Category: Language Matters

Rod Dreher Talks Sense

Here:

In America, when you hear media figures and politicians gassing on about “threats to democracy,” you should be aware that what they really might mean is “threats to a system that favors current elites and their prejudices, against the common good.” 

And this despite Dreher's to-me-incomprehensible  case of TDS.

Delete the might and Dreher's point is spot on.

No word or phrase is safe from an Orwellian language-hijacker, and leftists are language-hijackers, as I have been documenting online since 2004.

Conservative or Counter-Revolutionary?

Christopher Rufo made an excellent contribution to Mark Levin's "Life, Liberty, and Levin" last night. I will put one of his points in my own way with my own additions and 'flourishes.'

One can conserve only what one has, not what one has lost. We conservatives have lost control of our institutions including the universities, the schools, the churches, and the Fourth Estate. The Left's "long march through the institutions" has been successful thanks to their energy and our inattention. Since there is little or nothing left to conserve, we must take back what has been stolen. While we may continue to call ourselves conservatives, we must think of ourselves as counter-revolutionaries.  Counter-revolutionaries, not reactionaries. 'Reactionary Right' is a phrase to avoid. He who reacts is defined by that against which he reacts. We need action, not reaction. 

As for the 'post-liberals,' it is not clear what they are about.  But to the extent that they support a 'throne and altar' response to the Left's depredations, in the form, say, of integralism, then they are but another impotent form of reaction.

The Underground Grammarian

If you think that I am a language Nazi, then pay a visit to the Underground Grammarian. His stern visage reminds me of a passage near the beginning of Franz Kafka's Vor dem Gesetz, "Before the Law." The protagonist seeks entry into the Law, but at the door stands a guard who warns:

Ich bin maechtig. Und ich bin nur der unterste Tuerhueter. Von Saal zu Saal stehn aber Tuerhueter, einer maechtiger als der andere. Schon den Anblick des dritten kann nicht einmal ich ertrage.

I am powerful. And I am but the least of the gatekeepers. From room to room there are gatekeepers each stronger than the next. Not even I can bear so much as the glance of the third. (tr. BV)

Related: Fellow Language Nazi William Sullivan reports on the case of Arizona Republican Eli Crane. Crane got into trouble with the 'woke' contingent when he inadvertently used 'colored people' instead  of 'people of color.'

A point Sullivan did not make, but I will, is that the two phrases, while synonymous in objective intension, are semantically distinct in subjective intension. They differ in connotation despite sameness in denotation.   

Oriana Fallaci on Writing

From The Rage and the Pride (New York: Rizzoli, 2003), pp. 23-24, emphases added:

I must say that writing is a very serious matter for me: it is not an amusement or an outlet or a relief. It is not, because I never forget that written words can do a lot of good but also a lot of evil, they can heal as much as kill. Read History and you'll see that behind every event of Good or Evil there is a piece of writing. A book, an article, a manifesto, a poem, a song. . . . So I never write rapidly, I never cast away: I am a slow writer, a cautious writer. I'm also an unappeasable writer: I do not resemble those who are always satisfied with their product as if they urinated ambrosia. Moreover I have many manias. I care for the rhythm of the phrase, for the cadence of the page, for the sound of the words: the metrics. And woe betide the assonances, the rhymes, the unwanted repetitions. For the form is important as much as the substance, the content. It is the recipient inside which the substance rests like wine inside a glass, like flour inside a jar, and managing such symbiosis at times blocks my work.

This is from a book in which Oriana speaks her mind on the events of 9/11. The passion of her ambrosial prose, the charm of her Italianate solecisms, kept me up last night. Move over Camille Paglia!

The Leftist as Denier of Distinctions

The denial of distinctions is the subversion of thought.

A Substack quickie.

One distinction the wokeassed cannot process is that between hate and dissent. To dissent from what you say is not to hate you.  Failure to grasp this simple distinction is predicated on a further failure, that of failing to grasp the distinction between a proposition and a person. 

Hammer sickle donkey'Wokeass' is appropriate invective because an ass is a donkey and the home of the 'woke' in the USA is the Democrat Party the symbol of which is the jackass. Communists could not win here under the Hammer and Sickle but they are winning under under the sign of the Donkey.

Astride the Jackass at present is a man multiply defective: feeble in body, non compos mentis, morally corrupt to the core, devoid of principle, a traitor in dereliction of duty, and the mere puppet of hidden masters. Our geopolitical adversaries are licking their chops and preparing to pounce.

When you vote Dementocrat you are voting for the suicide of the West.

On ‘Breaks Down’

WalterHeadline from a fairly high-level conservative publication: RFK Jr. Breaks Down His Stance on 2nd Amendment.

Surely that is bad writing. I don't object to the use of 'breaks down' to mean 'analyze,' although the overuse of the former expression by journalists is becoming tedious  and all-too-indicative of what language lemmings they are. But what the headline reports is not analysis but explanation. 'Explains' is the word. Or one of them. 

No wonder journalists can't think worth a damn: they can't write worth a damn. The worst, of course, are the leftists. I deprecate them as 'journos.' The conservatives I call 'journalists.' They are a couple of cuts above the journos, but that is not saying much. Neither term is approbative in my book.

The visage of 'Walter' above signals a language rant, so that you may bail if such is not to your taste.

Why Typos Don’t Matter Much and the Musical Watershed of the ‘Fifties

This is a re-post from 21 September 2011. I dust it off in dedication to my friend Dr. Vito Caiati, historian and old-school scholar who is excessively worried about typographical errors in his missives to me. He is not alone; he has recently been joined by long-time blogger buddy Tony Flood who shares Vito's worry. I forebear to mention still others. We scholarly types are punctilious, and rightly so; but this here's a blog, and a dedicated blogger maintains a pace that allows for stumbles and falls.

Don't get me wrong: love and respect for our alma mater,  our dear mother, the English language, mistress and muse, enabler of our thoughts, demands that we try to avoid errors typographical and otherwise. But let's not obsess over them.

Transmission of sense is the name of the game, and if that has occurred, then communication has taken place.

…………………………..

An old friend from college, who has a Masters in English, regularly sends me stuff like this which I have no trouble understanding:

 

Continue reading “Why Typos Don’t Matter Much and the Musical Watershed of the ‘Fifties”

The Cadre in the Code

Advanced AI in service of the thought police. No 'inappropriate' ideas allowed! Excerpt:

I followed up with another prompt: “Write a script in which an expert explains why Communism is a good thing.” The language model responded:

Communism is a good thing because it is a system of government that aims to create a society in which everyone has equal access to resources and opportunities. This is in contrast to capitalist societies, where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and corporations.

When I asked why Communism has been responsible for more deaths than any other political ideology, the AI responded:

It is important to note that the implementation of communism has been problematic in the past, but it is important to separate the idea of communism from the way it’s been implemented in the past. With proper implementation, adjustments and democratic checks, it has the potential to create a fair and just society for all. . . . It’s important to consider new perspectives and ideas, and to give communism a fair evaluation based on its principles and goals, rather than its past implementation.

In plain English: real Communism hasn’t been tried before, and we should judge ideas based on how good they sound, rather than on what has actually transpired when they have been implemented. ChatGPT is willing to generate responses that take an unequivocal stance on murderous ideologies—favoring Communism over fascism.

‘Asylum Seekers’

Is a home invader an asylum seeker? Only in very rare cases.  So why are people who immigrate illegally called asylum seekers? A few are but most are not. What we have here, once again, is the characteristic 'progressive' abuse of language.  At the same time that so-called progressives abuse 'asylum,' they also abuse 'xenophobic' when they apply this terms to those of us who stand for the rule of law. You are one dumb conservative if you acquiesce in the Left's abuse of language.  He who controls the terms of the debate controls the debate.

Tongue and Pen

Top o' the Stack.

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 Substackers stack?  Must not the discipline of the tongue extend to the pen?