Tim Blair updates the Australian version of the English language.
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We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
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5 comments to Define your terms |
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I particularly liked ‘Intellectual’…..which immediately brought Johnathan Pearce to mind.
I liked “quagmire”. How about – Civil war, n. What any country containing US troops is always on the verge of.
“Global warming, n. Scientifically observed phenomenon whereby scientists the world over receive warm, toasty funding to talk about the weather. ”
… and fool the clueless intellectuals.
To the man-in-the-street, who,
I’m sorry to say,
Is a keen observer of life,
The word ‘Intellectual’ suggests straight away
A man who’s untrue to his wife.
There is a serious side to labeling, but I do think that humour is probably the best way of dealing with it. The lessons of history do show how important being the first one getting the label in can be. Before the Russian revolution the communists called themselves “Bolsheviks”, which, I believe, means Majority. Their opponents, in a mind bogglingly stupid act of accelerating their own demise with a self fulfilling prophesy accepted the label, Menshovik, meaning minority.
In more recent times, how is it possible that the American left got away with calling themselves “liberal” when they are anything but liberal, causing real liberals into lexical juggling acts by taking on the word “libertarian”.
At least the global warmers find themselves slightly stymied as they seek to explain even cooling events, like the last cold winter or the postulated interruption of the gulf stream, as caused by human actions, and seek to relabel the increasingly contradictory phenomana as “climate change”.
We need more humour like this because the one thing that “passionate” people cannot abide is ridicule.