According to a news report, doctors will not speculate on the 'future prognosis' of Otto Warmbier. As opposed to what? His present prognosis?
Category: Language Matters
Immigration Policy Comes First
I have been discussing Islamist terrorism with a couple of Brits who are open to the sorts of things I say. One of them I know is a conservative; the other I think is. What struck me is that both make a curious lefty move. The move is well-described by Heather Mac Donald:
Defenders of the open-borders status quo inevitably claim that if a terrorist is a second-generation immigrant, like Abedi [the Manchester suicide bomber], immigration policy has nothing to do with his attack. (Abedi’s parents emigrated to Britain from Libya; his immediate family in Manchester lived in the world’s largest Libyan enclave outside Africa itself.) Media Matters ridiculed a comment about the Manchester bombing by Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt with the following headline: FOX NEWS HOST SUGGESTS ‘OPEN BORDERS’ ARE TO BLAME FOR MANCHESTER ATTACK CARRIED OUT BY BRITISH NATIVE.
My correspondents are not open-borders advocates, but they seem to want to decouple questions about immigration policy from questions about 'homegrown' terrorists. That strikes me as foolish. I answer them in the words of Heather Mac:
Pace Media Matters, a second-generation Muslim immigrant with a zeal for suicide bombing is as much of an immigration issue as a first-generation immigrant with a terrorist bent. The fact that second-generation immigrants are not assimilating into Western culture makes immigration policy more, not less, of a pressing matter. It is absurd to suggest that Abedi picked up his terrorist leanings from reading William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth, rather than from the ideology of radical Islam that has been imported into Britain by mass immigration.
Of course! Isn't that blindingly obvious?
And another thing.
'Homegrown terrorist' is an obfuscatory leftist phrase. That is why I enclosed it in sneer quotes above. Why obfuscatory? Because it elides an important distinction between those terrorists who are truly homegrown such as Timothy McVeigh and those who, while born in the USA, such as Omar Mateen, derive their 'inspiration' from foreign sources. Mateen's terrorism comes from his understanding of what Islam requires, namely, the liquidation of homosexuals. There is nothing homegrown about Islam. This in stark contrast to the American sources of McVeigh's terrorism.
It is perfectly obvious why liberals and leftists use 'homegrown terrorist' in application to the likes of Mateen: they want to deflect attention from the real problem, which is radical Islam.
Language matters!
Heather Mac's article is here.
Dropping Prepositions
It seems to be acceptable in British English, as witness:
Donald Trump received a glittering welcome from leaders in Saudi Arabia on the first day of his first international tour, as the two countries agreed a series of military deals worth nearly $110bn (£85bn).
That offends my linguistic sensibilities. If I were editor, I would expend some red ink. One does not agree X, one agrees to X, or upon X. If you make a proposal, I may reject it, but if I agree, I agree to it; I don't agree it.
Stateside one often hears sentences like 'She will graduate high school in June.' The meaning is clear, but the style is bad. One graduates from high school.
I am just reporting on how I prefer to write and speak. But if a competent user of English reports on how he prefers to write and speak, then the report has normative import.
The Lousy Linguist has more data on British English if this topic is of interest. And even if it isn't.
Addendum
An equal but opposite stylistic infelicity is the adding of unnecessary prepositions. For example, 'Where's your car at?' instead of 'Where's your car?'
Word of the Day: ‘Eructation’
Eructation is simply a fancier, and some might argue a more decorous, word for "belch." "Eructation" was borrowed from Latin in the 15th century; the verb eruct, meaning "to belch," followed in the late 16th century. Both have their source in the Latin verb eructare, which is the frequentative form of erugere, meaning "to belch or disgorge." (A frequentative form is one that denotes a repeated or recurrent action or state.) "Eructare" shares an ancestor with Greek word ereugesthai as well as Old English "rocettan," both of which also mean "to belch."
The poverty of most people's vocabularies these days is enough to make one belch in disgust.
‘That’ and ‘Who’
Incorrect: There are confirmed worldlings that simply do not understand religion.
Correct: There are confirmed worldlings who simply do not understand religion.
Simple rule: 'that' for things, 'who' for people.
The Sentence Fragment Fully Fragmented
I was taught to avoid sentence fragments. And that is what I taught my students. But being as flexible and reasonable as you all know me to be, I would allow the occasional exception. Suppose you have just crafted a paragraph summarizing Kant's views on space and time. I would allow you a 'Thus Kant' as coda. There is no call to be as hidebound as a schoolmarm.
But recently we have been witnessing the fragmentation of the sentence fragment. Example:
Mr. Trump, meantime, is breaking all the china in Washington as he works to reinvent the wheel. Every. Single. Day.
'Every single day' is a sentence fragment. 'Every. Single. Day.' is a sentence fragment fully fragmented.
I am assuming, hopefully, that no one will take the further step of breaking words into their constituent syllables.
Full-on fragmentation cannot be fairly laid at the doorstep of Hemingway any more than conceptual relativism can be fairly laid at the doorstep of Kant. But these gentlemen unwittingly played a role. Or it might be better to say that they set the stage.
I may from now on use Jeff Dunham's 'Walter' puppet to signal language rants. Don't get too excited over my rants. After all, a rant, by definition, involves a certain exaggeration of umbrage.
Of Bocce and Blog
I just got off a language rant and now I'm warmed up. Here's another. Snowflakes turn back now.
The name of the game is bocce, not 'bocce ball.'
Do you call tennis 'tennis ball'? Soccer 'soccer ball'? Golf 'golf ball'? Get on the ball.
And there are still idiots who refer to a blog post or a blog entry as a 'blog.' Can't you think at all? Do you call an item on a list a list? A paragraph of an essay an essay? A sentence in a paragraph a paragraph? A word in a sentence a sentence? A letter in a word a word?
On ‘Reaching Out’ and ‘Educate’
Language rant up ahead! All language lemmings to their safe spaces.
Last Fall I made an appointment to speak with an auto salesperson. I arrived at the dealership on time, but she didn't. After waiting five minutes, I consulted the general manager. His response was that if she didn't arrive soon, he would "reach out to her." About the same time I received an e-mail message from the Internet Chess Club hawking some product or other. "We are reaching out to inform you . . . ."
Examples are easily multiplied. What explains the prevalence of this ridiculously inflated use of an otherwise unobjectionable expression?
If your spouse dies, I may reach out to you to offer my condolence and help. But if I notice a rattlesnake near your back door, I won't 'reach out' to you about it, but simply inform you of the fact.
And if I inform you of some paltry fact, I haven't 'educated' you about it, but merely provided you with a scrap of information.
An educated person is not the one whose head is stuffed with information, but the one whose experientially-honed judgment is capable of making sense of information. To become well-informed is not difficult; to become well-educated is a task of self-development for a lifetime.
Can we blame the decline of language and good sense on liberals? I'll leave you with that (rhetorical) question.
Hyperbole
Every word they write is a lie, and every syllable they speak. Their mendacity extends even unto the syntax of their sentences. Their periods prevaricate and their dashes dissemble.
Why Physical Culture?
In part it is about control. I can't control your body, but I can control mine. Control is good. Power is good. Physical culture is the gaining and maintaining of power over that part of the physical world that is one's physical self.
Self-mastery, as the highest mastery, must include mastery of the vehicle of one's subjectivity. Control of one's vehicle is a clear desideratum. So stretch, run, hike, bike, swim, put the shot, lift the weight.
In short: rouse your sorry ass from the couch of sloth and attend to your vehicle. 'Ass' here refers to Frate Asino, Brother Jackass, St Francis' name for his body. Keep him in good shape and he will carry you and many a prodigious load over many a pons asinorum.
(It is interesting that the German Arsch, when it crossed the English Channel became 'arse,' but in the trans-Atlantic trip it transmogrified into the polyvalent 'ass.' Whatever you call it, get it off the couch.)
Do You Speak English?
Then you are guilty of 'cultural appropriation' unless you are English.
Addendum 4/12:
A philosophy professor comments:
The claim in your post today, strikes me as clearly false.Just because someone speaks a language (even as a primary language) doesn't mean they are cultural appropriators guilty of something. Imagine the English colonize your land and people and force English upon you. Then this conditional, which is what I think you are claiming, is false: "If you speak English and you are not English, then you are guilty of 'cultural appropriation'.
The good professor has found a counterexample to my conditional claim. But he misses the point of my pithy little poke. My intention was to ridicule the politically correct silliness of those who see something reprehensible in, say, donning a sombrero when one is not a Mexican. Aphorisms, maxims, and other sayings derive their punch from their pith. You have heard it said, briefly, and with wit, that "Brevity is the soul of wit."
Let us note en passant and in defiance of the content of the witticism that it can be found in William Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act II wherein the Bard has Polonius say:
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of witAnd tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,I will be brief: your noble son is mad.
Was this beautiful coinage first put into circulation by Shakespeare? I have no idea. But I digress.
Consider the following piece of folk wisdom,
He who hesitates is lost.
Counterexamples abound. And the same goes for the competing maxim,
Look before you leap.
If one were to rewrite them to make them proof against the punctilios of philosophers and logicians, the result would be something clunky and not particularly memorable. For example,
It is often, but not always, the case that one who hesitates before acting misses his opportunity and in consequence of such hesitancy either loses his life or suffers some lesser, but nonetheless regrettable, loss.
But then one has traded the lawyerly for the literary.
Top Dog
Being crown of creation, man's wolf is man himself.
……………
Is the above sentence grammatical? If it isn't, then it shows that from time to time grammaticality is justifiably sacrificed on the altar of aphoristic elegance.
On the Misuse of ‘Theology’
This is an addendum to my post, On the Misuse of Religious Language.
In the left-wing rag of record, the NYT, we find:
“When you buy gold you’re saying nothing is going to work and everything is going to stay ridiculous,” said Mackin Pulsifer, vice chairman and chief investment officer of Fiduciary Trust International in New York. “There is a fair cohort who believes this in a theological sense, but I believe it’s unreasonable given the history of the United States.”
So to believe something 'in a theological sense' is to believe it unreasonably. It follows that liberals have plenty of 'theological' beliefs. In the 'theology' of a liberal, theology can be dismissed unread as irrational.
And then there is the misuse of 'metaphysics.' I'll save that rant for later.
Brevity is the soul of blog.
On the Misuse of Religious Language
A massage parlor is given the name Nirvana, the implication being that after a well-executed massage one will be in the eponymous state. This betrays a misunderstanding of Nirvana, no doubt, but that is not the main thing, which is the perverse tendency to attach a religious or spiritual significance to a merely sensuous state of relaxation.
Why can’t the hedonist just enjoy his sensory states without glorifying them? Equivalently, why can’t he admit that there is something beyond him without attempting to drag it down to his level? But no! He wants to have it both ways: he wants both sensuous indulgence and spirituality. He wants sensuality to be a spiritual experience and spirituality to be as easy of access as sensuous enjoyment.
A catalog of currently misused religious terms would have to include ‘heaven,’ ‘seventh heaven,’ ‘hell,’ 'dark night of the soul,' and many others besides.
Take ‘retreat.’ Time was, when one went on a retreat to get away from the world to re-collect oneself, meditating on the state of one's soul and on first and last things. But now one retreats from the world to become even more worldly, to gear up for greater exertions in the realms of business or academe. One retreats from ordinary busy-ness to prepare for even greater busy- ness.
And then there is ‘spirituality.’ The trendy embrace the term but shun its close cousin, ‘religion.’ I had a politically correct Jewish professor in my kitchen a while back whose husband had converted from Roman Catholicism to Judaism. I asked her why he had changed his religion. She objected to the term ‘religion,’ explaining that his change was a ‘spiritual’ one.
Etymologically, ‘religion’ suggests a binding, a God-man ligature, so to speak. But trendy New Age types don’t want to be bound by anything, or submit to anything. I suggest that this is part of the explanation of the favoring of the S word over the R word. Another part of the explanation is political. To those with a Leftward tilt, ‘religion’ reminds them of the Religious Right whose power strikes them as ominous while that of the Religious Left is no cause for concern. Not to mention the irreligious and anti-religious Left for whom leftism is their 'religion.'
A third part of the explanation may be that religion is closely allied with morality, while spirituality is often portrayed as beyond morality with its dualism of good and evil. One of the worst features of New Age types is their conceit that they are beyond duality when they are firmly enmired in it. Perhaps the truly enlightened are beyond moral dualism and can live free of moral injunctions. But what often happens in practice in that spiritual aspirants and gurus fall into ordinary immorality while pretending to have transcended it. One may recall the famous cases of Rajneesh and Chogyam Trungpa. According to one report, ". . . Trungpa slept with a different woman every night in order to transmit the teaching to them. L. intimated that it was really a hardship for Trungpa to do this, but it was his duty in order to spread the dharma."
Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien
Attributed to Voltaire. "The better is the enemy of the good." Supposedly from the earlier Italian Il meglio è nemico del bene, attested since 1603. (Wikipedia) The thought is perhaps better captured by "The best is the enemy of the good."
In an imperfect world it is folly to predicate action upon perfection. Will you hold out for the perfect spouse? Then you will remain alone. And if you yourself are less than perfect, how can you demand perfection in others?
Politics is a practical business: it is about the gaining and maintaining of power for the purpose of implementing programs and policies that one believes to be beneficial, and for opposing those whose policies one believes to be deleterious. It's about winning, not talking. It's not about ideological purity or having the supposedly best ideas; it's about gaining the power to implement good ideas, ideas that are implementable in the current configuration of suboptimal circumstances. The practical politician understands that quite often Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, the better/best is the enemy of the good.
The Never Trumpers and the conservative opponents of the American Health Care Act displayed a failure to understand this important principle of practical politics.
Dennis Prager in his latest column explains why.
Practical politics as opposed to what? As opposed to the effete and epicene political salon talk of Bill Kristol and George Will. Erudite and entertaining but useless in stopping the leftist-Islamist juggernaut.
The main external threat to civilization? Radical Islam. The main internal threat? Leftism. That the latter is in cahoots with the former makes for a nasty synergy. Prager:
Conservatives who voted for Trump believed that defeating the Left is the overriding moral good of our time. We are certain that the Left (not the traditional liberal) is destroying Western Civilization, including, obviously, the United States. The external enemy of Western Civilization are the Islamists (the tens or perhaps hundreds of million of Muslims who wish to see the world governed by Sharia), and the internal enemy of the West is the left. What the left has done to the universities and to Western culture at the universities is a perfect example.
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