What’s In a Name?
What’s more fun than some light trolling? This movement needs a motto, and there’s one just begging to be adopted: Make Beijing Peking Again.
Tagged: language
“Working-Class Wannabes” and the Language of Sports
Sports fans have a tendency to code-switch into the appropriate sports dialect when talking about the various sports people play or consume.
Promulgating Opacity In The Manufacture of Perceptive Understanding
Poet Isabella Wang made some controversial comments about the Mandarin words she puts in her work (and the lack of translative footnotes)
Conservatives, The Language of ‘Culture War,’ and the Lessons of Counterinsurgency Theory
Developing virtues should be a prerequisite to political engagement and are vastly more important than jumping into any ‘culture war’ battle
Democrats Have a Problem, But It’s Not the One You Think
Yes, Democrats Have a Problem with Political Correctness, Defund the Police, and Wokeness…But It’s Not the One You Think
Guys, Guys: Inclusive Language Is Important, But Let’s Not Warp A Word’s Meaning
On Tuesday the 17th of November, Doctor Krystal Evans—it is not clear in what discipline she earned her doctorate, but from her Twitter bio it would appear to be a hard science—tweeted the following:...
The Nigel Tufnel Theory of Rhetoric
Nigel Tufnel understood you can’t play along at eleven all the time. And he was an idiot.
The Church Militant
What does the sword have to do with the Christian spiritual life? Everything, according to Michael Voris, the producer of an internet television station. The faithful, he believes, are born for combat.
My Handwriting, My Self
New languages seep into you—slowly at first, and then, suddenly, you begin to notice its influence. At least in the anecdotes, this frequently happens through the confusion of words as the mind is momentarily...
A Romantic, a Monk, and a Neoliberal Walk Into a Bar…
On Romanticism in Politics Romanticism is wonderful in a work of fiction, art or video game. As a died-in-the-wool modern day romantic, I’ve spent most of my life doing my best to use fantasy...
Avengers, Culture, Wackadoodle, and Weekend Open Thread
It just means that my head and my heart tell me it’s 1945. They tell me that when I switch on the radio, it should take a minute to warm up and music should...
Trust, Standing, and Communication
The week’s “Almost All-Rush-Limbaugh” posts got me to thinking about language and the use thereof, and this of course always makes me think of Mr. Carlin (requiescat in pace). Needless to say, this post...
Rise of the right-wing double-speak machine and the Sandra Fluke affair
Think of this as a brief addition to Tod Kelly’s last piece which reminded me how unbelievably silly the American political scene has become. This whole Sandra Fluke affair – my eyes just glaze over. I can’t...
Sympathy with the Kabbalists
I once wrote a short story for workshop that involved, I believe, the narrator dismissing any approach to grief informed by the Kabbalah as guilty of a kind of heretical dualism. It wasn’t this-worldly...
Chicago-style politics means you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight
I’m so tired of buzz-phrases repeated endlessly on cable news so that people who are angry and don’t quite know why can repeat them without really thinking about what they mean. Well that’s not...
Punctuated Equilibrium
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 4/11/2011 – Christopher Carr to William, Robert, Becca, Kevin, Kevin, Adam, Caitlin, Joseph, Julie, Dmitri Hey guys, Wondering what you thought about this cover letter: Here’s the job description: Title: Junior Digital Video Production Assistant...
Chabon-Inspired Stray Thoughts on Huck Finn
I know, I know. You thought you were done with that whole Huck Finn controversy. But for a final word — and, in its way, maybe the truest — you should take a look...
