Just What Does THAT Mean?

I’m a writer.  As such, words and their uses are important to me, and it bugs me when I hear them used inappropriately or in ways that I know are wrong or intended to mislead.  It’s like an itch I can’t scratch.  Most of the time, I let them slide, because I know there’s nothing much to be done and I don’t wish to sacrifice what little sanity I have complaining about Other People’s Ignorance and/or Language Abuse.

But the other day I listened to an essay by Jeff Nunberg.  He’s a linguist and I usually catch him on NPR on the Frech Air  program.  This piece was about the word–the term–Lifestyle.

Nunberg has a new book out about the way in which the Right has stolen language in politics in the last couple of decades, and he lays it out clearly the way in which a masterful job has been done by those not liberal to take the “high ground” linguisitically in our national debate.  The book is called Talking Right  and it’s on my list.  I’ve been listening to Nunberg for years on this subject, so I think I know what the book contains.  I recommend it to all and sundry.

His piece on Lifestyle centered on its use as a substitute label socially and politically for discussions about choices and the way in which the word has come to denote everything about us.  Our politics, our spending habits, our taste in clothes, even our personal hygeine and …

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Loyalty is not a virtue

What is it to be loyal? According to Merriam Webster, to be "loyal" is to be

1 : unswerving in allegiance: as a: faithful in allegiance to one's lawful sovereign or government b: faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due c: faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.
I don't have a problem with this definition. I do object, however, that "loyalty" has been given a free pass in modern American culture, as though loyalty is always a good thing. In particular, the mass media has bought into this linguistic sleight-of-hand: according to the mainstream media, it is always a good thing to be "loyal." Loyalty is undoubtedly a virtue when we are dealing with pet dogs. We like our dogs to be loyal. We like our dogs to do what we tell them to do. The loyalty of a human being is not necessarily a good thing, however. Loyalty is a matter of committing oneself to a person, to a group of people or to a cause. But people and causes can be either praiseworthy or despicable (or something in between). If a social cause to which I am loyal is that all babies should have basic medical care, loyalty to such a cause would be a good thing. If my idea is that we should all give homage to Hitler, loyalty to this cause would be a horrible idea. Therefore, how can it be said that loyalty is per se a good thing unless one first examines the merit of the person(s) or clause(s) to which a person is being loyal? [More . . . ]

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Defining Achievement . . . or not

Uh-oh, I’m annoyed again. Nothing new, just a recycled annoyance that popped into my craw today and won’t leave, I suppose, because this particular instance, while merely a minor irritation on the surface, indicates a raging cultural infection coursing underneath.

I’m easily annoyed by words used incorrectly in the hopes of making either the subject matter or the speaker sound more important or intelligent or valuable or necessary than it probably is. This happens regularly; verbal faux pas have been catalogued, column-ized and syndicated. Corporatespeak has created a behemoth of misuses and our own president plays with English as if it were a Nerf football to be tossed about, squished, stepped on, soaked in mud then caught in the dog’s teeth, and hey, don’t worry if a few chunks of actual meaning are missing.

This day, however, the word wasn’t grammatically trounced, but it assaulted my senses nevertheless, leaving an irksome sensation of unpleasantness, a bad taste on my cultural tongue. I was listening to news in the car, as most of my city lay without power after treacherous storms roared through the region. I mention this only because I normally listen to CDs in my car, music to soothe rather than news to agitate. I need calming when I drive so as to avoid my propensity toward early-onset road rage. Anyway, in the midst of the news, a commercial ran for a plastic surgeon who promises to make us all beautiful. He can create perfection. Upgrade us from our …

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Why I blog

Pouring time into this blog has been deeply satisfying to me.  But what is this accomplishing, I sometimes wonder? 

After all, there are already numerous writers out there.  Technorati.com indicates that it is now tracking 48.5 million sites and 2.7 billion links.  Plus, there are numerous traditional sources of information (books, magazines, movies, television) available to anyone who is interested.

I don’t have any illusions about my alleged importance.  As Charles De Gaulle famously said, “The cemetery is full of indispensable people.”  Nonetheless, I joined the Blogosphere to have a voice and to hopefully present a meaningfully unique voice.  This blog is an experiment that will always be provisional and evolving.

This blog grew out of an email relationship between a fellow who lives in Madison (he goes by the name of Grumpypilgrim on this blog) and me.  I met “Grumpy” when I provided legal services for a company for whom Grumpy worked.  We had emailed our rants and observations back and forth for more than a year.  Eventually, I suggested that we exchange our ideas in a public way, in case anyone else might be interested. 

Two months later, dangerousintersection.org was designed by Nick Smith of nicksmithdesign.com.  I chose the name after looking at a big yellow “Dangerous Intersection” sign I had in my office (I had it around as a novelty) and after considering how that name might generally fit an iconoclastic blog.  I took the photo of the intersection used in the site’s logo. Nick made it …

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Did Adam have a belly-button?

Until yesterday I didn’t realize that there was a serious debate about whether Adam had a navel.  But, alas, the debate has been a serious one in the minds of some people.

According to both versions of creation in Genesis (there are two substantially conflicting versions in the Bible), neither Adam nor Eve was ever in a woman’s uterus.  So neither Adam nor Eve needed a navel.  This doesn’t answer the question of whether they had navels, though.

We don’t have the remains of Adam and Eve.  We don’t have their photos.  How would one resolve this debate, then?  Many believers are undeterred.   Here is one analysis that Adam and Eve had no navels.  Raptureready.com also weighs in with a “no.”  Ditto for Christiananswers.net.  It’s not always seen as a serious debate.  Here is a tongue in cheek account by posted by a Baptist Church.  The terminology can get a bit daunting.  For instance, there is mention of the “Post-Umbilisists,” those “learned theologians and scholars believe that Adam’s navel was formed after the Fall.”

This issue occurred to me only because a friend (thanks, Deb!) recently mentioned to me that her friend was a “Navelite.”  I’d never heard of this religion.  Well, turns out that there is a small offshoot of Christianity that distinguishes itself by its belief that Adam did not have a navel.  It was a big enough issue at one point to cause a schism.  I have this one word of mouth only; Deb’s friend was …

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