In the Beginning Was the Word
The Gospel According to St. John
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean ─ neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be the master ─ that’s all."
Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
I love words and I respect words.
I believe that of all the attributes that make human beings unique on earth and perhaps in the universe, it is the melding of words with our consciousnesses, our intellects, our core beings, and our very souls.
I also believe that one’s native language determines to a large extent one’s outlook on reality. Would the madness and fanaticism of so many Muslims exist were it not for the wild extremes of imagery endemic to Arabic?
Of all mankind’s thousands of languages, some living, many dead, I feel that the most beautiful and richest is English with its immense vocabulary accumulated over the millennia through conquest and defeat, through empire and ancient tribes and the armies of long-vanished Caesars, through the daring of men, who, as Churchill said, "journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies."
It is no accident that English has become a universal tongue, for it incorporates within its vastness most of the world’s other languages.
I treasure my native language and I thank God for being born into it and for the freedom of thought that is intertwined in its very nature,
* * *
I’ve always been a man of The Word (though I’ve never claimed to be God, at least when sober, and though I do own to excursions into the realms of mathematics and engineering at times in my life when it was more expedient to eat rather than write unpublished novels.)
My love affair with words is traceable to my mother, a Lady Macbeth-like figure who may have been disastrous at motherhood, but who was excellent at English ─ she was a legend in her own time during her many years in the English Department at William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens. It was she, through repetition, through example, and by whacking my ass, who instilled in me the difference between "good" and "well," "bad" and "badly," and the transitive verb "to lay" and the intransitive verb "to lie."
I have no doubt that her training in vocabulary and grammar, which I in turn infused in my own children with unremitting brutality, is the reason none of the seven is in jail at the moment. (Although I must confess that my second eldest daughter is a corporate lawyer which is almost as bad.)
* * *
All this brings me to liberalism and the root cause of why I despise it ─ its unremitting assault on the English language through distortion, bowdlerization, and unctuous sycophancy.
Liberals view English, My English, as cheap, malleable potter’s clay to be twisted and debased according to the shifting whims of their vapid religion.
It is the belief of all liberals that by manipulation of language enforced by threats of public opprobrium (i.e., Political Correctness) they can alter reality. Let's look at some of the cornerstones of the liberal vocabulary.
Liberal
In politics, the very term "liberal" has come to mean the exact opposite of it’s dictionary definition which is Generous, Open-Handed, Broad-Minded, Unorthodox, and Tolerant Of Others’ Ideas. Today, the acolytes of liberalism have transmuted the word into a synonym for bigoted, doctrinaire, close-minded, intolerant, and vengefully vicious.
The New York Times’ Fascist-in-chief, Paul Krugman, for example, calls his excretions "The Conscience of a Liberal." This from a conscienceless intellectual dwarf who struggles to exorcise the traumas of his friendless childhood by projecting his juvenile resentments and humiliations onto people he does not know via invective, slander, and fabrication.
African-American
Card-carrying liberals have ordained that any man or woman with the slightest smattering of African ancestry must be referred to as "African-American." In past years, of course, it was equally vital to use the word "Black." Before that the preferred adjective was "Colored." Before that it was "Negro" I also remember that calling someone an "Afro-American" was once considered racist (since all of us were Americans, not "hyphenated Americans.")
It is not clear just how a kaleidoscope of changing appellations helped or harmed the status of the individuals involved, but it certainly gave the liberal thought police a constantly updated arsenal of weaponry with which to attack targets of their distaste and, abetted by a compliant liberal media, force them into contrite apologies and, frequently, loss of jobs.
I recall listening to a callow, liberal asshole on PBS describe the well-known 18th century Negro French composer and violinist Boulogne de Saint-George as "A French African-American." Such nonsense would be hilarious if it weren’t so pitiful and yet I doubt if a single liberal having heard that broadcast or reading this post would consider it to be as puling and disgusting as it actually is.
Affirmative Action
This ridiculous euphemism has now been enshrined in our universities, courts of law, governmental institutions, and media alongside War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength as a keystone of political Newspeak.
I don’t give a fuck whether anyone likes it or not. "Affirmative Action" means "Quota." "Quota" means "Affirmative Action." Reality is not altered by the application of smarmy weasel words.
It is indifferently inconsequential what kind of twisted sophistry Ruth Bader Ginsberg indulges in or what kind of nonsense Humpty Dumpty voices: If there are 1,000 openings in an Ivy League freshmen class and 20 percent are affirmative-actioned for blacks and another 15 percent for Hispanics and another five percent for American Indians (oh, sorry, Native Americans) that means that there is a quota of 200 blacks, 150 Hispanics, 50 Indians, and 600 for the dregs (Jews, Orientals, Whites, Catholics, and other lesser breeds without the law).
Perhaps, in some golden future, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and Henry Reid will succeed in amending the Constitution for the benefit of the Democrat Party by outlawing mathematics and common sense.
Until that happens a quota is a quota is a quota.
Diversity
"Diversity" is the incestuous offspring of the rape of "Miss Affirmative Action" by her brother, "Mr. African-American." The chief function of the word is to defuse any attempt to point out that the virginal Miss Affirmative Action is actually that pseudonymous old bitch Mrs. Quota The point being that if a College adds a sufficient quantity of black to a white student body and runs the mix through the Blend Cycle of an Osterizer, the resultant grayish mass is a benefit to all.
So if you’re a white boy denied admission to Harvard because your slot has been taken by a black boy with half your credentials and a special race-based scholarship, stop your goddamn whining and be thankful you live in such a great liberal society as America.
David Skorton, the President and Suckup-in-Chief of my alma mater, Cornell University (to take a case close to my heart), cannot seem to issue a statement without swearing allegiance to the flag of the United States of Diversity and to the University for which it stands, one college under Diversity, with scholarships and quotas for all designated minorities.
Special Needs Children
I’m too lazy, too busy, too old, and too ignorant to trace the history of the many words that have been applied and discarded in connection with those among us ─ how shall I put it ─ who are a deal below the break-even point on the IQ scale.
I remember a group of 20 or 30 kids in P.S. 150 in Queens who were segregated in a special classroom with a special teacher. The term then in use was "Retarded" a clinical-sounding expression that (liberal) pedagogues introduced to replace such familiar nouns as idiot, moron, and cretin. Almost immediately, in the cruel, innocent way of children, "Retard" became the put-down of choice among the classroom set.
Result? "Retarded" (itself a euphemism matured into an insult) was replaced by a string of other euphemisms ─ intellectually challenged, special education, learning disability, special needs. Yet, strangely, not one of these shifting, "sensitivity" definitions helped to improve the lot of those to whom they were applied.
Back in my days in Westchester County I recall the much-heralded advent of the Board of Cooperative Educational Services. BOCES was (an may still be) an umbrella bureaucracy embracing special education, remedial education, special needs, and every other variety of crap disability the teachers' union could come up with. Surely, the grammar Mafia insisted, this single masterstroke would eliminate centuries of prejudice applied to those of below average intellect.
Result? Within the blink of an eye, the entire student population had a new pejorative at its disposal.
Somebody you don’t like? ─ "He’s a F...ing Bocee."
Your brother introduces a snake into your bed? ─ "I'll kill you, you little Bocee."
A teacher you hate? ─ "What a Bocee."
* * *
"What's in a name?" Juliet asked. "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Alas, according to liberals, everything is in a name, and nothing is in reality.
Should we decide to call a rose a turd, why then it will stink.
And should we call a turd a rose, why then it will acquire a most delightful fragrance.
Thus, if we pay lip service to goodness, we are therefore good.
If we call ourselves liberals, we are therefore generous and temperate.
If we call our enemies bigots, they therefore become bigots.
If we call censorship the "Fairness Doctrine," we are therefore advocates of fairness.
If we call terrorism "militancy," there is no longer such a thing as terrorism.
But why bother to go on.
If one chooses to live lies and to persecute those who prefer truth, so be it. It’s the way of the world. After all, we live in a democracy where the majority rule. And the majority can never be wrong.
Norm Mack, Peterborough, nbmack@myfairpoint.net
Categories: Liberal Hypocrisy, Language
Tags: political correctness Humpty Dumpty
It's uncanny. Just last night Chrissy and I were screaming about the misuse of English - especially in media, where they MIGHT help make a difference. It's clear that most people don't give a shit how ridiculous they sound, and what's worse is that it won't matter, because they are a part of the growing majority. Very sad.
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