My sense of the English language tells me that (1) below, but not (2), is good English.
1) On presentism, what no longer exists, does not exist at all. For on presentism, only the present exists.
2) On presentism, what no longer exists, does not exist at all. Because on presentism, only the present exists.
As I see it, (1) is good English because 'for' in a context like this means 'it is because.'
Consuetude. Disuse versus usages and customs.
Conseuetudines Camaldulenses: Customs of the Camaldolese. Cf. Thomas Merton, Journal, vol. 5, p. 349.
This is an old entry from 2010. It makes a very important point well worth repeating. The battle against language abusers is never-ending.
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What is wrong with the following sentence: "Excellent health care is by definition redistributional"? It is from a speech by Donald Berwick, President Obama's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, speaking to a British audience about why he favors government-run health care.
I have no objection to someone arguing that health care ought to be redistributional. Argue away, and good luck! But I object strenuously to an argumentative procedure whereby one proves that X is Y by illicit importation of the predicate Y into the definition of X. But that is exactly what Berwick is doing. Obviously, it is no part of the definition of 'health care' or 'excellent health care' that it should be redistributional. Similarly, it is no part of the definition of 'illegal alien' that illegal aliens are Hispanic. It is true that most of them are, but it does not fall out of the definition.
This is the sort of intellectual slovenliness (or is it mendacity?) that one finds not only in leftists but also in Randians like Leonard Peikoff. In one place, he defines 'existence' in such a way that nothing supernatural exists, and then triumphantly 'proves' that God cannot exist! See here.
This has all the advantages of theft over honest toil as Bertrand Russell remarked in a different connection.
One more example. Bill Maher was arguing with Bill O'Reilly one night on The O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly came out against wealth redistribution via taxation, to which Maher responded in effect that that is just what taxation is. The benighted Maher apparently believes that taxation by definition is redistributional.
Now that is plainly idiotic: there is nothing in the nature of taxation to require that it redistribute wealth. Taxation is the coercive taking of monies from citizens in order to fund the functions of government. One can of course argue for progressive taxation and wealth redistribution via taxation. But those are further ideas not contained in the very notion of taxation.
Leftists are intellectual cheaters. They will try to bamboozle you. Listen carefully when they bandy about phrases like 'by definition.' Don't let yourself be fooled.
"But are Berwick, Peikoff, and Maher really trying to fool people, or are they merely confused?" I cannot be sure about those specific individuals, but it doesn't much matter. The main thing is not to be taken in by their linguistic sleight-of-hand whether intentional or unintentional.
'Knowingly lied' is a pleonastic expression. One cannot lie without intending to deceive. And one cannot intend to do X without knowing that one intends to do X. So one cannot lie without lying knowingly: there is no such thing as an unknowing or unwitting lie. It follows that 'knowingly lied' is a pleonastic or redundant expression. Good writers avoid pleonasm.
Good writers also know when to break rules in the service of what they want to say.
The wise do not quibble over words, but they do insist on distinctions. One of the latter is that between distinctions and the words in which they are couched.
We have personal pronouns. Let's use them.
The man who robbed the liquor sore was apprehended
is preferable to
The man that robbed the liquor store was apprehended.
But would I expend red ink on the second sentence? Probably not.
Here is a taste:
Once again, you’d have to define racism. You’re basically saying any generalization about a group, whether true or false—and we know it doesn’t apply to everybody in the group, because that’s just a straw man—is racist. I mean, we could do “sexist,” right?
We could.
So, women, on average, are more agreeable than men. Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men. They’re less intellectual than men. Now, I can actually back up all those statements with social-science research.
You can send me links for women are “less intellectual than men.” I’m happy to include that in the piece if you have a good link for that.
O.K., well, there’s a literature in Britain, a series of papers that were done, and I need to look them up, that show that women are less knowledgeable than men. They know less about every single subject, except fashion. There is a literature out of Vanderbilt University that looks at women of very high ability—so, controlling for ability—and, starting in adolescence, women are less interested in the single-minded pursuit of abstract intellectual goals than men. They want more balance in their life. They want more time with family, friends, and people. They’re less interested in working hard on abstract ideas. You can put together a database that shows that. The person who has the literature is a man named David Lubinski, and he shows that intelligence isn’t what’s driving it. It is interest, orientation, what people want to spend their time doing.
Now, is that sexist? We can argue all day about whether it is sexist. We can argue from morning till night. And it is sterile. It is pointless. Let’s talk about the actual findings and what implications they have for policy, for expectations.
[. . .]
The expression 'gun buy-back' as used by Kamala Harris and other leftists makes no sense. If I sell you something, I am free to attempt to buy it back from you, and you are free to refuse to sell it to me. But I didn't buy my guns from the government, but from reputable gun dealers in compliance with all the Federal and state and local regulations. So the government can't buy them back from me. That is ruled out by the very sense of 'gun buy back.'
Furthermore, if the dealer wants to buy back my gun, I am free to say No. But I am not free (in the same sense) to say No to the government when they try to confiscate my firearms.
'Federal gun buy-back' is an obfuscatory phrase designed to confuse and trick the populace. In plain English, it amounts to COERCIVE CONFISCATION with monetary compensation.
When I call leftists moral scum, part of what I mean is that they misuse language to trick and confuse people. Decent folk don't do that. They say what they mean, and they mean what they say.
Leftists are stealth ideologues. They don't say what they mean, and what they mean is not what they say.
If they were intellectually honest, that would be one fewer reason for people to buy guns.
An incomplete list, and not necessarily in order of inanity, insanity, or asininity. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to explain the various ways in which the following offend against clear thought or are otherwise objectionable.
A concealing, concealment, hiding, veiling. Antonym: revelation.
My example: Her selective self-revelation was as much an intended obvelation.
Example from Stewart Umphrey, Complexity and Analysis, Lexington Books, 2002, 140:
Since divine revelation is never without obvelation, those bound back to God in inquiry need a hermeneutics to distinguish what belongs to Him from what belongs to the medium of His self-presentation.
The author offers a cognitivist as opposed to expressivist analysis of 'asshole' and other foul words. But the guy is a 'liberal,' as witness the following bit of squeamishness:
(2) pejorative terms, which assume false normative or moral claims about certain independently identifiable groups of people (e.g., "honkey”, "wop”, "kike”, “limey”, "chink”, "n—-r");
He refuses to write out 'nigger' as he does in the other cases. Why not? The author is well aware of the use-mention distinction. He knows that to talk about a word is not thereby to apply it to someone or something. Why is 'nigger' more offensive than 'kike'? Why the double standard?
The author appears to be 'p.c.-whipped.'
A man is hanged; his coat is hung.
Literally, "in wine, (there is) truth." But the sentence does not bear its meaning on its semantic sleeve. What the familiar Latin saying is used to express, by those who use it correctly, is the thought that a person under the influence of alcohol is less likely to dissemble and more likely to speak his mind and perhaps reveal something that he would not have revealed if sober.
Linguistic meaning, though not reducible to use, cannot be adequately understood apart from use.
Merriam-Webster: "the scientific study of elections." "Psephology is from the Greek word psēphos, meaning 'pebble.'"
Necro-psephology is a growing field of inquiry in the Chicago area. For in those precincts there is a sizable turnout at elections of the dearly departed.
If you have a large vocabulary you will love my blog; if you don't, you need it.
