Category: Language Matters
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On Advertising One’s Political Correctness
I am reading an article on some arcane topic such as counterfactual conditionals when I encounter a ungrammatical use of 'they' to avoid the supposedly radioactive 'he.' I groan: not another PC-whipped leftist! I am distracted from the content of the article by the political correctness of the author. As I have said more than…
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Imagine No ‘Re-Imagine’
Imagine no 're-imagine'It's easy if you tryNo such bullshit lingoFrom the journalists' sty Imagine all the peopleSpeaking sensiblyYou may say I'm a dreamerBut I'm not the only one Come along and join usAnd foolish innovation's done. Related articles Invective
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Is He Your Prophet?
Here are some questions for journalists. Why do you refer to Muhammad as the Prophet? Is he your prophet? Do you mean to endorse his claim to be a prophet? Or the prophet? Do you accept the very idea of prophecy? Do you speak of Jesus as 'Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ'? Or as…
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Peter Kreeft on the Gender-Neutral Use of ‘He’
A reader sent me the following quotation from Peter Kreeft's Socratic Logic, 3rd ed., p. 36, n. 1: The use of the traditional inclusive generic pronoun "he" is a decision of language, not of gender justice. There are only six alternatives. (1) We could use the grammatically misleading and numerically incorrect "they." But when we…
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‘Understand’ is a Verb of Success
Here I encountered the following sentence: However, most people understand their side is good and the opposing side is bad, so it’s much easier for them to form these emotional opinions of political parties. This sentence features a misuse of 'understand.' 'Understand' is a verb of success. If you understand something, then it is the…
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Three Kinds of Idle Talk
Intellectual talk can be as bad as mundane trivial talk, an empty posturing, a vain showmanship without roots or results. But worst of all is ‘spiritual talk’ when it distracts us from action and (what is better) contemplative inaction. Corruptio optimi pessima. The wonderful pithiness of Latin! "The corruption of the best is the worst…
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Tongue and Pen
Christ has harsh words for those who misuse the power of speech at Matthew 12:36: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." But what about every idle word that bloggers blog and scribblers scribble? Must not the discipline of…
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Bill O’Reilly the Other Night
It "drives him crazy" that people say 'at the end of the day.' (Now why did I use double and then revert to single quotation marks? Because I went from quoting a particular person to mentioning a phrase in widespread use, but not quoting any particular person. There is no need for you to be…
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Denying that There is Political Correctness . . .
. . . is like a mafioso's denying that there is a mafia. "Mafia? What mafia? There's no mafia. We're just businessmen trying to do right by out families." Our mafioso might go on to explain that 'mafia' is really just an ethnic slur used to denigrate businessmen of Italian extraction. This an instance of…
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Pleonasm
Professor Windbag censured the student's use of 'added bonus' as pleonastic and redundant.
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Acronyms, Initialisms, and Truncations: Another Look
I suggested earlier that we think of abbreviations as a genus that splits into three coordinate species: acronyms, initialisms, and truncations with the specific differences as follows: An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from either the initial letters of two or more words, or from contiguous letters of two or more words. For example,…
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Distasteful Slang
I have nothing against slang as such, but there are contexts in which it does not belong. Here is a book by one Fr. Andrew Younan entitled Metaphysics and Natural Theology. One chapter is entitled "Aristotle and the Other Guys." Another "Thomas Aquinas — A Bunch of Stuff." A third "God Stuff." Disgusting. Either you…
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Residual Political Correctness Among Conservatives
Over at NRO, I found this in an otherwise very good column by Charles C. W. Cooke: I daresay that if I had been in any of the situations that DeBoer describes, I would have walked happily out of the class. Why? Well, because there is simply nothing to be gained from arguing with people…
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Acronyms, Initialisms, and Truncations
Every acronym is an abbreviation, but is every abbreviation an acronym? I just read something in which 'SNBR' was referred to as an acronym. 'SNBR' abbreviates the trendy phrase 'spiritual but not religious.' The phrase is foolish despite its currency, but that is not my present topic. Call me pedantic, but 'SNBR' is so unlike…
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On the Use and Mention of Cartoons and Other Images
I had a new thought this morning, new for me anyway. It occurred to me that the familiar use-mention distinction can and should be applied to images, including cartoons. I recently posted a pornographic Charlie Hebdo cartoon that mocks in the most vile manner imaginable the Christian Trinity. A reader suggested that I merely link…