{"id":3704,"date":"2019-06-24T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/24\/of-pussy-and-pusillanimous\/"},"modified":"2019-06-24T12:00:14","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T12:00:14","slug":"of-pussy-and-pusillanimous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/24\/of-pussy-and-pusillanimous\/","title":{"rendered":"Of ‘Pussy’ and ‘Pusillanimous’ and Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine recently maintained with a straight face that 'pusillanimous' derives from 'pussy.'  As an etymological claim that is of course preposterous. But there are two questions here that we ought to distinguish.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first is whether  'pusillanimous' has roughly the same meaning as  'pussy' when the latter is used as it is used in American slang.  I'd say it does.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second question is whether 'pusillanimous' is etymologically derivable from 'pussy.'  No. It comes from the Latin pusillus<\/em> (very  small) + animus<\/em> (mind, soul) –> L. pusillanimis –> late Middle English pusillanimous<\/em>. And that reminds me of a certain pusillanimous former president.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

I asked a reader about a month before the 2016 election whether the graphic above was too tasteless to post to my high-toned blog, adding,  "But then these are times in which considerations of good taste and civility are easily 'trumped.'"  My reader responded with a fine statement (emphasis added):<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Of course it\u2019s tasteless, but it\u2019s funny.  We should go to battle with a song in our hearts.  Never had patience for the hand-wringing by the beskirted Republicans and professional \u201cconservatives\u201d.  How could anyone be surprised by the locker room braggadocio of a man who appeared on the Howard Stern show 600 times?  Trump is a deeply flawed messenger of the right message<\/em>, but politics is a practical affair.  He\u2019s a bastard, but he\u2019s our bastard in this go-around.  After all it\u2019s only the very foundation of the republic at stake.<\/em>  So let\u2019s have some fun while beating the drum for him.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My reader is right.  Trump is all we've got.  And the very foundation of the Republic is at stake<\/em>. He has a dubious character, but then so does Hillary.  This may not be obvious because, while Trump broadcasts his faults, she hides hers.  This is part of her being a slimy, mendacious, stealth ideologue.  That is part of what led to her defeat. People saw through her flip-flopping opportunism and refusal to come clean.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given that both are sorry specimens on the character front, it comes down to principles, policies, and programs. And now, well into President Trump's first term, it is obvious that we who rolled the dice for Trump have been vindicated in spades.  <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine recently maintained with a straight face that 'pusillanimous' derives from 'pussy.'  As an etymological claim that is of course preposterous. But there are two questions here that we ought to distinguish. The first is whether  'pusillanimous' has roughly the same meaning as  'pussy' when the latter is used as it is … Continue reading “Of ‘Pussy’ and ‘Pusillanimous’ and Politics”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,115,43,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters","category-latin","category-political-language","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}