Category: Language Matters

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 such as "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life."  Here is a characteristic paragraph:

But this world of ours is made on an entirely different pattern, and the casuistic question here is most tragically practical. The actually possible in this world is vastly narrower than all that is demanded; and there is always a pinch between the ideal and the actual which can only be got through by leaving part of the ideal behind. There is hardly a good which we can imagine except as competing for the possession of the same bit of space and time with some other imagined good. Every end of desire that presents itself appears exclusive of some other end of desire. Shall a man drink and smoke, or keep his nerves in condition? — he cannot do both. Shall he follow his fancy for Amelia, or for Henrietta? — both cannot be the choice of his heart. Shall he have the dear old Republican party, or a spirit of unsophistication in public affairs? — he cannot have both, etc. So that the ethical philosopher's demand for the right scale of subordination in ideals is the fruit of an altogether practical need. Some part of the ideal must be butchered, and he needs to know which part. It is a tragic situation, and no mere speculative conundrum, with which he has to deal. (The Will to Believe, Dover 1956, pp. 202-203, emphases in original)

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.

WalterWhy 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 say that X citationed Y, but that X cited Y. (And please don’t confuse ‘site,’ ‘sight,’ and ‘cite.’)

You will not appear learned to the truly learned if you use ‘reference’ as a verb; you will appear pseudo-learned or pretentious. Of course, if enough people do it, it will become accepted. But what is accepted ought not be confused with the acceptable in the normative sense of the latter term. Admittedly, using ‘reference’ as a verb is no big deal. But it is uneconomical, and linguistic bloat, like other forms, is best avoided. This rule, like all my rules and recommendations, is to be understood ceteris paribus. Thus there may be an occasion on which a bit of bloat is what is needed for some rhetorical purpose. Good writing cannot be reduced to the mechanical application of a set of rules. You won’t find an algorithm for it. Language Nazis like me need to remind ourselves not to become too pedantic and persnickety.

Curiously enough, the same people who are likely to engage in verbal inflation will also fall for the opposite mistake. They will speak of Nietzsche quotes when they mean Nietzsche quotations. ‘Quote’ is a verb; ‘quotation’ a noun. ‘Nietzsche quotes’ is a sentence; ‘Nietzsche quotations’ is not. Perhaps I should be grateful that no one, so far, has used ‘quotation’ as a verb: Poindexter referenced Nietszche in his footnotes, and quotationed him in his text.

Now consider ‘criticize,’ ‘criticism,’ and ‘critique.’ One verb and two nouns. Don’t say: She critiqued my paper; say she criticized it. And don’t confuse a criticism with a critique. A correspondent once made a pusillanimous criticism of an article of mine, but referred to it as a critique. That’s a case of objectionable verbal inflation.

On a more substantive note, realize that to criticize is not to oppose or contradict, but to sift, to assay, to separate the good from the bad, the beautiful from the ugly, the true from the false, the demonstrated from the undemonstrated and the indemonstrable.

Note also that the Left does not own critique. There is critique from the Right, from the Left, and from the Middle. Resist the hijacking of semantic vehicles. We need them to get to the truth, which is not owned by anyone.

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 tanned ruddiness, I am undoubtedly not black either.

It follows that I am a native American. This conclusion is independently supported by the following argument:

1. I am a native Californian.
2. California is in America.
3. If x is native to locality L, and L is within the boundaries of M, then x is a native M-er.
Therefore
4. I am a native American.

This argument is impeccable in point of logical form, and sports manifestly true premises. What more do you want?

Note that (2) is true whether 'America' is taken to refer to the USA or to the continent of North America.

Let us also observe that since I am a native American, it cannot be the case that "we are all immigrants" as far too many 'liberal' knuckleheads like to claim.

We need more mockery of 'liberals.' There is little point in attempts to engage them on the plane of reason, for that is not the plane they inhabit.

Slavoj Zizek remarks (jokingly I think) that  ‘native Americans’ hate this term, mentioning one who preferred to be call an ‘Indian’ on the ground that ‘native’ American is racist. For it means that someone so denominated  is part of nature, and is therefore beneath the cultural American. The Indian in question prefers to be called an ‘Indian’ for this moniker implies the white man's stupidity.

‘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 out into the oceanic Apeiron.

Does your mother look askance at your new boyfriend? Perhaps the above sentence will take the edge off her disapprobation.

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 abortion clinics, terrorize clinic staff, and block women’s legal access into such clinics?”

On one way of looking at it, 'whataboutism' is just the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy.  It's old wine in a new, but very ugly, bottle.  If the question is whether Trump is a liar, then it is irrelevant to bring in Hillary and Bill and Obama, despite their being egregious and proven liars.  Similarly in the abortion case. The violence of a few pro-lifers is simply irrelevant to the question of the moral permissibility of abortion. Or suppose my doctor, who has cancer, diagnoses  cancer in me. It would be absurd for me to protest the diagnosis on the ground that the sawbones has it too. What about you, doc? 

So can anything good be said about 'whataboutism'?

Let's think a bit deeper about example 1. If a lefty points out Trump's undeniable flaws in an effort to show that he is unfit for office, then it is relevant to bring up Hillary's also undeniable flaws.  For if her considerable  flaws do not count against her fitness for high office, why should Trump's?

Understood in this way, 'whataboutism' is not the fallacy of tu quoque, but a legitimate charge of double standard.  Trump is being held to a higher standard than Hillary.  

If the question is simply about Trump's character, then Hillary's is irrelevant. But if the two are competing for the same office, and Trump's defects are cited as disqualifying, then it is relevant to bring up Hillary's. Not to do so would be to employ a double standard.

One conclusion, I think, is that 'whataboutism' is a waste basket term that ought to be dumped. We  already have 'tu quoque fallacy' and 'double standard.'

Besides, it is a barbarism. 

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 same type. One type, two tokens. That's a good proximate solution but not, if I am right, a good ultimate one. But that's a long story for another time.

Some write 's**t' to avoid writing 'shit.' Aren't they two tokens of the same word type? How then can one token be offensive and the other not? Or one more offensive than the other?

Here is a dilemma for your delectation:

Either we have two tokens of the same type or we don't. If the former, then both are offensive, and nothing is gained in point of politeness by writing 's**t' instead of 'shit.'

If, on the other hand, the inscriptions are not two tokens of the same type, then 's**t' cannot substitute for 'shit' in a manner that conveys the same meaning that 'shit' conveys to the English speaker.

We seem to have sunk into some really deep shit/s**t!

(Crossposted at my FB page where I expect some discussion to erupt.)

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 to suffer the decrepitude attendant upon living a long time.

One logic lesson to be drawn is that a paradox is not the same as a contradiction.

It is therefore a mistake to refer to Russell's Antinomy as 'Russell's Paradox.'

Thus spoke the Language Nazi.

Word of the Day: Demesne

Merriam-Webster:

1: legal possession of land as one's own

2: manorial land actually possessed by the lord and not held by tenants

3a: the land attached to a mansion

b: landed property : ESTATE

c: REGION sense 2, TERRITORY

4: REALM sense 2, DOMAIN

How does one acquire a large vocabulary? The first rule is to read, read widely, and read worthwhile materials, especially old books and essays.  The second rule is to look up every word the meaning of which you do not know or are not certain of: don't be lazy. The third rule is to compile vocabulary lists. The fourth rule is to review the lists periodically and put the words to use.  Use 'em or lose 'em.

If you think you know the meaning of a word, you are well-advised to check your understanding. Even if you really do know the meaning of a word, you probably don't know all of its shades and variants.

If you work steadily at this, then perhaps someday you will have a vocabulary half as extensive as that of your humble correspondent.

‘Wankerati’ and Other Terms of Abuse

I  picked up a new piece of invective from Mark Steyn.

I believe he intends 'wankerati' to be coextensive with 'left-wing commentariat.'  Read his The Turning Point and see if you don't agree. The brilliant polemicist offers up other choice phrases such as "malign carbuncles on the body politic." That's a reference to Di Fi (Dianne Feinstein), et al. And there's "a chamber full of posturing tosspots."

'Tosspot' is a general term of abuse that conjures up drunkard and sot. It puts me in mind of pot-valiant. One is correctly so described if one's courage derives from the consumption of spirits.

There is a use for abuse. It is a mistake to think that verbal abuse ought never to be employed.

Hands are best employed in caressing and blessing. But sometimes they need to be balled into fists and rudely applied to the faces of miscreants. 

If one resorts to verbal abuse and invective one does not always thereby betray a paucity of careful thought informed by fact. Verbal abuse has a legitimate use in application to the self-enstupidated, the willfully ignorant, and those out for power alone regardless of truth and morality. 

It is not reasonable to think that all are amenable to the dulcet tones of sweet reason; some need to be countered with the hard fist of unreason.  

On the other side of the question, one should never resort to invective if one is trying to persuade a reasonable person. One should proceed as calmly as possible.  Any resort to billingsgate will cause the interlocutor to assume that one lacks good reasons.  

……………….

If you studied the above properly you will probably have learned three or four new words.

If you have a large vocabulary you will love my blog; if you don't, you need it.

More Grist for the Moral Mill

If you tell one lie, are you a liar? I should think not. A liar is one who habitually lies. Otherwise, we would all be liars and the term 'liar' would perish from lack of contrast.

If you have been seriously drunk a time or two, are you a drunkard? I should think not. A drunkard is one who habitually gets drunk. Otherwise we would damn near all be drunkards, and the term 'drunkard' would perish from lack of contrast.

This rumination is iterable across thief, lecher, glutton and other terms of moral disapprobation.

But if a man commits murder just one time, we call him a murderer and we feel justified in so doing. We would find it ridiculous were he to complain, "I shot man in Reno just to watch him die, but I am no murderer; a murderer is  one who regularly and habitually does the deed."

How about rape? Does one rape a rapist make?  I think we would say yes.

So what is the difference between murder and rape and the other cases? The gravity of the crimes would seem to be one factor and the relative rarity another.

More grist for the mill.

It is not easy to think clearly and deeply about moral questions. Few even try.

‘Nonconsensual Choking’

I was struck by a curious expression I found in a recent NYRB piece:

I faced criminal charges including hair-pulling, hitting during intimacy in one instance, and—the most serious allegation—nonconsensual choking while making out with a woman on a date in 2002.

As opposed to what? Consensual choking? So if you are on a date and the girl consents to being choked, then it is morally acceptable? And what sort of girl wants to be choked? Next stop: erotic asphyxiation. Why not, if it is consensual? You might even try mutual erotic asphyxiation. That might not end well, however. David Carradine's auto-erotic adventure in auto-asphyxiation in a Bangkok hotel room proved to be his last.

From another source, I gather that the hitting mentioned in the quotation is punching a girl in the head against her will. So if she wants to be punched in the head,  there is nothing wrong with it?

I'd say we are living in sick times if the consent of the done to is sufficient for the moral acceptability of the doer's deed. 

I'll leave it to you to work out why.

Related entry: Real Enough to Debase, but not to Satisfy

UPDATE (9/16)

A reader expands our vocabulary of depravity with a link to donkey punch. Not for the easily shocked. But I think it is important to look human wretchedness hard in the face and realize what becomes of morality when it is untethered from a transcendent anchor. This is what is happening in the RCC under Bergoglio the Termite. 

A Letter from Ronald Reagan to his Dying Father-in-Law

Here:

Loyal Davis, Reagan’s father-in-law and a pioneering neurosurgeon, was just days away from death.

Something else worried Reagan: The dying man was, by most definitions of the word, an atheist.

“I have never been able to subscribe to the divinity of Jesus Christ nor his virgin birth. I don’t believe in his resurrection, or a heaven or hell as places,” Davis once wrote. “If we are remembered and discussed with pleasure and happiness after death, this is our heavenly reward.”

Reagan, on the other hand, believed everyone would face a day of judgment, and that Davis’s was near. So the most powerful man in the world put everything else aside, took pen in hand and set out on an urgent mission — to rescue one soul.

This provides further insight into why the Left so hated Reagan: he was a man of faith.

I can't help but point out that what Loyal Davis says about "our heavenly reward" is disgusting nonsense. Why disgusting? Because it twists words to mean what they can't mean.  There is nothing heavenly or rewarding about being the merely intentional object of a few flickering and intermittent memories of a few mortals soon to bite the dust themselves.

Memo to atheists: if you are a hard-assed naturalist, hoe the row to the bitter end and issue no claptrap about a heavenly reward. Man up, accept the consequences of your doctrine, and show some respect for the English language.