Category: Language Matters

No Person is Illegal!

That's true. No person is illegal. But who ever said that any person was?

'Woke' knuckleheads  of the sort who  recently criticized Joey B's SOTU reference to Lincoln Laken Riley's murderer as 'an illegal'  regularly give something like the following lame argument:

1) No person is illegal.

2) If any person is justifiably labelled an 'illegal alien,' then some persons are illegal.

Therefore

3) No person is justifiably labelled an 'illegal alien.'

Therefore

4) The expression 'illegal alien' and such related expressions as 'illegal immigrant' must be banned.

There is no need to concern ourselves with the inferential move from (3) to (4).  The argument is unsound because (2) is plainly false.  

To see that it is false you have to be able to distinguish between agent and action, between doer and deed.  'Illegals' are so-called because of their illegal action, namely their illegal entry into the country, and not because they themselves, as agents, are illegal.  

Of course, an appeal to sweet reason will get you nowhere with a leftist; what they understand is the hard fist of unreason.  

As I have said many times, it is unreasonable to expect that all disputes can be settled reasonably.

And yet we have to have reasons at the ready for the reasonable.   

That is why I wrote the above. Besides, I'm a natural-born scribbler who just loves to write, and loves to read what he has written. The life of the mind is its own reward. 

What Leftists Mean by ‘Democracy’

They mean woke globalist plutocracy, or something in the semantic vicinity thereof.  This is why the enemies of the people see nothing contradictory in using 'lawfare' to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. We the people, however, understand 'democracy' to mean rule by the people. On this understanding of the word, it makes no logical sense to attempt to defend democracy anti-democratically, that is, by silencing the vox populi.

The Orange Man, however, gets the last laugh since SCOTUS has spoken, 9-0.   Even Justice Jackson went along, she who doesn't know what a woman is. Has she grown a pair?

The THC level of the stuff smoked in Colorado these days is much higher than that of the  weed  smoked back in those fabulous and far-off  '60s.  And the Coloradans, unlike Bill Clinton, inhale.  The Rocky Mountain high is now 'plutocratically' high. Are the higher THC levels a causal factor, along with high altitude, in the etiology of Coloradan chucklephuckery?

Is that a rhetorical question or am I really asking? And what about the immediately preceding question? Rhetorical, or am I really asking?

Hot damn, if I didn't enjoy writing the above! The joy of blog. Seriously, though, mockery and derision are among the weapons we must deploy against our political enemies. 

Suggestibility and the Language Lemming

The language lemming hears a word or phrase, thinks it 'cool,' and just has to use it whether or not it makes sense. 'Demo' below is being used as an abbreviation of 'demolish.' Now there is something dubious about the excessive use of abbreviations these days, but let that pass.  The point I want to make is that, below, the correct word is 'replace' not 'demolish.'  Of course, you, or rather a highly suggestible 'liberal' language lemming, could demolish a carpet that has been removed, although  it is not clear how one would go about doing that.  The point is that a replacement is not a demolition.

Does language matter? Well, does it matter if we refer to illegal aliens as 'migrants'? If not, then it won't matter that 'migrant' is now being replaced by 'newcomer.'

 

Demo the carpet

He Who Hesitates is Lost

Sometimes, however, it is better to look before you leap. 

Note this curious philo-lang point: 'he' above, though grammatically classifiable as a pronoun, does not function logically as a pronoun: it has no antecedent. It functions as a sex-neutral universal quantifier, or rather, it functions as an individual variable bound by a universal quantifier.  Thus the maxim translates as 'For any x, if x hesitates, then x is lost.'

Two-Tiered System of Justice?

I know what conservatives such as Sean Hannity mean when they employ the above expression, but the expression is inept. There cannot be two tiers of justice, one for the rulers and the other for the ruled, or one for Democrats and the other for Republicans,  for the simple reason that justice in Anglo-American law is equal justice, one justice for all.  A guiding principle of our  republic, as the Pledge of Allegiance attests, is "liberty and justice for all." We are all (to be considered to be) equal before the law. Whether you are Joe Biden or Joe Blow, you are subject to the same laws. And the same goes for Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  It is a guiding ideal essential to our system of government. That it is being egregiously violated in the case of Trump does not make it any less of an ideal. 

Joe Sixpack will say, "This is all just semantics." That is the sort of response one expects from a barfly at Joe's Bar and Grill.  Someone who says that has not grasped the truth I have been hammering on for the last twenty years: Language Matters!

Julian Epstein, Democrat, on Crooked Joe. (HT: Tony Flood) There is hope for some Dems. 

Word of the Day: Perseveration

Leftists want to limit your vocabulary so as to limit your thought and make you easier to control.  They want total control. David Horowitz says it well on his masthead, "Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out."  (When a transgressive calls herself 'progressive,' you know there's a cesspool of mendacity up ahead.)

perseveration /pər-sĕv″ə-rā′shən/
 
noun
  1. Uncontrollable repetition of a particular response, such as a word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus, usually caused by brain injury or other organic disorder.
  2. The tendency to continue or repeat an act or activity after the cessation of the original stimulus.
  3. The act or an instance of persevering; perseverance.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

 

On the Gender-Neutral Use of ‘Man’

Top o' the Stack.

Roger Donway writes,

As I understand it, there are no "gender-neutral" nouns or pronouns in English. There is the masculine gender, the feminine gender, the neuter gender, and the common gender. The last applies to entities which have sex, but in contexts where both sexes are included or the sex is undetermined. "Someone has forgotten his umbrella." "Someone" and "his" are in the common gender. So, they do possess grammatical gender. They are not "gender neutral." Not positive about this, however.

Excellent comment, Mr. Donway. You're right. Strictly speaking, gender is a grammatical category with the four subcategories you mention. I was being sloppy in violation of my own principles.  Properly expressed, my point was that 'man' has a legitimate sex-neutral use in standard English. When used to refer to both males and females, it is sex-neutral but not gender-neutral for precisely the reason you supplied: so used, the term's gender is common. 

The sex of an animal is biologically based and therefore not a linguistic construct. This fact notwithstanding, it strikes me as legitimate to extend the sense of 'gender' so as to cover social roles. For example, traditionally women as a group have instantiated the nurse role and not the doctor role. No surprise: women can give birth, which biological fact makes women as a group more nurturing than men as a group and suits them for the nurse role. I have no objection to referring to the nurse role, a social role, as a gender role, midway as it is between the biotic/biological and the grammatical. 

But this is an extended use of 'gender.' Strictly speaking, gender is a grammatical category!

Gun Semantics

Under 14 minutes, by Massad Ayoob, one of the best. Words mean things, especially in a court of law. Precise, penetrating, and practical. As civil society collapses around us, and more and more of us must look to our own physical defense, you must also know how to avoid verbal entrapment by the prosecutorial shysters of the Left. 'Shyster,' as you know, is from the German sheissen, to shit. (I shit kid you not.)

Word of the Day: ‘Phatic’

phatic /făt′ĭk/
 
adjective
  1. Of or relating to communication used to perform a social function rather than to convey information or ideas.
  2. Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship e.g polite mood, rather than meaning; for example, "How are you?" is often not a literal question but is said only as a greeting. (Similarly, a response such as "Fine" is often not an accurate answer, but merely an acknowledgement of the greeting.).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik
 
Don't confuse 'phatic' with 'vatic.' 
 
vatic /văt′ĭk/
 
adjective
  1. Of or characteristic of a prophet; oracular.
  2. Pertaining to a prophet; prophetic, oracular.
  3. Resembling or characteristic of a prophet or prophecy.
    "a kind of sibylline book with ready and infallible answers to questions"
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik