Category: Language Matters
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The Orwellian Left
Full disclosure and transparency become 'cover up' and 'obstruction.' Take a powder, Nancy. Beat it, scram, get lost, take a hike. The Young Turks in your party of crapweasels are about to pulverize you, to continue with the metaphor.
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Of Apples and Sparkplugs
All too frequently people say, ‘You’re comparing apples and oranges’ in order to convey the idea that two things are so dissimilar as to disallow any significant comparison. Can’t they do better than this? Apples and oranges are highly comparable in respects too numerous to mention. Both are fruits, both are edible, both grow on…
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Meaning and Word Order
Here is a linguistic bagatelle for your delectation. The striking difference in meaning between 'to see through something' and 'to see something through' is entirely due to word order. Thus the semantic and syntactic are linked. But they couldn't be linked if they weren't distinct.
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Pleonasm of the Day
'Central focus'
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On ‘Illegal Alien’ and ‘Illegal Immigrant’
Liberals, whose love of political correctness gets the better of their intellects, typically object to the phrase 'illegal alien.' But why? Are these people not in our country illegally, as the result of breaking laws? And are they not aliens, people from another country? "But you are labeling them!" Yes, of course. Label we must if…
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On Sentence Fragments
I was taught to avoid them. The teaching was sound. But rules of style admit of exceptions. That too is a rule of sorts. My rule anent sentence fragments hitherto has been that they are to be deployed, if deployed at all, sparingly. That's what I taught my students. Does my rule admit of exceptions? …
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To Write Well, Read Well
To write well, read well. Read good books, which are often, but not always, old books. If you carefully read, say, William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, you will learn something of the expository potential of the English language from a master of thought and expression. If time is short, study one of his popular essays…
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Language Rant: Verbal Inflation and Deflation
The visage of Jeff Dunham's 'Walter' signals the onset of a language rant should you loathe this sort of thing. Why use ‘reference’ as a verb when ‘refer’ is available? Why not save bytes? Why say that Poindexter referenced Wittgenstein when you can say that he referred to the philosopher? After all, we do not…
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Three Writing Rules to Disregard
I agree.
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Proof that I am a Native American
A while back a front page story in the local rag of record, The Arizona Republic, implied that one is either a native American, a black, or an Anglo. Now with my kind of surname, I am certainly no Anglo. And even though I am a 'person of color,' my color inclining toward a sort of…
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‘Peninsulate’
If 'insulate' is a word, from the Latin insula, insulae, island, then why not 'peninsulate,' v. i. meaning to insulate partially? Example featuring an adjectival cognate: His is a peninsular life, a balanced life, neither continental not insular. While connected to the mainland of the traditional, the quotidian, and the commonsensical, a part of him stretches…
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About Whataboutism
What's with all the contemporary noise about 'whataboutism'? Example 1. A lefty complains, "Trump is a liar!" A conservative responds, "What about Hillary and Bill and Obama? They are not liars?" Example 2. A pro-lifer argues that killing the prenatal is immoral and meets with the response, "What about all of the 'pro-lifers' who bomb…
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Pleonasm
I'd say the following is pleonastic: 'the example of Kant's.' Write either 'Kant's example' or 'the example of Kant.'
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Of ‘Shit’ and ‘S**t,’ Type and Token
How many words immediately below, two or one? cat cat. Both answers are plausible, and indeed equally plausible; but they can't both be right. There can't be both two words and one word. The obvious way to solve the problem is by distinguishing between token and type. We say: there are two tokens of the…
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Paradox and Contradiction
A form of words can be paradoxical but not contradictory, e.g., "Most people want to become old, but few want to be old." The expression is paradoxical, and therein lies its literary charm, but the thought is non-contradictory. The thought, expressed non-paradoxically, is: Most want to live a long time, but few if any want…