actions or lack of actions. After a blue ribbon fact-finding committee (which is formed to delay and obfuscurate) does its work, shuffling around the evidence, the chief declares mistakes were made, and I take on the responsibility. This means that no one responsible will be held to account, and all involved will get glowing letters in their personnel files, and maybe even a pretty ribbon to wear when they retire. Then all involved go off to high-paid jobs in what is called lobbying, what we would call bribery. MWM is usually followed by the phrase and now it is time to move on..., meaning we can do whatever we want anytime we want and what are you gonna do about it? And by the time of the finding of the committee, the original crime has become an old news story, the dreaded bugbear of our Media. The wounded staggering gnu throws off the scent of being an old news story, and the jackals call off the hunt.

Lo and behold, there is a website that vents this pet peeve of mine....

By the by, those of use that earn around $40,000 or less have a different word for mistakes. In our class they are called felonies.

PET PEEVES

2005-06-22T07:18:00.000-05:00

SUV size to job tasks ratio
Full professional sports regalia worn outside the context of pajamas in public by males over the age of twelve
Stop sign-Yield Sign-Merge Sign Inflation/confusion
RAP
All You Can Eat Buffets
Answering Machine messages that last longer than the director's cut of Heaven's Gate
Rebates
Non-apologetic apologies
Tattoos implying "I'm a hard-ass not to be messed with" worn by actuaries afraid to talk back to their wives
Cell phone etiquette

Apologia

2005-06-20T06:57:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted a thought in a long time, so to atone for a stream of diatribes and pet peeves, I'll offfer two examples of good wriitng:

In its normal state his face never looked especially gentle or composed; at this moment it looked like it was about to explode right out from between his shoulders with excitement, urgency, whatever it was, jumping on across the office toward the desk and already hollering at Father: "Look out, Mr. Maury, get out of the way," reaching, lunging across Father toward the lower drawer where the livery-stable pistol lived; I couldn't tell whether it was Boon lunging for the drawer who knocked back the chair (it was a swivel chair on casters) back or whether it was Father who flung the chair back to make himself room to kick at Boone's reaching hand, the neat stacks of coins scattering in all directions across the desk and Father hollering too now, still stomping either at the drawer or Boon's hand or maybe both:

Of course, this is Faulkner, what would be called minor Faulkner (saying minor Faulkner is akin to stating Tiger Woods on an off-day), but look at the word lived.
Now a merely literate writer would have used the word lay, while a semi-talented writer might have ventured the word slept. Faulkner could have tried breathed, but being Faulkner he wrote lived. Brilliant.

Remember, this high school drop-out, who sleepily attended one semester at a barely credited state university, decided in his mid-teens to become a great writer, and let no demands of family or community stand in his way towards this quest. Successfully Quixotic if you need a description. Imagine what would have happened if academia got a hold of him.

Example number two:

There were older men who did not sit on the stoop out front until they spread their handkerchiefs carefully on the gray stone.

Wow!!! That's DeLillo, folks. Shades of Hemingway, adumbrating Cormac McCarthy. Look at those words parcelled out, like a greengrocer laying out his wares in his bins facing the sidewalk in a display that makes you pause and consider. You read something like this once, move on a bit, then unwittingly turn around and go back to the sentence.

A good rule of thumb is do you find yourself reading the book aloud, unknowingly, yet with delight. Faullkner has that. Melville. Robert Stone. Walker Percy. Cormac McCarthy, yes. DeLillo. Patches of Tom Wolfe. I read somewhere that reading to yourself silently is a recent Western tradition, that libraries of the classic world were buzzing hives of susperation. If anyone can verify this it will be appreciated.

Liberal - Progressive

2005-06-11T07:06:00.000-05:00

Hand it to the Republicans, they do possess the talent for turning positive words into pejoratives. Hence the good word liberal, which describes a reasoning mind not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Generosity of intellect is implied in the word. The defiling of the word is abetted by those who chose to call themselves progressive, which is merely someone who has benefitted from liberal victories, and then gets styled out, upgraded, with a manicure and a smoking jacket, to affect being above it all. Progressives are at heart infidels, people without faith, ready to jump deftly off ship to a safer berth when the waters move form halcyon to choppy. Additionally, the progressive is the consumate non-performer. How many years has the DLC told us to just keep our mouths shut as they led us to the Promised Land? They demand the five star rating from the Michelin Guide for doling out nothing more than their one constant dish of watery gruel.

P is for Propoganda

2005-06-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

PROPAGANDA

Again, a useful word if used in the right context. Strictly, it has its roots in the Catholic Church, in its day the only true mulit-national corporation, run in its heydey by today's equivalent of MBAs. Literally, its an organized campaign in behalf of a cherished belief, the purpose is to share this belief with others. There just might be a better toothpaste; the fact that the corporation uses propaganda to flog the useful gunk does not detract from its utility. A craft not to be disdained, only mastered.

POLITICALLY CORRECT

2005-05-31T07:01:00.000-05:00

Some ichoate thoughts on the term politcally correct

1) In the 1950's, the value of political correctness was called either good manners or probity. This was back in the day of infra dig, the idea that there were some things well mannered people did not do under any circumstances. Oh, yes, we had the kitchen and the closet and the back door for the marginalized, lamentably so, but men wore white shirts and ties to baseball games, and ladies wore white gloves and hats to communion. (This writer is old enough to remember the peach polyester pants suit worn to communion controversy at the Lutheran Church, circa 1969). But that sense of certain things being beneath us set the groundwork to end the blocks of the kitchen, the closet, and the back door. The thing of it all now becomes how to weed what is still very good and yielding soil, to separate the plant pests from the useful herbs.

2) But manners, and probity, and infra dig are culturally dead. Like Vauban's walls around the French village on the Alsatian border, they have been rendered irrelevent. Seige walls beg for breeching; those seige towns get what they deserve. The Village had a revolt, and what passes for a Left in this country supposedly occupy the Fort, and now impose their own codes. But how much of these PC codes is just asking for a display good manners? Only this time a bunch of pasty white punks from the suburbs are now the victims (another word deflated of meaning).

3) We live in an Age of Insincerity. Or rather, the table stakes are not worth the candle. Academia PC battles are for the ability to have a monopoly on how to write badly, how to manufacture shoddy art, how to create joyless music, how to produce turgid histories devoid of heroes. The whole gruesome PC show has the quality of that Marx Brothers routine in Day at the Races, where Chico sells Groucho a groaning mass of arcane turf guides just to make a $5 bet.

4) Genuine PC seeks to issue every man and woman a fund of honest civil exchange, the coin must bear on both sides the stamps of dignity and obedience to make true coin of the realm. The ideal of honest coinage is not made invalid by the prescence of the occasional counterfeiter, or by sharp dealing in the currency market.

The Ds

2005-05-28T08:21:00.000-05:00

Debate and Dialogue

Bipartisan debate is a form of price fixing--an exercise in racketering between two well-entrenched mob bosses. In our political world, this is the mutual agreement to fall towards the center. Unfortunately, the center happens to like Rocky Road Ice Cream, not because they actually like it, but because it is unadventurous, and they have been told since the age of reason that it is the flavor they should like if they truly love Ice Cream. So we get a debate, one party argues for extra nuts, the other less; the one accuses the other of poor patriotism towards the concept of Ice cream, while the other insists that the ratio of nuts to heavy cream requires a bit more nuance. But if you like Tin Roof Sundae you are SOL. And both Rocky Road salesmen now bond together to prevent any third alternative. Point being if its a false dichotomy, its not a debate. If the process refuses to challenge the premise, walk away. Of course what debate fails to realize is that during a time of true crisis the Center has a tendency to wimp out, and if truth would be told, the Center kind of sucks.

Which tails into the second word, dialogue. Often an invitation to dialogue is actually a barely disguised summons to appear before a kangaroo court, a theatre of self-criticism of a quasi-Maoist variety.

CZAR or TSAR

2005-05-18T20:39:00.000-05:00

For some reason, a word that derives from an earthly despot whose word, nod, and even baleful glare, were treated as edicts from on high, is now used to describe a political eunuch. In Washington, when a problem is intractable, beyond human means of what we like to call resolution, the powerless man to lead the attack on this irreducible constant is named after a legendary potentate of mighty and dreqadful mien. For example, when we have a core group of drug users, the percentage of which never will go below a certain fixed number, we then appoint someone totally powerless to do anything about it, and admit to this farce by calling the poor fool a "czar". Feel free, folks. Throw a bit more garnish on his sports coat, devise a cunning emblem and a new flag, it's all the Marshall Potemkin of the legendary false front villages, forgetting that the real Potemkin was actually a highly competent and effective CEO, a man who unlike the present collection of czars did something with his tenure, and left a legacy. Don't blame Bill Bennett and Tom Ridge for leaving no legacy in the wake of their service; the roulette table was fixed to begin with. Another example of the political language using a word to describe something that in its actual operation is the polar opposite.

CURSE WORDS

2005-05-18T20:38:00.000-05:00

Millions of children still traumatized over the Jackson Nipple Attack, we have the Federal Government monitoring bad words. But let us recall exactly what curse words are. Cursing is simply appropriating the right of God to damn and to bless. Consigning someone to Hell is cursing. It is a Sin because it is an Act of Presumption, the first sin of man in the Garden of Eden. Barnyard epithets are not curse words. Let's encode, using the first letter, then the number of letters remaining: F3, S3, C9, M11, C3, T3, and so on (I'd use Cutter Numbers, but only librarians would suss it out). So Dick Cheney is a c3-sucking, lying m11, while Dubya is a dry drunk p4 c3 serial business failure. None of this, spelt out is cursing per se. G-D, go to H, d-you are cursing. Mortals should not presume to send other mortals to Hell, nor assume they possess an authority greater than the Grace of God. Any mortal powers must follow the Office of the Keys anyway, as set forth by Dr. Luther

the dog that didn't bark

2005-05-18T20:22:00.000-05:00

Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion which he had formed of my companion's ability, but I saw by the Inspector's face that his attention had been keenly aroused.

"You consider that to be important?' he asked.

"Exceedingly so"

"Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

What a delicious treat to see the Republicans kicked to the kerb in the Galloway performance this Tuesday. One wishes to ask Senator Coleman how his new asshole, torn out by the teeth of George, is working. This is the dog that doesn't bark in the night, proof to paid, for if the Republicans had anything on the man, they would have leaked it long ago. What a collection of glass-jawed sissies.

On Our Current Commander in Chief

2005-05-12T18:15:00.000-05:00

From Moon for the Misbegotten, stage description of T. Stedman Harder, the Standard Oil tycoon about to get eviscerated by the lumpen Hogans.

Harder is in his late thirties, but looks younger because his face is unmarked by worry, ambition, or any of the common hazards of life. No matter how long he lives, his four undergraduate years will always be for him the most significant in his life, and the moment of his highest achievement the time he was tapped for an exclusive Senior Society at the Ivy university to which his father had given millions. Since that day he has felt no need for further aspiring, no urge to do anything except settle down on his estate and live the life of a country gentleman, mildly interested in saddle horses and sports models of foreign automobiles. He is not the blatantly silly, playboy heir to millions whose antics make newspaper headlines. He doesn't drink much except when he attends his class reunion every year -- the most exciting episode of each year for him. He doesn't gieve wild parties, doesn't chase after musical-comedy cuties, is a mildly contented husband and father of three children. A not unpleasant man, affable, good-looking in an ordinary way, sunburnt and healthy. beginning to take on fat, he is simply immature, naturally lethargic, a bit stupid. Coddled from birth, everything arranged and made easy for him, deferred to because of his wealth, he usually has the self-confident attitude of acknowledged superiority, but assumes a supercilious, insecure air when dealing with people beyond his ken.

Italics and boldface my own choice...compare and contrast with the Yankee Peddler transmorgified into the Texan Terror, via his years as the Audie Murphy of the Texas Air National Guard, or whatever they called it back then.

C is for CRISIS

2005-05-12T07:12:00.000-05:00

Literally, cross, meaning a point in the road where a path must be chosen. If the problem is intractable, or beyond the suasion of any human genius, then the thing is not a crisis. It may be a fatality, or an immemorial part of the human condition, but it is not a crisis. Again, this is another of those journalist words that need to be doled out sparingly. Let's say a journalist is mandated by law to use the word crisis only three times a year. The same can be said for the word tragedy. Child obesity is not a crisis. There's just a lot of fat little porkers trotting around. Eat less, exercise more is not much of a choice; it's just out there, manifest. Health care costs and coverage in a western democracy is not a crisis either; one can always forgo the state of the art medical procedure, or stop taking the yet-to-be withdrawn-from-the- marketplace pill . Get well or die, as the Greek philosopher said. Also, if we refuse to acknowledge we are stumbling along a certain path, or refuse to concede that the path has a perpetual fork in the road in front of our faces, then we cannot talk about the crisis. It's another word journalism has rendered meaningless. Might as well remain silent.

The F Word

2005-05-11T07:37:00.000-05:00

I was once taught that the use of the word "fuck", "fucking" and such was a sign of being inarticulate. But there are some situations where no other word will do. Such as in the phrase:

inappropriate relationship

That's nine syllables folks. We're breaking a rule set down by Mr. George Carlin, from his melt down over the devolution of the perfectly usable and concise phrase "shell shock" to the long-winded phrase we use today. Anyway, to get back to my rant, "I am sorry if my inappropriate relationship offended anyone". The kicker, of course, being the IF - sort of a backhanded non-apology apology. IF means being offended is really YOUR problem, not mine, but IF you have to have an apology, here it is.

No one, especially a man, ever has an inappropriate realtionship. They fuck. There it is in a nutshell. A man has an influential job in the media. For the young and ambitiuous and hungry, aspiring youth, serving as an intern to a man of such influence is a valued job. The more powerful boss becomes in a sense a ward of the intern, his charge, in part, is to show some stewardship over the younger and less powerful charge. But occasionally, this power is abused when the man fucks the intern. To call this a relationship abuses the word and renders it meaningless. No Congressman has ever had an inappropriate relationship with a stenographer, either blond or blonde, or both at the same time, or seriatum. He......, well... you know. Why belabor the point?

If journalists can regularly mouth such obscenities as collateral damage, I think they can handle a very servicable word rooted in Middle English.

Good Lord! I have two more rants contained in this rant! The famous non-apology apology, and the word relationship.

Shout Out!!!

I need examples from the past ten years of famous non-apology apologies from public servants and entertainment darlings...maybe we can find a pattern.

Answer to an e-mail

2005-05-10T06:53:00.000-05:00

Weirdly enough, "authority" is one of those words on my list, motivated from years of watching the morning segment of C-SPAN. Every third caller is an "authority", on Social Security, the Palestinian Issue, inherited IQ, the pine resin industry, what have you.

To me, an "authority" is one who has read under the direction of a tenured expert (another over-used word) and received some degree or certification stating that they have mastered their studies. Sitting on the couch watching every episode of the many varieties of "Law and Order" for five years will not make you an authority on the legal system. This is only done by attending one of the top five law schools in the nation, and then only after graduating with honors. Pouring poison on bugs in Texas, however successfully, does not make anyone an expert on the Constitution. I would use the word "maven", but even that word is misused.

I have a whole rant I will post later on the use of the word "authority" and "expert". It is related to my whole caffeine-stoked routine on the topic of C-SPAN morning callers, who include such characters as Rayon Ray, License Branch Lucile, and Ali Ali Akbar, More on my blog as I go along.

Thank you for your patience

The Acerbic Dane

C is for Conservative

2005-05-10T06:42:00.000-05:00

Closely defined, one who wishes to conserve the present order of things, a straw boss dedicated to the continued feather bedding of his pals, often confused with the reactionary, who wishes to resurrect the spectres of a dead order, ghoulishly distorted through the prism of nostalgia (literally, sickness for one's home). So often used, conservative has been rendered meaningless for political discourse - like the word liberal or the word fascist. More later on the last two words. Weirdly enough, politics and political language is riven with fraud and coercion by its very nature, so when the honor among thieves falls apart, what is the fall-out to us?

addendum to previous posting

On the word commitment

Commitment has entered the New Age Tendency (Ironically, a tendency that infects the Bush Administration. And I'll justify the word irony on demand) towards Creative Visualization in the Body Politic. The thing is done because I verbalized my visualization of the thing being done. When the hundreth Red State Monkey does the same, then the thing is accomplished. We are committed - to talking about being committed. Let's now form another committee committed to make sure nothing is done to resolve the problem we are committed to -- doing nothing about.

Three Good New Books

2005-05-09T07:49:00.000-05:00

Three books I have bought at Borders in the past two weeks: Junk English 2 by Ken Smith, 100 Words Almost Everyone Uses and Misues, and Death Sentences by Don Watson. The last is more an indictment on argle-bargle in Australian politics and Australian management stylings, but useful to this blog nevertheless. Especially on one of my man pet peeve words, the gnarly gremlin named commited.

I quote

To say we are committed to something does not mean we believe it (if we did, why not say so?) or that we will do it (if we will, why not do so?). Commitment is a standard weasel word, a weed that spread with the fashion for mission statements, new management theories, and sports psychology.

and later

Churchill did not talk about commitment, and Lincoln got through the Gettysburg Address without it. At the heart of commitment, there is deceit, including self-deceit. But, as with all weeds, commitment's main offense is to the landscape. It is the ugliness of it and the ubiquity. It might not fool us, but it does depress us.

Civic-Civil-Civility, still in the letter C

2005-05-09T07:33:00.000-05:00

The direct roots of these three words refer to belonging to a city, and loving the city to exclusion of the tempting charms of all other cities; the purpose of this love to keep good order within the city walls. The opposite of this inate tendency rooted in being a human being is cosmopolitanism, I guess (I'm going to need to suss out these notions in the coming weeks). And there can be no sense of true civility without the recognition that there is a thing outside our walls called barbarism. Now, barbarism is a judgement word, a violation of a set of Pecksniffian Grundyisms mistakenly labelled tolerance (I'll rant about this word when I reach the letter T). I'll leave it to those who crank out the word tolerance so freely why one should tolerate barbarism.

Anyway, this is all part of that weird Mobius strip type of argument where we are told that one can never sit in judgement on the other, without explaining that this anti-judgement degree is a judgement in of itself.

GIMMEE A ... B

2005-05-05T08:11:00.000-05:00

bureaucrat bureaucracy

We've had this tool since at least the beginning of the Late Ubiad period in Sumer area, let's say 5400 B.C. (NO! I refuse to use BCE, the acronym being an affectation). We will always have bureaucracy, the only question being whether we will send our appeal to a government bureaucracy of a corporate bureaucracy, the latter recently outsourced to Bangalore. (Her name is Urmila 'Mar'todkar, but when she answers the phone number listed by your credit card company, she announces her her name is Brandi). It is political cant to inveigh against this bugaboo - literally bureaucracy is from the French meaning rule from out of an office.

Once again, who is easier to appeal to? the company bureaucrat or the government bureaucrat? Bureaucrats are like another group we affect to hate, attorneys. They exist because we want their services. If you hate bureaucrats and lawyers, stop asking for government hand-outs and stop suing everyone at the drop of a basecap cap worn backwards.

Gimme a C -- is for CANT

2005-05-05T07:42:00.000-05:00

From the book of Fowler

cant insincere or parrotlike appeal to principles, religious, moral, political, or scientific, that the speaker does not believe in or act upon, or does not understand...on my own, parahphrasing Fowler, please do not confuse with jargon, lingo, slang, or argot

Examples that come to mind---

cycle of violence
senseless tragedy
man's inhumanity to man

One can shorthand these phrases with acronyms, respectively COV, ST, and MITM

So often used they no longer have meaning, trotted out when one either has nothing to say or deep down doesn't really care. When I see a massacre in an African nation between tribes, I have more respect for the racist who doesn't really care and says, in their ignorance, Them people is animals anyways, than the Pecksniffian who bemoans MITM, or We must work to stop the COV and then does nothing.

JAMES 2:14-20

Cant is the doling out of thin gruel, the offer of grace on the cheap, begging for a free pass, a ruse to avoid the hard work of seriously addressing an issue.

Favorite cant phrases? Gimmee a posting, please...

Give me a B

2005-05-03T06:29:00.000-05:00

BASED ON...

A term out of Hollywood meaning "fictional" or "made up". In entertainment industries, based on refers an on-screen depiction of a historical event or person having an only passing reference to what actually occured or what actually was. To critique a film I've never seen, The Aviator, Juan Trippe was not some cigar-chomping oaf, but a visionary who made air travel a commerical business, a truly revolutionary character, who did more to change the way we live now than all the Abbie Hoffmans and Reverend Sloan Coffins. He was guilty of what we all secretly admire but enviously disdain; to wit, he had his shit together. But American discourse is largely based on false dichotomies in the service of the narcissism of small differences, just watch the WWF if you think I am wrong. One character is all white and light, hence any opponent is all blackness and sulphur. So when an event gets the Hollywood treatment, nuance goes out the window in service of the stupidity of the audience (Allow me to rant one day about the most evil movie to come out of Hollywood. No, not Birth of a Nation. Forrest Gump.) All this references the fact that this nation as a nation was grounded largely in a Christian heresy that the devil was a powerful God co-equal with the God of Light. It perks up in our culture all the time.

Anyway, for a later rant, Juan Trippe is on my short list of truly revolutionary figures of the 20th Century, none of which are the Betty Friedans or Norman Thomases. More likely suspects are the inventors, advance men, and debt salesmen who made this all possible. Willis Haviland Carrier did more to change the face of the nation than anyone else. Want to fight the power, my young fellow Leftists? Get a degree in engineering.

2005-05-03T06:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Spizzerinctum for the definition of the word

DEGRINGOLADE

Meaning Rapid Deterioration, as in Standards...

Give me an A

2005-05-02T19:33:00.000-05:00

ANECDOTAL

To wit, a short narrative without developed characters or a plot. Journalists use it in place of "apocryphal" for some reason. It is used to suggest that evidence for or against is flimsy. (Charges that the chemical plant caused birth defects are at this point anecdotal - meaning undeniable but prove it in court, we own the judge). Actually, most of the decisions we make on a daily basis are grounded on the anecdotal, absent the ideal of perfect information. One of the most misused words in journalism after "ironically".

QUIZ

2005-05-02T07:55:00.000-05:00

If anyone can give me the exact source of this Faulkner quote...then you have...my undying gratitude...

And what is the full quote? I've been racking my brains on this one. It refers to the death of Ahab, I believe.

There's a death for a man, now; none of your patient pasturage for little grazing beasts you can't... If there be grief, then let it be but...

Time for a Rant

2005-05-02T07:44:00.000-05:00

I think I am entitled to at least one caffeine induced rant this morning...

So I will vent on the word...

ANNIVERSARY

First, there are only two measurements of this, the 25th and the 50th. Any other number is just begging for attention. There has never been a 30th anniversary of anything. All other numbers are just Baby Boomer Nonsense. Baby Boomers have this need to trumpet their significance, and these weird anniversaries of 30-35-40 are an example of the silly trend.

Second, anniversaries only count for marriages, high school graduation (anyone can graduate from college; high school alone requires gritty endurance), epic battles, a few Supreme Court decisions, and one or two inaugurations of truly epochal civic engineering projects. That's it. There never has been, nor never will be, an anniversary of the recording of "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen. Such an event does not exist, except on cable VH1. And I am willing nto defend this in public.

Beware! When we overuse words we gut them of meaning.

Stay tuned for the "C"s, I am really going to vent on the word "Classic/Classical". Hint, it involves the use of the word before the phrase "Will and Grace"

A is for...

2005-05-02T07:37:00.000-05:00

ALLY

One of the most misused word in political language. Ally does not mean friend, nor does it mean tributary. It means two or more who share a like self-interest on a very limited topic, or at least in the same heavily vested outcome. A classic example of common purpose in the preening interest of self-love. Both France and the United States believe in a steady reliable supply of electricity for their citizens, they just differ on the voltage. The difference does not make one "anti-electricity". There's no obligation outside of good manners to learn the others language, but still, it's a good idea to bring an adapter when visiting.

Not a Biggie

2005-05-02T07:29:00.000-05:00

Allusions and the Appositive Phrase

Not a big thing to have an aneurism over, but let's refer to the Great Barzun and his quibble over the Appositive Phrase, as in:

Achilles, the Greek hero

Oh yeah, Mr. Writer, thanks for clearing that up.

Now one is tempted to rant about the dearth of cultural literacy where a reporter feels the need to clear up just which Achilles he is writing about for the public (Whew! I thought he meant Moe Achilles, the famed hat blocker from Maxwell Street). But really, cultural literacy is a constant and you can Google till the cows do whatever cows do nowadays (in the huge corporate farms they never leave the barn, so you cannot say they "come home" anymore) on how students are just as ignorant on culture and politics now as they were in the 1950's. And if one wants to play the game of obscure allusions there is always John Leonard, or vox populi, Richard Lewis to use as touchstones. And there is Brewer's classic reference work on Phrase and Fable if one really wants to hunt out the more obscure allusions.

By the way, is this true? Is the term the hoi polloi redundant, as hoi means the? Any British poet raised on Greek please write me.

2005-05-01T12:41:00.000-05:00

Misued Word:

Let's start with the letter A

as in the word:

AGENDA

Everyone has an agenda, from the moment they wake in the morning to the second before they drop off into slumber. Do you intend to shave the stubble off your pasty face? Whether you do on not, that is an agenda. Misused word, as in the case of the phrase "homosexual agenda". This means the quaint desire not to have rednecks beat you to death with tire irons behind the Tastee Freez based on how you choose to exercise your prostate gland. Additionally, an internist correctly assayes your medical problem, with a solution, but charges for the service. The fact that the doctor is pursuing a monetary agenda of profit for this service does in no way effect the quality of either the diagnosis or the prognosis. A meaningless word. A demand for mere dignity is not an agenda as the way detractors wish to misuse the word. See also the utterly meaningless phrase, partisan motive.

Where I am coming from...

2005-05-01T08:39:00.000-05:00

I thought I would post of list of writers I admire. First, the Brit essayists, Gibbon, Hunt, Macauley, Lamb, Hazlitt and DeQuincy, and earlier, Addison and Steele. Later, such writers as Auden, Crane, H.W. Fowler, Robert Graves, Murray Kempton, George Orwell. Living, keeping the flame alive, such writers as Jacques Barzun, Vivian Gornick, Christopher Hitchins, Michael Ignatieff, John Leonard, and Joe Queenan. More on how I made these choices later.

Also I will keep a list of truly bad writers. To check for truly bad writing and poor logic, the New Republic is required reading. You will never find a guide to poorer logic and more noxious question begging than this magazine. Read and weep, and unlearn. Also, the columns of Thomas Freidman, who reminds me of the quip by Salvador Dali that he was not a great artist because he was so good but only because all other artists were so bad.

HELP WANTED

2005-05-01T06:42:00.000-05:00

Insecure writers, to exhibit their Ivy League college degrees or peripatic CVs, enjoy dropping foreign phrases, forgetting that some words do not literally translate. Example: the term amore propore. One can translate this phrase to mean self love. This phrase is soon confused with a completely native Americanism, self esteem, one on those phrases that makes this writer wish to reach for the proverbial revolver. Also, the phrase Guerre au rabais, which actually means somethig like "war done on the cheap". So this HELP WANTED post is actually a "shout out" for foreign readers to provide their own little phrases of political cant and argot to create an online political dictionary. Such as semaine prochaine (I hope I have spelt this correctly), referring to the off-putting of decision-making under the tricolor. More on the use of foreign phrases later.

Statement of Intent

2005-05-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

This is Day One of yet another blog. The purpose of this blog is to keep a check on the sloppy use of words and poor reasoning. It will be a Hall of Shame for the misuse of words. The categories include the over-use of words that strip a good word of any meaning (as in the case of ironic or tragedy), the use of cant or argot in politics (see weaponize or actionable), the twisting of good words that turn a complement into a pejorative (see the words liberal and socialist and intellectual), the use of what I call scientisms, where a word from a branch of the hard sciences is used incorrectly in the political sphere (see the words critical mass or sea change). Caveat: this writer, a man of the left, still prefers the dictionary that is proscriptive rather than descriptive. Hence, I would only use the word fiancé, to refer to a love partner who has pledged to marry at a certifiable date in the future; the word does not refer to an erstwhile cohabitant. This blog will hence be chock full of personal gripes, pet peeves, and Grundyisms.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. Thus sayeth Mr. Blair, Eric not Tony.

We seek to fight the good fight to preserve the currency of the English language, which like all currencies is not immune to the Greshamite tendency for bad coin to drive out the good. Good language is merely the watchful eye, the harsh bite on clenched teeth on the sovereign, assessing the true value, seeking an honest exchange for honest value.