Category: Language Matters
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Cats Crepuscular
My wife observed last night that our young cats are very active at twilight. No surprise there, said I. Neither diurnal nor nocturnal in their hunting habits, housecats are a crepuscular species of critter. The word derives from the Latin crepuscula, twilight. But there is morning twilight and evening twilight. And so critters crepuscular are…
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Profiling, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Everybody profiles. Liberals are no exception. Liberals reveal their prejudices by where they live, shop, send their kids to school and with whom they associate. The word 'prejudice' needs analysis. It could refer to blind prejudice: unreasoning, reflexive (as opposed to reflective) aversion to what is other just because it is other, or an unreasoning pro-attitude…
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Double Contractions
Scowled upon by schoolmarms for generations, contractions are now seen in formal writing. But formal writing, or what passes for such, has not yet sunk to the use of what I will call double contractions such as 'shouldn't've' and 'couldn't've.' But the times they are a changin' and with them the language.
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To Flout and to Flaunt
Why do people have such trouble with this distinction? One flouts the law. One does not flaunt it. Correct: 'She flaunted her naked breats thereby flouting the law.' Incorrect: 'She flouted her naked breasts thereby flaunting the law.'
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Dennis Prager on High Self Esteem
I like Dennis Prager, but he is sometimes sloppy in his use of language. He will often say that high self esteem is not a value, or words to that effect. It sounds as if he is against people having high self esteem. But what he really wants to oppose, or rather what he ought to oppose, is…
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On Begging the Question
I just now heard Dennis Prager on his nationally-syndicated radio show use 'beg the question' when what he meant was 'raise the question.' To raise a question is not to beg a question. 'Raise a question' and 'beg a question' ought not be used interchangeably on pain of occluding a distinction essential to clear thought.…
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New PC Expression: ‘Customers of Size’
Or at least it was new when I first ran an ancestorof this post on the old blog back in 2008 (26 July). …………….. No doubt you have heard of 'people of color' not to be confused with 'colored people.' (But what exactly is the difference in reality?) Just this morning I discovered that some…
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‘A Pair of Pants’ and Other Quirks of English
We speak of a pair of shoes, a pair of socks, a pair of gloves. But why a pair of pants? 'He bought a new pair of pants.' 'Why, does he have four legs?' A pair of socks is two things, a pair of pants one. Raising to reflective awareness these little quirks of the…
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‘The Wrong Side of History’
I once heard a prominent conservative tell an ideological opponent that he was 'on the wrong side of history.' But surely this is a phrase that no self-aware and self-consistent conservative should use. The phrase suggests that history is moving in a certain direction, toward various outcomes, and that this direction and these outcomes are…
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On the Word ‘Racism’ and Some of its Definitions
'Racism' and 'racist' are words used by liberals as all-purpose semantic bludgeons. Proof of this is that the terms are never defined, and so can be used in wider or narrower senses depending on the polemical and ideological purposes at hand. In common parlance 'racism' and 'racist' are pejoratives, indeed, terms of abuse. This is why it is…
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The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks
A Fingerfehler, a random keystroke, brought me to this site. I too have been amused by the wacky way some use quotation marks.
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The Trayvon Martin Case and the Growing Racial Divide
Utterly outstanding analysis by Victor Davis Hanson. I have but one quibble. Hanson writes, Millions of so-called whites are now adults who grew up in the age of affirmative action, and have no memory of systemic discrimination. To the degree some avoid certain schools, neighborhoods, or environments, they do so only on the basis of…
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‘Institutionalized Racism’
Liberals love the phrase, 'institutionalized racism.' A racist society it is in which so many blacks achieve high political office despite the fact that blacks are a small minority of the population. Indeed, we have a black president. What better proof that racism is inscribed into our institutional structure? But then again, Obama is only…