Category: Language Matters
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Three Senses of ‘Peace’
There is the divine peace that "surpasseth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7) It is the most difficult to achieve. There is peace among people who love, or at least tolerate, one another. It is moderately difficult to achieve. There is finally the peace most easily achieved, that based on deterrence and mutual fear. (Our enemies do…
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On Prejudice
The word has two senses; only one is pejorative. Leader of the Stack.
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The Purpose of Schooling
According to Anthony Esolen, The purpose of schooling—which is not the same as education—is to encourage people to express confident platitudes, which they are pleased to call their opinions, about things they know nothing of. This is far worse than ignorance. Esolen is (usually) a good writer and a clear thinker who often communicates important…
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Do You Really Want to Teach at a University?
Substack latest. Do you want to feed the unhungry in a leftist seminary? Comments and replies: Tony: One of the best, and certainly the most concise, essays on the problem. The mild criticism when I was at NYU was that the universities were offering "higher skilling." Higher infantilization was right around the corner. Bill: Thanks,…
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DIE: ‘Equity’ Can Get You Killed
Here: America’s top medical schools, worried [that] they have too few minority students, are doing something about it. They are lowering academic standards for admission and trying to hide the evidence. Columbia, Harvard, the University of Chicago, Stanford, Mount Sinai, and the University of Pennsylvania have already done so. The list already tops forty, and more…
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Of DEI and the Devil
The genitive of deus. Advocates of D.E.I. being slanderers, they are properly labeled diabolou (διαβόλου, genitive of διάβολος), "of the devil." (Anthony G. Flood) I am as little an etymologist as I am an entomologist, but to extend Tony's riff, I have often suspected an etymological connection between the German Zweifel (doubt) and the German Teufel (devil) via…
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Left, Right, Sex, and Gender
Top o' the Stack. Conservatives especially need to push back against linguistic wokery. And yet how many so-called conservatives continue to conflate sex and gender, race and skin color! He who controls the terms of the debate controls the debate. The subversion of language is the mother of all subversion. Conservatives are long on talk,…
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The Misuse of Superlatives (The Brokaw Fallacy) . . .
. . . and two other fallacies. Top o' the Stack.
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On ‘Illegal Alien’ and ‘Illegal Immigrant’
Substack latest. The Republic is probably beyond saving at this late date. So why do I bother to write pieces that underscore what really ought to be obvious? One reason is selfish: I like to write and then re-read what I have written. But having taken the time to write something clean, coherent, and sensible,…
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resist, Resist, RESIST!
Seemingly, no day without a 'woke' outrage. See below. Beneath refutation. There's no point in trying to engage these clowns on the plane of reason. Mock, deride, resist, and above all: ignore the A.P.'s asinine recommendations. By the way, 'asinine' is spelled exactly as I just spelled it, and not 'assinine' despite the fact that…
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The Paltry Mentality of the Copy Editor
At the head of the Stack this fine morning.
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‘Spirituality’ and ‘Religion’
What explains the bien-pensant substitution of the first word for the second? I give three reasons. Substack latest.
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Of ‘Blind Review’ and Pandora’s Box
Tony Flood sent me here for the latest outrage at Stanford. But this crapola is old hat. On April Fool's Day, 2014, I worked myself into a fine lather over it. The latter manifested itself as a rant that is now available for your delectation at the top of my (Sub)stack. You will enjoy it.…
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A Proposed Change to the Pater Noster
Substitute "Do not allow us to be led into temptation" for "Lead us not into temptation." For why on earth or in heaven would the Father of Lights want to lead us into the darkness of temptation? ……………… Vito Caiati comments: With regard to today’s short post, “A Proposed Change to the Pater Noster. I think…
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A Minor Correction Anent ‘Absurd’ with a Little Help from Mark Rothko
In a Substack entry I distinguished four senses of 'absurd,' the logico-mathematical, the semantic, the existential, and the ordinary. About the existential sense I had this to say: 3) Existential. The absurd as the existentially meaningless, the groundless, the brute-factual, the intrinsically unintelligible. The absurdity of existence in this sense of 'absurd' is what elicited Jean-Paul Sartre's…