Eureka Moment

Now I finally have a word for it: "Degredation".

I've been arguing...much less cogently...this point for years. Every time the language Nazis insist we change the words we use to describe things or people, the new word always takes on the old word's negativity.

Nigger became Colored became Negro became Afro-American became Black became African American...and ultimately the only effect was to make most non-blacks roll their eyes every time a "new" designation was introduced.

[I stopped at "Black", and I'm not budging.]

One of my favorite stupid "evolutions" is of words we use to designate crippled people.

[Did she just say "crippled"?]

"Linguistically speaking, this phenomenon is euphemism -- the same prissiness about diction we used to mock the Victorians for. It's based on the illusion that words control reality. Linguists know the truth is the opposite; words take their meaning from how they are used. Merely forcing people not to use an "offensive" word doesn't in itself change their attitudes, so the euphemistic word gradually takes on the associations of the suppressed word. Linguists call this phenomenon degradation (of the word, not of what the word is being applied to).

Once upon a time, "stout" meant "strong" and "portly" meant "dignified," but they have been euphemisms for "fat" for so long that now they primarily mean fat (though "portly" does retain enough of its original meaning that it suggests the would-be dignified Oliver Hardy sort of fat guy). "Homeless" was supposed to cure us of our negative attitude toward bums by portraying them as victims, merely lacking a home, but within just a few years it took on associations of bumhood: lazy, flaky, screwed-up sponger and low-life. This is why liberals have to keep introducing new politically correct terms all the time: to keep ahead of the inexorable degradation."

So there you go. Resist the idiots. Refuse to surrender the language. If we're not careful, their sloppy language will turn us into sloppy thinkers. Language is the medium of thought.

The Gunslinger

Goddamn Foreigners!

I get so friggin' mad when people come to America and don't speak English.

Then I read this again, and I sort of want to take it back. Good God! How do they ever learn it at all?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object;to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the row of oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all That is why , when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'