Author: elleneggers

It has been a very long time since I’ve added a posting to this blog. My reasons are many, but they will all sound like excuses. I apologize to all of my fans and supporters; I would never want to disappoint the five of you. That said, I continue to work on two essays regarding the framing of political discourse and textualism in interpreting the US Constitution. As you might imagine, there is a lot to say on these topics, and there are new things to add every day. Every hour of every day. I think that will be the case for a long time to come.

Rather than wait until I finish, I realize that I have plenty to say about a multitude of language topics. As I told you from the beginning, it seems that I am never NOT thinking about language. I thought I’d share with you some very random linguistic musings that have wandered into and through my brain recently as musings will. I have divided my thoughts into three marginally-related categories for now: words and phrases I hate that no one else seems to hate, weirdly interesting ambiguities, and odd-sounding translations. I despise language pedants, so, while trying not to sound like one (I know, I know, too late for that), I’ll limit myself to just a few in each category. Meanwhile, welcome to my head.

Let’s get the negative energy out of the way first. Everyone has words and phrases that they can’t stand. I get that. Sometimes, there’s no particular reason for the dislike. Some people hate the sound of a particular word. Moist seems to be one that evokes a strong reaction in many people, and there’s some scientific backing to that negative reaction. Without getting into too much detail, suffice it to say that people had a MORE disgusted response when classically attractive people used the word in varying contexts than they did when the same people talked about a delicious piece of cake. For many, certain sounds evoke a physical response. Some people hate clichés because of how played out they are or how unoriginal. Some people have no reason whatsoever to detest some random aspects of language use. I’ve already revealed that I can be one of those language-intolerant individuals. Today, I’d like to extend my previous set of linguistic pet peeves to a few words and phrases that are widely used and grammatically correct in any system, but just rub me the wrong way.

There’s a common expression meant to indicate that a victim was random and did nothing to bring a calamity on him or herself. I understand the expression and its intent. I know what people mean when they say it. But I still can’t stand the phrase, “He/she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I find it interesting that I, personally, can understand one thing but hear another. I understand, as stated, the intent. I hear, that person should not have been in that place at that time. I still hear blame. I KNOW! No one is truly blaming the victim here. What can I do? Absolutely nothing except not use the phrase and keep quiet when others do.

Along similar linguistic lines, another common phrase I despise is agree to disagree. Yes, I get it. The discussion has gone on too long. We will never come to an agreement. We don’t want to have bad feelings remaining. I absolutely get it. But I still hate it. I hear something different: I’m right and you’re wrong so I’ll be the bigger arguer and let you think we’re equal. This phrase has an extremely long history in English. It has been around at least since the 18^th century although there is no agreement as to its first documented usage. See what I did there?

The last one in this category is one I’ve struggled with for decades. I absolutely understand that the person saying it is extremely well-meaning and would be shocked to receive a negative response. I GET IT, so no lectures. But, please, oh puhleeze, DO NOT tell me that you are proud of me unless you had something to do with my accomplishment or, at least, unless we have a close relationship. I have cringed in silence so many times over the years when a random person has told me he or she is proud of me due to something I’ve done or accomplished. Again, I get it. It is meant kindly. But I hear condescending and patronizing. I’m happy to say that, while this is not, perhaps, the feeling of everyone, I am not alone in it. Ben Casnocha, author and entrepreneur, laid it out nicely in a 2010 article. I didn’t need validation on my feelings on this one, but it’s always nice to get it. Casnocha points out that it’s simple. A person expressing pride in another should be of higher rank or status, thus implying that the “proudee” has somehow followed successfully in the footsteps of the “prouder.” Or, absent that relationship, the two people must know each other well. My parents could be proud of me. My husband could be proud of me. My mentor could be proud of me. My student really couldn’t. My neighbor, not so much. A casual acquaintance? Nope.  I have had a lot of disagreement over the years on this. If you disagree, know that you will not change my mind. We’ll just have to, well, you know. Please see above.

The next category might not even count as a category. Let’s call it a subset of the previous category. As such, I’ll keep it short. I guess these can be called clichés that are really too young to be clichés. Probably better to give you an example or three. I personally cringe when someone uses the expression, “drink the kool aid” as in “Wow, those cult members really drank the kool aid, didn’t they?” It’s not creative language because that is literally what happened! Cult members drank poison kool aid because their cult leader told them to during the 1978 Jonestown Massacre. YES! I get what it means! Please don’t feel you need to explain it to me. I’ll still cringe whenever I hear it because every single person who says it thinks it’s the first time anyone has said it. Same with anything ending in –gate to indicate a political scandal. The Watergate was the hotel at the center of Nixon’s political downfall, and, since then, any political scandal has mis-analyzed the “-gate” part of Watergate as a productive morpheme (one that language users continue to use with new words as when we add –s to indicate the plural of a new noun). The really maddening thing is that, no matter how much I hate it, it’s working! The misanalysis has given rise to so many new words for political scandals (really, mostly non-scandals) that it has almost become a part of the language. Generations from now, students will learn the origin of the ending in linguistics classes and be happy to share the newfound knowledge at parties and family dinners (notice how I assume students will still study linguistics generations from now?). Finally, and I know I’m not alone in this, I cringe anytime someone says “Guns don’t kill people. . . .” Duh. I just can’t with this one. Fortunately, no one I spend any significant amount of time with would say this.

Switching gears rather unceremoniously now. My next category of musing involves some weird ambiguities that I’ve noticed lately. I guess I’ve always noticed these sorts of things, but I think the Covid lockdown has given me more time for extended thought. I’m not talking about the often-discussed systemic ambiguities in English that commonly occur with some ordinary subordinate phrases as in I saw the dastardly thief with my telescope (who’s got the telescope?) or Maribell got a bath ready for her Pomeranian wearing a chartreuse tutu (who’s wearing the tutu?).

Here’s a new one for me. The New York Times online version had, until very recently, a section in the weekend edition called “Have You Stayed Up To Date This Week?” Fully cognizant of their concern as to whether I’ve kept up with the news, I continued to choose to think of it as I originally read it: asking me if I have lost sleep by going out with romantic partners this week. Have I stayed awake to do this? I think I must not have been the only person with this idea because the NYT recently changed this section’s title to something less ambiguous, “Did you follow the headlines this week?”

I recently came across an online ad for a Free Will Kit. Sure, I understood they were going to send me a template for an estate plan, but I couldn’t help but wish there was a kit that would give me free will or, at the very least, a kit that would teach me philosophy. I even found myself imagining the Ikea-like set of instructions included with the kit. As long as I’m on the subject, why not add here all of the hundreds of other ambiguities built into the language—things such as horse doctor, pig farmer, and child psychologist. No such list would be complete without including my absolute favorite film title, the 2009 Lesbian Vampire Killers.

I’ll end these random musings with a couple of interesting translations. In my current country of residence, English is widely used. The English used was originally an offshoot of British English, but has further branched into its very own dialect. One of my favorite almost-the-sames is the language used for anything buffet style. American English tells us that it includes “All you can eat.” Here, the phrase is “Eat all you can.”  For the life of me, I can’t figure out why that one stops me and amuses me when the phrases use the same words just in a different order. Yet, even as I write this, I’m smiling.

Finally, an example unique to both my country of residence and the current health crisis that has swept the world. Restaurants are trying hard to stay at no more than 50 percent capacity. To that end, many are designating seats at tables that are to remain empty. I truly believe that one restaurant did NOT intend the meaning I initially interpreted from the sign over these empty seats: “Leave here empty.”

I’m sure you can come up with countless others. What normal, everyday linguistic characteristics or phrases amuse you? Annoy you? I’d love to hear them.

*What Would Aristotle Do?

You know the old saying: Arguing with a(n) [fill in your own blank here: idiot, narcissist, conservative, racist, etc.] is like playing chess with a pigeon. It’ll just knock over all the pieces, sh*t on the board, and strut around like it won anyway. This is an excellent description of what happens when you try to argue with someone on social media. Such endeavors are obviously futile, so I wonder why anyone would do it. More specifically, I wonder why so many otherwise sane individuals do it. Okay, you caught me. I have to wonder why I sometimes get sucked into a, ahem, shall we say, difference of opinion, on social media. Even though I tell myself not to time after time because, as previously stated, the practice is futile. But arguing of any sort shouldn’t be futile. Argument depends on logic, right? A good argument is logical, well thought-out, fair, and devoid of fallacies, right? You probably are beginning to see my problem. This might describe a formal debate, but it bears little resemblance to anything anyone has ever seen on Facebook. Curses on philosophy classes for all time!

All conscientious students of language and philosophy are schooled in both the makings of a successful argument and the red flags to look out for when having an argument. Classical debate teaches us about classical logical fallacies, those purposeful, misleading tactics used unfairly to win an argument. Aristotle wrote On Sophistical Refutations in approximately 350 BC. This work is considered to be the first text to systematically discuss deductive reasoning and potential fallacies of deductive reasoning. Over the subsequent centuries, the original treatise has been discussed, refined, revised, and expanded. It has not, however, been refuted. Aristotle got it right. He was a pretty smart guy. Probably too smart to get involved in a futile argument.

I propose that, by nature, an internet argument (think Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) is illogical. Rather than being two-sided, a give-and-take, it is two (or more) one-sided arguments (maybe “declarations” would be a better word). It’s the equivalent of babies being set up on a play date while everyone knows they’re not “playing” with each other so much as they’re two individuals playing alone. There just happens to be a similarly-aged person in the room or playpen with them.

Back before the Common Era, Aristotle set out some fallacies to look out for in a debate. These are, in some ways, like spitting on the ball in baseball or travelling in basketball. It might get you the advantage, but, if caught, you’re out. To this day, these fallacies are things to look out for in an argument. They are cheats. They are dirty fighting. But they can also be subtle and often overlooked. They can be hurtful. They can win a battle. But we should never lose touch with the fact that they are cheats. A “discussion” on, say, Facebook, is usually and by nature dishonest. In most cases, there is no actual discussion involved. There is no give and take. There is only give and give. This is my idea and I am right, and I will keep driving home my point until you get tired and go away. No! This is MY idea and I’M right and I’LL keep driving home MY point until YOU get tired and go away. And that’s usually how Facebook arguments end. No one wins. No one loses. Someone gets tired and goes home. The other person gloats about winning.

A discussion of a few of these more common fallacies, ones that are easily recognized, follows. There are many others of course.

One of the most common and popular argument cheats is the one called in Latin Ad Hominem, which translates as attacking the person. Rather than maturely arguing the point, the cheater attacks the person. A highly exaggerated example might be something like, “[I can’t argue the point, so I’m gonna just say] oh, she’s such a nasty woman.” Or if you wear a mask [because you are considerate of others during a pandemic of an airborne virus], it’s obvious that you are a mindless, frightened sheep.” Any time one arguer calls the other a name or attributes a negative personality trait, rather than directly addressing the argument, that is an ad hominem argument. This is more than a mere insult; it implies that BECAUSE of this trait, the one who possesses it cannot possibly be right. Therefore, NOT possessing the trait (the one making the insult) MUST be right. End of story. It is a fallacy because, among other things, it can disarm the victim of the insult into a losing position that has nothing to do with the original point or purpose of the argument. Self-defense is a natural response. This is a social media favorite. It’s very easy to hurl personal insults from the anonymous safety of one’s computer screen.

One example of an Ad Hominem “argument” that I recently observed was from a man on a Facebook group site. This man is labelled a “Conversation Starter,” which I’ve come to understand merely means that he posts a lot. This guy, as it happens, posts so much that the group administrator has asked him to dial it back a bit. Some of his postings are benign—forwards of news stories, for example. Others are meant to provoke. Of course I can’t name him, so I’ll call him “Derwin.” Derwin is not from the US or a resident of the US but seems quite taken with the recent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. To be more specific, Derwin is apparently quite against the movement. Again, this alone is odd because it really has no effect on him that I can see, at least from what he posts. Derwin has lately taken it upon himself to post anything he can find that shows African Americans who are against the movement or against the current protests. He seems to want to prove that anyone supporting BLM is wrong because, look, here’s a real live Black person who says so. Of course, you can find anything you want on the internet, so, sure, he can find Candace Owens, for example, spouting off on how George Floyd was no martyr. When I simply pointed out to Derwin that Ms. Owens’s stance that George Floyd doesn’t deserve to be the symbol against police brutality because he was engaged in activity other than going to choir practice when he was detained and subsequently killed was faulty and illogical, Derwin did not argue my point, and it’s very important to keep remembering that. He did not defend the stance implying that Mr. Floyd pretty much caused his own murder. He didn’t even try to make that point. He merely accused me (in a very condescending manner) of not watching the entire video. See, what he did? He essentially called me basic and shallow. He implied that I was not very bright because I couldn’t possibly have seen the entire video and not agreed with him! Then he went away and moved on to some other posting.

Another internet favorite is the Straw Man argument where the arguer sets up a false opponent only to tear it down. Aha! Take THAT, point-that-was-never-made! The false opponent is often very easy to tear down because, well, it isn’t real. It has no substance because it never was an argument to begin with. And did I mention that it isn’t real? People who are pro- (individual and personal) choice want to kill all your babies! We must stop them! People who want to be treated equally by local businesses are trying to destroy your religious freedom! People who want to prevent other people from using assault weapons on children in schools want to take away your guns and leave you defenseless against the countless marauders in your suburban streets!

My favorite recent example of a Straw Man flouter is a person I fondly call “Black Hat A**h*le (BHA).” If you don’t know who this particular person is, I’m sure you know his type. Country accent that sounds exaggerated and drives home that he’s “one of us”. Black cowboy hat to add to the salt-of-the-earthy, one-of-youse vibe. Lots and lots of swearing throughout to make him seem and sound “real.” Last month, he went viral with a rant for the ages. It was all about Black Lives Matter merely being a front for looting and violence. He, of course “loves Black people,” (his words; and he has a lot of Black friends; also his words) but does not support the BLM movement because, you guessed it, but I’ll quote him anyway “ALL F*&CKING LIVES MATTER!” As part of the very long rant, he, at one point, went off on Colin Kaepernick, whom BHA called, “Colin Karpernick or whatever the f*ck his name is.” For now, I’ll ignore the tired trope of refusing to name people of color (hence, “boy” or “son”). I’ll ignore that he managed to segue from George Floyd and current protests because, well, who knows? In the Kaepernick part of the rant was the Straw Man argument: Kaepernick isn’t oppressed, so “what the f*ck does he have to protest about?” (in fact, you’ll be pleased to know that we learn later from BHA that no one in America is oppressed!). Kaepernick made 14 million dollars (according to BHA) and was a terrible player, so what does he have to disrespect our flag for?! Straw Man: Kaepernick protested because he’s oppressed, which, of course, was never the case. If anything, it was the opposite; Mr. Kaepernick was using his public position of privilege to call attention to the plight of others. Maybe this level of selflessness is conceptually difficult for BHA and his friends. By doing this, BHA conveniently surpasses or at least trivializes the whole point of Kaepernick’s protest as well as the current BLM protests. All while assuring his audience that he “loves Black people.”

BHA doesn’t stop there. He also flouts the “slippery slope” fallacy. You know this one well. Legalizing marijuana will obviously lead directly to a world of heroin addicts or, at the very least, lazy couch potatoes. Marriage equality will lead directly to bestiality, polygamy, and wild orgies in every home and on every street corner. While we’re at it, it will invalidate all current marriages. Wearing a mask to help lessen the impact of an airborne virus leads to succumbing to all government authority, which will obviously lead to the acceptance of tracker chips they’re going to inject along with the eventual vaccine. Slippery slope arguments can be exhausting, and maybe that’s the point. BHA points out to us during his rant that the BLM movement has become so widespread that it is creating unfounded suspicion of all police officers. While BHA is quick to point out he’s “no fan of police officers,” he also wants to make it clear that there’s no way that police in the US come after you if you’re innocent. It’s not like (his words, I swear) “they just go into some innocent person’s home and kill them!” Point one: this is a giant leap from the BLM protests of police brutality. Point two: Botham Jean and Breonna Taylor, among others, would disagree with BHA’s fundamental point. If they could.

Another one to watch out for on the internet involves false equivalencies. It’s sometimes called the “two wrongs make a right” fallacy. As is clear from its nickname, it’s the kind of thing we are taught not to do from a very early age. “I don’t care if your brother took the last piece of pizza! That’s not a good reason to set his hair on fire!” I had a recent experience with a flouter of this fallacy. Here’s the scene: a news story told of one of the numerous situations where a selfish, entitled, mouth breather (MB) was asked to put on a mask before entering a business establishment, in this case, a fast food restaurant. A young man, probably making minimum wage, was working at the establishment in order to save money for college. Said young man asked said mouth breather to put on a mask. MB said he didn’t have to because he had been issued an exemption. Young worker asked to see the exemption. MB pulls out a gun, points it at young worker, and says, “Here’s my exemption.” Wow, where to begin? Commenters reacted with the usual gamut of shock and anger at MB. How could he? Poor young worker! What has this country come to! One commenter, however, decided it was a good time to point out that it’s “illegal” to ask for someone’s medical exemptions. I confess I joined in the piling on. What the hell? Are you saying it’s okay to pull a gun on a young man for that? Are you saying you support the MB? Oh, no, not at all said the fallacy flouter! I’m saying they were BOTH wrong, so it’s all the same. Most of us told her she was a lost cause and not worth our time. She, of course, played the victim. After all, she was only trying to show there are two sides to the story. You know what? There are NOT always two sides to a story. Threatening lethal force is not “the same” as (correctly or incorrectly) asking for one’s credentials. To equate the two is a classic case of trying to cheat in an argument or trying to justify a stupid response by making a false equivalency.

Finally, we’ll look at the Tu Quoque (you too) fallacy. Perpetrators of this cheat like to point out the ignorance or hypocrisy of others. So, instead of admitting wrong or even trying to defend their stance, they will point out others’ ignorance or wrongdoing. A popular name for this (and we’ve seen a LOT of it lately) is whataboutism? Accuse me of illegal use of my office to gain favors from foreign governments, will you? Aha! But what about that incident nine years ago for which there were four congressional hearings finding no wrongdoing on the part of my opponent! Huh? What about THAT?

There are so many examples of these people out there, but my most recent encounter was with a troll who likes to lurk on known liberal sites just to throw out his salvos. The scene: a known liberal celebrity who is very popular posted an article about racism. Several trolls came out from under their bridges as they are wont to do in these circumstances. You can count on them. I very innocently pointed out that I liked the celebrity very much but liked even more how he triggered the racist trolls. For some reason, this triggered one of the racist trolls. He spent the rest of the day (really) tagging me in memes pointing out that Lincoln was a Republican and that the first ten Black members of Congress were Republican. He made no claims. Just my name and memes. My interpretation was that he couldn’t defend himself, so just wanted to remind me of my American history, which pointed out MY ignorance and hypocrisy. Wink emoji here?

So, back to the original, titular question. What would Aristotle do regarding an argument on social media? Trick question. He never would engage to begin with, understanding, as we all should, that the practice is hollow, fruitless, senseless, unsatisfying and profitless. The only way to beat a cheater is by cheating. There is no “high road” on the internet. And around we go. Care to argue about it?

It has been a while since I posted here. I was writing an entry on an entirely different topic, but, like much of the rest of the world, found myself distracted by one tragic news story after another. Distracted and angry. And so sad.

Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd.

A pitiful response by a pitiful “leader.”

And all of this wrapped up with a pandemic that is anything but over and an economic situation that is anything but fixed.

I kept thinking how much I wished I had a forum to speak out against the horrors I’ve been reading about and seeing in the news. Then I remembered that I DO have a forum. And here it is. I won’t say that every tragedy in the world can be traced to language, but many can and in very specific ways. I hope you’ll forgive me if I ramble a bit; there is a lot of ground to cover, and this will necessarily be inadequate. In an attempt to contain my rambling a bit, I will focus on the rhetoric of organizations such as Fox News and conservative talk radio. I have done some research so that you don’t have to subject yourself to it. For a bit of background, I started listening to conservative hate radio in tiny bits and pieces (that’s all I could stand) eleven years ago when I had to drive to a job that made me miserable. As a catharsis for my misery, I listened and expelled my anger harmlessly to the radio for the time I commuted. I found myself wondering how much influence these organizations actually had on the people of the US. I fear the answer is a lot. They speak mostly to an audience that already either agrees with them or hold no opinions and that doesn’t pursue information from other sources, so the message is exclusive and the only one many people receive. It becomes the truth because there is no other. That alone is terrifying.

If an insensitive, insecure man feels the need to correct or educate a woman who knows as much as or more on a topic than he does, we have come to call it “mansplaining.” If a similar dynamic is race related, can we use “racesplaining”? That does seem to describe what we often see on Fox News: many white people “racesplaining” to many other white people what black people should be saying and meaning. Or explaining to black people what, in fact, they REALLY mean or should mean. Whatever the actual word is, there’s no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump’s State News Agency, Fox News, is staffed by racist commentators to serve the views of a racist president to the racist portion of the American population. They are joined by the even more established conservative talk radio (“hate radio”) voices such as Rush Limbaugh. It is horrifying and disgusting. But my job here is to discuss language, and, although I am brokenhearted about recent events in Georgia, Kentucky, and  Minnesota, I will try to stick to issues of language and rhetoric and how these on-air people suck in and manipulate their audience. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather a handful of “techniques” and quotations I’ve personally had the displeasure to observe.

The language of many people on Fox news is racist. It is language that is often dog whistle (hinting at what only insiders will truly understand), but just as often blatant, loud, and clear for everyone to hear. Racism fed to racists and wannabe racists twenty-four hours a day, giving permission and support for unsupportable beliefs. When it isn’t blatant, it is persistent.

One of the most popular Fox News prime-time personalities (and I use the term loosely because these people are more caricatures than personalities) is Tucker Carlson. Carlson likes to look directly into the camera with a knitted brow and tilted head to show his deep feelings and confusion as to the ways of the liberal world. One of his repeated themes is that ANY exclusiveness of ANY race is racism. He neglects the accepted definition of the word as found in actual dictionaries such as Oxford: it’s not just prejudice against a person or group on the basis of race. It’s typically toward a minority or marginalized group. Carlson (as well as most racist trolls on Facebook and Twitter) conveniently ignore the second part. If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, mentions that a legislative committee comprising only white men is a problem, Carlson does whatever the male equivalent of pearl clutching is and screams “Racism!” When members of the Black Lives Matter movement choose to have a Memorial Day picnic for black people only or when black students feel safer and more comfortable in an all-black dormitory, Carlson is apoplectic. How can this be allowed! What, he wonders, would happen if I wanted to have an exclusively WHITE party! Oh, Tucker, you’re adorable. An exclusively white party has never occurred in the history of the United States. Certainly not by people who are heirs to major fortunes (Carlson stands to inherit a substantial sum as one of the heirs to the Swanson Foods fortune). There has never been a country club or a restaurant or a lunch counter or a bus or a drinking fountain that was designated for white people only! See what he’s done there? He has ignored hundreds of years of systemic racism because a group of people want exclusivity and he’s not included. He and his ilk scream nonsense words like “reverse racism,” a non-existent thing; minorities can certainly be prejudiced and exclusive and biased and even hateful, but racism is reserved for the ruling majority. As a bonus, in his continued state of feigned confusion as to why black people are so “racist,” Carlson says that there just aren’t very many hate crimes occurring in the US when, in fact, the number of hate crimes is the highest it’s been in 16 years. That fact, however, doesn’t serve his rhetoric or that of his president. It also is not what Fox News pays him to say.

Sean Hannity is perhaps the worst of the bunch. For one thing, he is besties with Donald Trump. Reports are that the two of them gab on the phone until all hours while the rest of the world sleeplessly worries over what devastating horror will happen next. Also, Hannity is on BOTH hate radio for three hours a day AND Fox News primetime for an hour every evening. That’s twenty hours a week that his voice can reach into your car, your office, and your living room. Hannity has many tropes and recurring themes (Trump is great, the Deep State is evil, Democrats are evil, liberals are evil, the mainstream press—or any press agency that he doesn’t work for—is evil, and on it goes). His recurring race litany is that “All Lives Matter.” Yes, really. He demands from his staff acknowledgment that HE and he alone is wise enough to point out the folly of the Black Lives Matter movement. How COULD they? What could they possibly mean, he innocently wonders, by saying that ONLY black lives matter! Hannity went so far as to say that if one COULDN’T bring oneself to say “All Lives Matter” as a necessary correction to the actual movement looking for justice and equality in an unequal world, it is nothing but pandering. See what he’s doing? It is the ultimate gaslight on the American people. Don’t let yourself be sucked in by the prejudice of exclusivity! We already include black people in ALL people, so you don’t need anything more! You already had your black president for goodness sake! What more do you want! It’s “pandering” to recognize the hundreds of years of racism perpetrated on a substantial portion of the American population.

Lou Dobbs and Brian Kilmeade are two more Fox News talking heads. Both like to “sincerely” show their sympathy and empathy when racial issues occur. But they also both refuse to consider them racist issues or even racial issues. When Armaud Arbery was lynched by three white men for the crime of jogging (Have you noticed that “He fit the description” is the new preamble to murder when the victim is black? It brings to mind the 1950s when “Why are you looking at that white woman?” gave the same license), Kilmeade expressed to Trump in an interview that justice must be done most certainly. Such a crime is most egregious! He wondered, however, how Trump’s administration would prevent it from ending up “in a racial situation”! He actually said that. Clever, huh? As if no racial issues were involved. Just three concerned (white) citizens in Georgia chasing down and murdering an unarmed (black) man for the unforgivable crime of being black on a Sunday. Lou Dobbs, concerning the recent protests in Minneapolis and the rest of the US, expressed with deep sadness that there was a failure of the community to properly educate and lift up its members, falling into the common fallacy that black people are the ones responsible for ending racism (“if only he would have complied with police orders!”).

Rush Limbaugh is the recent recipient of the prestigious Medal of Freedom that has previously been given to such true luminaries as Helen Keller, Buzz Aldrin, Omar Bradley, Jonas Salk, Margaret Mead, and Rosa Parks. True, many celebrities and entertainers have also received it, usually because of a lifetime of good works leading to social change of some sort. This medal of freedom winner claims that white privilege simply does not exist. It is, he says, merely a “liberal, political construct right along the lines of political correctness [that is] designed to intimidate and get people to shut up and admit they’re guilty of doing things they haven’t done.” No wonder he is deeply beloved by racists who refuse any responsibility.

Tomi Lahren, the self-described Millennial who doesn’t like to be labeled (did you catch that?) looked Trevor Noah in the eye one evening and said she “doesn’t see color.” I didn’t know there were people who still say that. Lahren claims she absolutely believes in the right to peaceful protest (this twenty-something person feels comfortable telling large portions of the population how to act), BUT when it comes to violence, destruction of property, well, THAT just isn’t okay. Only peaceful protest. What about Colin Kaepernick, Noah asked her. Didn’t he remember that she had a problem with that peaceful protest? Well, kneeling during the national anthem isn’t okay either because, no matter what the reason, HER reasoning is that the great flag is being disrespected! So, to conclude, Lahren gives permission to protest, but it’s unclear as to where, when, or in what form that protest may take place to meet with her approval.

Ms. Lahren reminds me of a word I would like to see denied to all conservative talk radio people, all Fox News people, and any other white people who decide to tell black people how to feel and act. That word is “but.” That’s right, the simple, usually benign “but.” The word is not benign in the mouths of the likes of Lahren. Protest is good. BUT it has to be the RIGHT kind of protest at the right time. Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and others have ALL been heard in the last 10 days saying that they absolutely support the rights of Americans to protest and what happened to George Floyd was horrible and must be punished, BUT not THIS kind of protest! Not the kind that involves destruction. Not people acting angry. Not protest that makes white people uncomfortable.

By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard Martin Luther King’s quote on riots. Just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you that he said “A riot is the language of the unheard.” There was a lot of peaceful protest that did a lot of good and caused a lot of change in the 1960s. I can still remember people of my parents’ generation (the greatest one, we’re told) back then saying that King’s message was strong and right and good, BUT (there it is again) just “too soon.” The country wasn’t yet “ready.” Then, King was assassinated and there were riots because the world had stopped hearing. Let’s remember that anger is one of the recognized stages of grief, and what was the overall emotion of the country back in 1968 and is the overall emotion of the country right now if not grief? Of course, we now know that at least some of the violence has been perpetrated by plants or white supremacists who want the black community to appear to be violent. For what reason? To prevent them from receiving sympathy? Prevent them from seeing change? Give further reason to victim blame? Continue reasons to say “But. . . .”

I’ll end with another quotation by a famous African American dissenter. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said, “I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.” Marshall said that in 1990, not 1968. So, over twenty years had passed since King’s assassination, and it was still necessary to say. It is now 2020, and we must still quote him. We are going in the wrong direction. The rhetoric of Fox News and the like helps to prevent progress by perpetuating and validating unsustainable racism among the citizenry.

There’s a popular meme titled “Schrödinger’s Douchebag.” As much as I hate the word, I love the meme: “Schrödinger’s Douchebag: A guy who says offensive things and decides whether he was joking based on the reaction of people around him.” Note: it does not have to be a guy; women are capable of douchebaggery as well. Of course, the meme is based on the famous thought experiment by Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist (although the original idea is attributed to Albert Einstein), where two outcomes of a particular situation are equally possible, and, at any time before the outcome is known, both are equally true.

I was just kidding. Can’t you take a joke? Where’s your sense of humor? Why are you being so serious?

Comments such as these have been part of bullies’ arsenals forever. They say something mean or insulting or horrible in other ways (racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc.), and, when you react with surprise, anger, disgust, or anything other than a hearty, supportive guffaw, they hit you with one of the above or something similar. This kind of verbal bullying makes most people very angry. It may be right up there with “Calm down!” (which, in the history of calming down, has never calmed anyone down). Why is that? Why does something so innocuous make us so angry? I have a few ideas about that.

It can be, as I said, a tactic of bullying. The bully controls the conversation, both theme and tone, and any deviation or disagreement with that isn’t tolerated. Bullies prey on the introverted, the socially awkward, and social and economic inferiors, often people unable or unwilling to snap back easily with a witty or pointed rejoinder. Comments questioning the recipient’s ability to understand humor or even HAVE a sense of humor land easily and can bring about a questioning or reinforcing of one’s social position.

Bullies also tend to not be too bright, so bullying language such as this keep his or her upper hand in a situation. Not-too-bright bullies often do not have a next level, so keeping interlocutors on the defensive is their only tactic. You know who does this kind of thing a lot? Sure you do. Donald Trump, the current occupier of the White House, does this a lot. A bully? Yes. Not too bright? Check. We all know what the combination has loosed upon us and the rest of the world.

Trump is not smart. He also lacks tact and finesse. One of the biggest problems with him is that he wants the whole world to think he is smart (he will tell you any chance he gets that he is a smart guy. He has a great brain. He is obviously smart because he had an uncle who was smart once.) He also will not ever admit to being wrong. So it’s not surprising at all that Donald Trump says stupid and mean things and, when he’s called on it, his go-to response is that he was “being sarcastic” or that people just don’t understand sarcasm. His latest: “Doesn’t sarcasm work anymore?” Short answer, yes, it does work. When it occurs.

As catalogued in a recent article in Rolling Stone by Peter Wade, Trump has a long and odd history with the word, sarcasm. Way before his run for the presidency, while he was still a minor celebrity who no one really took very seriously, he made well-known, cringe-worthy comments about his daughter, Ivanka. In 2006, on the show, “The View,” he said that, if Ivanka were not his daughter, he might be dating her. Let’s get past the eeewww factor for the moment and see what happened after that. When later asked about the much talked- and written-about comment, Trump said that everyone was laughing at it when he said it. Everyone THERE got the joke. But, when it was reported, the laughter and, yes, SARCASM, just weren’t properly related. The incestuous comment was not the problem. The blame rested on the public and our collective gag reaction for being too stupid to appreciate his rapier-sharp wit.

The public’s inability to appreciate the sophisticated humor of the stable genius didn’t end there of course. In 2013, there is some Twitter documentation that shows Trump mocking and insulting a few random users who had criticised him. Their problem? Well, the “dummies” (his word, not mine) just didn’t understand sarcasm. In 2014, when booed by a crowd after he mocked Jeb Bush for saying that immigrants often cross the US’s southern border in an act of love for their families, Trump told Fox News that he was so surprised by the reaction because he was, after all, being “a little sarcastic.”

One of my favorites is also from 2014. In a CPAC speech, where his audience was entirely supportive, Trump referred to “the late, great Jimmy Carter.” Of course, President Carter is still alive today, and was very much so six years ago. When reminded later that Mr. Carter was, in fact, alive, Trump scoffed, saying, “Of course I don’t think Jimmy Carter is dead—saw him on TV. Just being sarcastic, but never thought he was alive as President, stiff.” Wow. Trump deconstructed: I’m not stupid. You’re stupid. And, by the way, he IS metaphorically dead, so I was serious.

The list goes on and on (I’m the chosen one; journalists receive the Noble Prize), culminating recently with “Dr.” Trump’s brilliant suggestion that, perhaps, since disinfectants are so useful in killing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, all of those other people who call themselves immunologists and scientists might want to look into the possibility of, somehow, getting that stuff into the human body and knocking that pesky virus right out of there “in a minute.” After days of relentless (and well-deserved) public mocking, Trump turned it all around on the public. Oh! How simple we all were! He wasn’t serious! He was being SARCASTIC.

It’s bad enough that Trump (and other unintelligent bullies like him) can’t admit it when they say something wrong or make a slip of the tongue. It’s bad enough when these alphas turn it all around on their audience, blaming us for just not getting them. We’re just too simple. Too naïve. Not sophisticated enough. It’s worse when the world sees, hears, and knows the truth, and they STILL can’t bring themselves to admit any mistake or fault.

To add to this list of self-serving, dishonest, torment, there’s even more involved when it comes to Trump. He loves the word, sarcastic, and that is his go-to cover for his abhorrent behavior and general ignorance. BUT HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THE CORRECT USAGE OF THE WORD! Oh, that’s too beautiful. The bully is just being “sarcastic,” and we, the public, just don’t get him. And he doesn’t use the word correctly.

Sarcasm is defined simply: “the use of irony to mock or convey contempt (Oxford).” It is, indeed, often used with humorous intent. It does, indeed, often state the opposite of what is intended. The key here is “intent.” Donald Trump is only “sarcastic” after the fact. After he’s called out on his stupidity, ignorance, racism, incest, whatever. Only THEN is he just being “sarcastic.” Only THEN are WE the comprehension-challenged for not having seen that originally.

An example of REAL sarcasm is what happened at the now-famous 2011 Correspondents’ Dinner where Barack Obama roasted his nemesis, birther-in-chief, Donald Trump. The dinner, as it happened, occurred the very same week that Hawaii released Mr. Obama’s long-form birth certificate, once and for all putting to rest the seeds of doubt regarding his citizenship sown by Trump and his cadre of followers. Mr. Obama, as only a true winner can, raked Trump over the coals and also used a bit of self-mocking, beginning his speech with “My FELLOW Americans, mahalo [emphasis his]” and following that with his “official” birth video (the birth scene from The Lion King). Self-mocking or self-deprecating is also often a part of true sarcasm. Donald Trump is constitutionally unable to do that. Many say that speech at that dinner was the real beginning of the travesty that is today’s US political situation—hatred and revenge toward a person who made HIM the joke of the evening. As the President spoke, moving seamlessly from self-mocking to Trump’s pettiness and materialism (saying, for example, that Trump can now turn his attention to REAL puzzles such as whether the moon landing really happened), the audience erupted in gales of genuine laughter. As the camera panned to Trump, anyone could see that he wasn’t laughing. Now, THAT’S ironic, isn’t it? Apparently, he can’t take a joke. Unfortunately, it looks like this joke is on all of us.

Have you grown tired of hearing and reading the terms “Political Correctness” and “Politically Correct” without there being any general discussion of the meaning? Those who use the terms seem sure of their meaning, but all users might not have the same meaning in mind. These are relatively new terms in their current usage (whatever that is). As newish terms, they’re still in the period of their existence where anyone can co-opt them to make whatever point they want. In fact, that is exactly what has happened.

The actual term is not new. It has shown up periodically throughout history, as if society has been trying it on as we might keep trying on those favorite jeans that haven’t really fit right since college but that we can’t bring ourselves to discard. As early as 1793, a Supreme Court opinion (Chisholm vs. Georgia) stated that it was not “politically correct” to say “People of the United States” and that should be replaced with “The United States.” That doesn’t seem related in any way to any of today’s multiple uses. Back in 1917, following the Russian Revolution, the term “politically correct” was used to describe adherence to the policies and principles of the Communist Party (the original “party line”). That usage bled a little into the 1960s, but only in a few obscure references to the presumed lost Communist dream. William Safire, conservative columnist and language pedant, claimed the first recorded use of the term in the modern sense was in 1970 by Toni Cade Bambara in her anthology The Black Woman. I have found none earlier, but also have not found that the term caught on widely with Bambara’s usage. By the 1970s and 1980s, a few politicians and pundits threw the term around to question what they perceived as left-wing emphasis on rhetoric over content as well as the perception (by these same few politicians and pundits) of the rising left-wing curriculum on university campuses in the United States. Phyllis Schlafly, infamous hater of equal rights for women and progress in general, noted that “the cornerstone of the political correctness that dominates campus culture is radical feminism,” thus combining two of the things most threatening to the right: decency and equality.

It would seem that this pejorative usage struck a chord with detractors because that’s the one that seems to have hung on over the last thirty years. Noam Chomsky, when asked, defined Political Correctness as “a healthy expansion of moral concern.” So, as defined by one of the world’s most prolific linguists, cognitive scientists, and political commentators, the term is not at all pejorative. Isn’t that interesting?

To me, the term has always meant use of inclusive language as well as use of the language preferred by the person being referenced. This is especially true when an inclusive term conveniently exists and the only reason for NOT using it would be to follow a convention that is no longer conventional. For example, fire fighters used to be all men, so the term, “fireman” was truthful and appropriate. When women began to participate in the profession, “fireman” was no longer an inclusive or accurate term. “Fire fighter” exists and is not a whole lot harder to say. Same with “mail carrier” and “police officer.” To me, Political Correctness means not needing to say “male nurse” or “woman doctor” (don’t even get me started on “lady doctor”) when the words “nurse” and “doctor” include both genders and the need for a gendered descriptor is only to satisfy societal expectations that no longer play out in reality. To me, Political Correctness means using the term “African American” if a person chooses to identify with that term or “black” if that is preferred. Same goes for “Native American” vs. “Indian.” Part of the meaning of Political Correctness to me is that I don’t get to choose what to name another person or group. That seems basic. What is wrong with using language in a way that strives to give the least offense and the most inclusion to individuals and groups?

One strange phenomenon surrounding the Political Correctness terminology is that you will very seldom hear anyone self-referring as Politically Correct or even the informal “PC.” It’s almost always used as an accusation. Moira Weigel, in a 2016 Guardian article, applies the term, “exonym,” meaning a term used only by those outside the group whom the term describes. It’s that characteristic that may well have given rise to the current distillation and corruption of a perfectly benign term. I say that because the term IS used self-referentially and proudly only in the negative as in “Well I’m not politically correct” or “I don’t believe in political correctness.”

Some on the right, most notably the current resident of the White House, have so corrupted the term that it will probably never again be anything but negative.

We have to divide the phenomenon of negativity into two parts: negativity toward politically correct LANGUAGE and negativity toward politically correct BEHAVIOR as manifested through language. Let me clarify.

As I’ve mentioned several times, humans resist language change when it comes from outside even while we embrace language change when it comes from within ourselves or our cultural group. Just consider the abundance of slang and jargon in any language as support of that while also considering the difficulties we’ve discussed already with, for example, a gender-neutral alternative for singular “they” or a singular-plural distinction of “you.” When the term is used derisively, it is often to criticize the idea that language can alter thought. That is, perhaps, a valid argument for discussion at another time. However, there is a big difference between politically correct LANGUAGE and BEING politically correct in today’s usage.

Ricky Gervais said, “I’m a fan of political correctness that is about not promoting prejudice. But some people in America are offended by equality because when you’ve had privilege for so long, equality feels like oppression.” There it is.

Today, there is a lot of pompous denial of being politically correct, and that denial usually comes from right-wing Trump cultists. Those who complain the most loudly about the institution of political correctness claim that it is a form of censorship and a curtailment of free speech. They also think that adherents to political correctness (usually university faculty) see politically INCORRECT speech everywhere, even where it doesn’t exist.

I am really tired of people using “free speech” as an excuse to say anything at all, so let’s clear this up. The term, “free speech” refers to the freedoms of speech as stated in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. I guarantee you that the person screaming the loudest that his or her “freedom of speech” is being curtailed would also be unable to tell you what that First Amendment actually says. Let’s review, shall we? “CONGRESS shall make no laws. . . abridging the freedom of speech. . .” If I tell YOU that your speech offends me, I am not removing your “freedom” of speech. I’m just telling you you’re a jerk. That would be MY freedom. Telling you that you are not politically correct is hardly the same as a legal punishment, which WOULD be the case if, IN FACT, being politically correct truly curtailed any freedoms. Are there exceptions? Sure, but, unfortunately, being a jerk or even spewing hatred are NOT among them. In other words, you can be as politically incorrect as you want, and the Supreme Court has told us time and time again that there’s really nothing they’re going to do about it. In fact, hate speech is legally protected under the First Amendment. Now, if you choose to exercise your “freedom” with obscenity, child pornography, true threats, or fraud, that’s another story.  But you’re free to hate all you want. If I make you FEEL bad for being an ass with your hateful language, good. However, I can’t arrest you or fine you and neither can anyone else. For some people who get this confused, complex sentences such as the First Amendment can be challenging.

It’s a convenient bridge from the easy target of language to the utter corruption of the term and the concept that we see today. The practice of deriding political correctness as the sole property of the left while declaring pride at NOT being politically correct has grown over the years, reaching its crescendo around the 2016 US presidential election where voters needed to justify voting for a person who lacked respect for minorities, women, poor people, and pretty much anyone who wasn’t him. NOT being politically correct became for many the equivalent of being “of the people.” “He’s just like one of us.” “He says what’s on his mind.” “He doesn’t talk like a politician.” These and so many other justifications for the insanity that put the US in its current situation.

In a 2016 Time article, Mark Hannah says that political correctness has been the whipping boy of the right for decades and Trump is cracking the whip with abandon. Trump is vulgar and rude, and he uses political correctness as a shield. I couldn’t agree more. When asked about his indecent and abhorrent comments toward women, Trump says he doesn’t have time to be politically correct. He says the real problem is political correctness. When criticized for his racist comments toward a federal judge, he says we just have to stop being so politically correct. Hannah points out that when Trump says things that are ugly or offensive or outright false and then claims he’s not politically correct or that political correctness is the big problem, what he’s really doing is blaming us, the public, for deciding what ideas are right for us, what ideas are good and bad for us, and not letting Trump make that decision.

Mike Pence said that Donald Trump “gets it: he’s the genuine article. He’s a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers. And when Donald Trump does his talking, he doesn’t tiptoe around the thousand new rules of political correctness.” WOW, where to go with this? Even ignoring the hyperbole of a “thousand new rules,” he’s actually telling the truth here! Trump doesn’t tiptoe; he’s the bull in the china shop of decency. It doesn’t stop with the two top elected officials (who, still inexplicably, were elected while saying this kind of thing).

One-time judge and current talk-show host, Jeanine Pirro once nonsensically said that we are so beaten down by political correctness that most of us are numb to the surrender of America. Well, sure. See what she did there? She just puts it out there that America has, in fact, surrendered, and the “obvious” culprit would, of course, be political correctness. In her world, apparently there is a cause-effect relationship between these concepts.

Steven Crowder, a distinctly UNfunny comedian and commentator said that one of his goals in life is to “watch political correctness shrivel up and die (as it should be for any true conservative).” See what he’s doing here? Not “politically correct LANGUAGE” oh no. Political CORRECTNESS! Decency. Inclusion. Equality. Lack of offending. Lack of perpetuating prejudicial points of view. Apparently, if you are a good conservative, these are what’s wrong with the world.

There are so many more who became prominent during the 2016 election period. The late “journalist,” Andrew Breitbart said that “political correctness—the rigging of politics using different rules for different groups, buttressed by the media—ensures that Democrats always have the upper hand.” Clearly, the Democrats do not always have the upper hand. More clearly, isn’t he a marvellous champion of the “real” people for crusading against the evil and insidious political correctness? That, apparently, is the real problem and not the blatant racism he tries to sublimate to it.

Anthony Scaramucci, current record holder for the shortest tenure as White House Communications Director, proudly announced that “Donald Trump doesn’t speak like a politician, and that’s made some people uncomfortable [no, that’s NOT what has made people uncomfortable]. In a world of political correctness run amok, his straight talk has been a breath of fresh air [sure, if you enjoy inhaling poisonous gas].” Corey Lewandowski, political operative and lobbyist, birther, and philanderer, also called our world one where political correctness has run amok. This was when he was defending Trump for re-tweeting an anti-Semitic meme of a Star of David atop a pile of money. Apparently, political correctness hasn’t run amok enough. Conspiracy theorist extraordinaire and one-time radio personality, Glenn Beck said that political correctness “doesn’t change us. It shuts us up.” Oh, if only that was all it took to shut him up!

Corey Stewart, minor politician, major racist, birther (seeing a pattern?), and supporter of confederate symbols, when (unsuccessfully) running for the US Senate, said, “I just think political correctness is a limitation of our First Amendment freedoms.” As stated earlier, here’s a guy who needs to go back to eighth grade civics, rather than running for national office. Apparently, the people who vote for people like this have no ideas of their own.

In an attempt to remain relevant, actor and director Clint Eastwood opined that “a lot of people are bored by all the political correctness.” This is a guy who famously talks to empty chairs and is applauded for it.

The final irony of this derision of political correctness on the part of the right is that Trump requires from his minions exactly what he and those same minions say Political Correctness is—strict adherence to a linguistic code from without. In Trump’s world, he is king and all must bow to him linguistically and ideologically, the ideology being the true main event that they proudly refuse to hide with language. To not do his bidding or to argue or contradict is cause for shunning or exactly what they falsely claim the left does to non-politically correct people. Of course they don’t call it Political Correctness. The term is reserved exclusively for derision from the right to the left. It is a one-way arrow.

Some years ago, when I was a student, there was a discussion in class of a criminal case where a person was forced to make an impossible decision, leading to a felonious act. I commented that it was a real Sophie’s choice. Another student was unfamiliar with the reference and asked what I meant. It was the instructor who answered him, explaining the meaning and the origin of the phrase. The other student scoffed derisively and said, “Oh, it’s from a MOVIE? So not REAL language.” The term Sophie’s Choice is originally from the book of that title by William Styron, and became popular via the movie starring Meryl Streep, but the relevant point is that some people do not accept “new” language that comes from current, popular culture as “real” language. That, in my opinion, is extremely misguided.

To begin with, words enter languages in all sorts of interesting and varied ways. No language is born as a fully functioning, complete, finite entity. Most languages grow rapidly by adding new words all the time.

Let’s take the English language for starters. Most of the time, we think of the world borrowing from English, but we rarely examine how English developed over the last four or five centuries. English has borrowed hundreds of words and phrases from other languages. Many of our words for food, for example, come from French; the Anglo Saxons were still eating cow until the French gave us boeuf, which became beef, thus separating words for the animal on the hoof from the animal on the plate. English borrows a lot. English also loves to abbreviate, which gives rise to new words. Nowadays, we rarely hear, for example, telephone, opting more for the clipped phone. We don’t work out at the gymnasium, but prefer the gym. English loves to blend two words into one new word as in smog (smoke+fog), chortle (chuckle+snort), and the favorite meal of urban dwellers everywhere, brunch (breakfast+lunch). We acquire words from product names (kleenex) and place names (denim was once merely the trendy, woven material that came from a city in France or de Nimes). English speakers love acronyms, words that are formed by the multiple initials of many words. Some are obvious such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), some less so such as scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus).

Those are just a few of the myriad ways we add words and phrases to our language. How, then, could there possibly be a universe in which we do not steal language from our cultural creations? As a species, humans create. Humans use language (among other things) to create lasting records of our culture; the results are often classic works of literature from which we adopt common cultural references (Neither a borrower nor a lender be, To thine own self be true). There was a time when Shakespeare was “popular culture,” a sometimes pejorative term for “current culture.” Every age gives us memories of culture in our language. The modern age has given us film and television, both seemingly bottomless wells of language.

Sometimes, language in the form of a word or a phrase originates in a film or a television show; sometimes the entertainment form merely brings a bit of language into popular use. Sophie’s Choice is the former type; the term is now defined in dictionaries, which, to some people, makes it “real language.” Prominent in this category is the word, gaslight with its many forms. Many don’t realize that, while this form of psychological abuse where the villain slowly and subtly convinces the victim that he or she is suffering from a mental or emotional illness has been around as long as there have been people, the word itself comes from the famous 1944 film, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, itself based on a play by Patrick Hamilton.

A much more recent example of language being born of film is the term, bucket list. It has quickly become so much a part of the language that we often hear people casually referring to where they want to travel or experiences they dream of having as items on their “bucket list.” Few people realize that this term was first used in the 2007 film The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two people trying to achieve their lifetime dreams before they die (or “kick the BUCKET”). One wonders how we described a person’s cosmic shift from being a good person to being the epitome of evil before the broad use of the dark side after the first instalment of Star Wars in 1977. Did you know that, until Bill Murray said it in the original 1984 Ghostbusters, we didn’t have the term toast as in If you touch my spray cheese, you’re toast?

The Godfather franchise expanded on the very term godfather to describe a mafia boss and not just a child’s presumptive guardian, not to mention giving us the quietly threatening phrase involving an offer one cannot refuse. Clueless popularized the previously-niche urban phrase, my bad (I personally love this one and use it all the time) and brought much of Valley Girl vernacular into the mainstream (as if, whatever). Many have become speechless by the sight of a beautiful face, but we weren’t twitterpated until its use in Bambi. The word bombshell, to describe a beautiful and sexy woman and not the outer casing of an explosive device, came into the language with the 1933 Jean Harlow film of that name. Not from a specific film, but from the swaggering, take-no-prisoner, claim-more-than-your-share attitude of a megastar comes the verb to bogart as in Stop bogarting the spray cheese. One of Bogart’s characters gave us Here’s looking at you, kid. And who hasn’t uttered some version of the phrase, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn even without knowing it’s from Gone with the Wind.

If film has given us so much language, we can only imagine what we’ve received and internalized from television. Film has been an important aspect of culture since the beginning of the twentieth century, but television, even more recent, lives with us in our homes. TV characters visit us in our living rooms day after day. Popular shows remain in syndicated reruns for years, even decades, after the show has taken its final bows.

We could discuss for days the contributions from TV. Today, people still quote old commercials and classic shows. If you’re of a certain age, you will recognize phrases such as You gotta lotta splainin’ to do! Or I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!  Or Be careful out there! Some of the many more modern strong linguistic influencers include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Friends, and, of course, the king of all quotable television shows, Seinfeld.

Buffy actually gave rise to a 2004 book, titled Slayer Slang, by Michael Adams. The book is a fun and thorough examination of the influence popular culture has on a society’s language. When one person takes half of the food meant for a large group, we might ask, sarcastically, if that person is hungry much? Or piggy much? That use of much as an adjective intensifier meant to shame comes to us directly from our favorite teen slayer of the undead. Please don’t be too wigged out by this information (also compliments of Buffy and her crew).

Friends didn’t give birth to language so much as it popularized certain phrases. When your relationship has settled into a comfortable inertia without crossing the line into romance, you might have been relegated to the friend zone. If you do something you’re definitely not supposed to do, your excuse might be that you were on a break. Your soul mate just might be your lobster.

No one can really explain how it is that Seinfeld, the show about nothing,grabbed our attention so much. Like Friends, it has found a place in the hearts of a new generation, and Seinfeld language continues to find its way into our everyday speech. People still, more than 20 years after the show ended, know what is meant by a close talker or a low talker. Everyone understands the poor etiquette of regifting and the poor hygiene of double dipping. There’s no need for further explanation when a story is cut short by yada, yada, yada. Those who don’t celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah might just be having their own celebration of Festivus. Is there any doubt as to what we are the master OF when we are master of our domain? My friend, Roz, reminds me of one of Seinfeld’s phrases that has achieved renewed relevance in these Covid times of feared toilet paper shortages: I don’t have a square to spare. Not a square.

Oh, I could go on and on, lover of both language and popular culture that I am. I hope I’ve shown that to think of the language we’ve adopted from film and TV as trivial or, in some way, not “real” is short sighted. But why take my word for it when a much better source, a true expert, exists? I’ll leave you with what Martin Scorsese has to say about the power of film because power, of course, leads to influence: “Whenever I hear people dismiss movies as ‘fantasy’ and make a hard distinction between film and life, I like to think to myself that it’s just a way of avoiding the power of cinema. Of course it’s not life—it’s the invocation of life. It’s in an ongoing dialog with life.”

Bad puns and silly elementary-school jokes. Whatever you call them, we all know these little one-liners or question/answer combinations because we have all grown up with them. They change a little with the times, but many that are told today are the same ones that I heard and told as a child. Sometimes, there are multiple variations. Nowadays, the favored term for these jokes is “Dad jokes.” Why does Dad get the credit? Maybe because Dads, from the beginning of time, seem to have the dual goal of entertaining and embarrassing their children. Reaction is important. The teller is going for an eye roll or a groan. If you get both, you’ve achieved the dumb joke jackpot. Add an exclamation of disgust and you’ve achieved the lowly-humor trifecta.

One of the most important characteristics of these jokes is that they are relatively inoffensive. I realize that’s subjective, but these jokes are what’s left when you eliminate race, sex, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation or identity before telling the joke. And kids get them. That’s one of my key points here.

Kids, even very young ones, get these jokes and also delight in telling them. How is it that kids everywhere, generation after generation, get these jokes? One of the very first questions that must be covered when studying language, in fact, the first question of many linguistics courses, is “What do we know when we know a language”? What does “knowing” a language entail? Basically, “knowing” a language means being able to get stupid Dad jokes although it’s just a tad more complicated than that. At a very young age, the acquisition of our first language is complete. Sure, our vocabularies increase and our abilitiy to understand complexities increases, but our basic knowledge of our language is pretty much intact by the time we reach 6 or 7 years old without having to be taught.

I used to try to begin each class with one of these silly jokes to make a point about intuitive linguistic knowledge. This basic knowledge of our language—the things we KNOW when we say we “know” a language are exactly the same things that allow us to understand jokes. Let me give you a few examples.

What do you call a blind buck?                                                    No eyed deer!

Remember that one? I remember telling it and thinking it was hilarious. What a terrific play on words! How can every kid get this joke? When you think about it, it’s pretty sophisticated. One of the first things we know when we know a language is the phonetics and phonology of that language. That is, we understand intuitively what sounds the language possesses and what combinations of sounds are permitted in the language. For example, an English-speaking child in North America, Australia, or England doesn’t have to acquire the click sounds of Southern African languages because those sounds simply aren’t employed by the child’s language so are not needed in the language tool box. The joke about the poor deer depends on our knowledge that some dialects of English employ the “r” sound in the middle and at the end of words while other dialects do not. (Those that do employ the sound are called “rhotic” dialects. Those that do not are called “non-rhotic.”) This entire joke depends on knowing this! “Eye deer” sounds the same as “idea” except for the final sound—with or without the “r”. This is one of those cases where I always got the joke, but I only realized recently that I never REALLY GOT it. It works both ways, as I discovered when I heard an Australian friend pronounce the name of a local restaurant, “The No Eyed Deer.” She pronounced it with the ending sounding like “idea”—”The NO IDEA,” thus bringing me full circle from my US, rhotic history. It’s one of the rare dialect jokes that works in both directions.

The point, of course, is that this requires no analysis on the part of a child. He or she simply gets it from the start. These are aspects of our language that we are not taught directly, but that we know intuitively, and these are the tools needed to understand these jokes.

Same joke, different set-up:

What do you call a fake noodle?                                                              An impasta.

Here are a couple bonus jokes that depend on our early-acquired knowledge of phonology, our language’s sound system:

What did the pirate say on his eightieth birthday?                                  Aye matey!

Just one more: Did you hear about the circus fire? It was in tents.

Another basic thing that we intuitively know when we know a language is that language’s syntax or grammar. I don’t mean we know all of the school rules of course. Rather, we know the basic structure allowable in our language, and we know this at a very young age. We might not know that the phrase “the magnificent, periwinkle starfish” has the structure of article-adjective-adjective-noun, but any 5-year-old child knows that “starfish the periwinkle magnificent” isn’t English, nor is “the periwinkle, magnificent starfish.” Isn’t it amazing that we just know this stuff! Here’s one of my very favorite jokes that depends on this syntactic knowledge.

I was watching a magician walking down the street. Suddenly, he turned into a grocery store.

See what’s happening here? We “get it” because of our intuitive understanding that “turned into” can mean both “turn in the direction of” and “become.” The first one is verb+preposition (direction); the second one is a phrasal verb, a two-word verb that has a different meaning from either of its parts or even a sum of those parts. We wouldn’t expect a child to explain it, but that kid still thinks it’s funny. Because he or she KNOWS the language. And it IS funny.

Here’s a bonus joke that depends on our knowledge of syntax:                A termite walked into a bar and asked, “Is the bar tender here?”

See? A “bartender” is a noun and the phrase “bar tender” is a noun+adjective (description), so it’s our understanding of English phrase structure that makes this one so funny.

One more bonus in the syntax category:

Did you hear about the kidnapping at school? It’s okay now. He woke up.

Knowing a language means knowing the “pragmatics” of that language. In the linguistic sense, “pragmatics” encompasses all that is cultural and context-driven in a language. Knowledge of pragmatics is what tells us, for example, that people ask us how we are as a conventional social greeting and not as a true question requiring a truthful or detailed response. It’s what tells us if a society is comfortable or not with certain topics. It’s what gives us the general background of a society or a group, whether it’s a cultural group, an age group, or even a group of co-workers who share inside knowledge. It allows us to understand hints and irony and implications.

My favorite joke that depends on a knowledge of pragmatics for understanding (and often takes a nanosecond for a reaction):

I ordered a chicken and an egg from the store. I’ll let you know.

Note, there is another, funnier adults-only version of this joke; it has to do with a chicken and an egg lying in bed, smoking cigarettes, both looking content. You can probably fill in the rest for yourself.

Bonus pragmatics-dependent joke:                                                           If you see a robbery in an Apple store, does that make you an iWitness?

Second bonus (because I can’t stop myself):                                         Have you heard about the restaurant on the moon? Great food but no atmosphere.

When we know a language, we know the semantics of that language. Semantics is the study of meaning and is a vast area of study. Among its many branches is the understanding of ambiguity or multiple meanings. Very often, these Dad jokes depend on this kind of basic intuition. An ambiguity might occur merely because of a dual meaning of a single word. Sometimes, it’s as simple as homophones—words that sound the same but have different meanings. These can be spelled the same. The trio of “bear,” the animal, “bear,” to stand or abide, and “bear,” to produce has given rise to one of the most famous linguistics-class examples of ambiguity: “She cannot bear children.” Homophones can also be spelled differently, requiring the joke to be oral for it to work. One of the oldest classic Dad jokes involves the first type of homophone:

Why are there such high fences around cemeteries?                        Because people are dying to get in.

This one involves a different spelling so must be oral:                            The largest knight at the round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. (Okay, maybe a young child wouldn’t get the pragmatic part of this.)

And then there’s:

I just watched a documentary about beavers. Best dam show I ever saw!

Just one more in this category, and then I promise I’ll stop:           

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Some semantics-dependent jokes require understanding that the same word has two possible meanings. These are not quite the same as homophones because the meanings of the words are related, so I’ll call this a sub-category of the ones above:

How do I look?                                                                                      With your eyes! (remember our discussion last week about the words that are both senses and actions? This one could also be in the syntax category)

Or:

Don’t ever trust atoms. They make up everything.

And, one more:

As two cannibals were feasting on a clown, one said to the other, “Does this taste funny to you?” 

So, when we say we “know” a language, we’re saying so much more than that we can communicate in a language. In our first language, our intuition is massive. We know an entire textbook of linguistics before we even crack the cover. Humans are brilliant creatures when it comes to the language faculty.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite jokes that really falls into several of the above categories. I like this joke. A lot.

Why don’t you ever see elephants hiding in trees? Because they’re very good at it!

Unlike the person who originally said this (although long attributed to Winston Churchill, he was sarcastically paraphrasing the already-sarcastic original), I have no problem with sentences ending with prepositions. It’s an old, musty rule that has no place in modern spoken English. As we’ve discussed, language changes. Sometimes old rules don’t apply to new language. According to writer Dan Nosowitz, this wasn’t even a real rule; it all started with the poet and playwright John Dryden (known to be a very unlikable character), who, in the 17^th century stated that he thought ending sentences with prepositions was “inelegant.” No reason.  So, some jerk of a pedant four hundred years ago decides he doesn’t like something, and we’ve all had to live with such nonsense ever since.

Many of the traditional grammar rules have fallen by the wayside in our speech. We, do, for example, split infinitives with total abandon and don’t care at all who knows it. We decided a long time ago to boldly go into that final frontier.  And we start sentences with conjunctions.  Which sometimes create acceptable and interesting sentence fragments.

All true. However, I don’t want you to get the impression that I have limitless tolerance when it comes to language use. Far from it. I mock and ridicule language pedants, yet I can be one as soon as I let down my guard. As a “language person,” I’ve always had to be careful not to act too bristly at others’ speech. To use a legal term, I wouldn’t want my own language obsessions to have a chilling effect on others’ conversation. But, as one of my favorite memes says, I am silently judging you on your grammar. At least on some things. And maybe not so silently.

Like most people, there are linguistic transgressions that I dislike, but tolerate. There are others that are so commonly despised, there’s no point in my discussing them (although a future discussion of apostrophe use might be in order). Some, I’ve grown so accustomed to that I’ve grown numb. It feels like yesterday, for example, that I visibly cringed when I heard the words impact or parent as verbs. Now? Doesn’t faze me a bit. Some errors are so grievous, I’ll have to discuss them in detail at another time. Probably when we’re all in better moods post plague.

Today, I’d like to discuss just a few of the things that are common and ordinary to many people but the verbal equivalent of fingernails being run slowly along an old chalkboard to me. They make me want to scream. They are rarely important enough to affect communication (usually, the benchmark), but they make me daydream about performing Clockwork Orange-style behavior modification on the speaker or writer.

The first one is when someone tells me they feel badly about a situation. It’s all I can do to hold myself back because, most of the time, I think THEY think they’re being correct and formal. Look, we have bad and we have badly. Two words, two parts of speech, two functions. All words that end in -ly are NOT adverbs (that’s right, contrary to what we were told in GRAMMAR school!), but when they ARE adverbs, they indicate manner—the way in which something is done. It describes an action (a VERB). English has TWO meanings of feel, one an action and one not (a sense). The one that’s NOT is the one in I feel so bad that I had to tell Mirabella that her pet ocelot was not permitted on the bus. The one that IS would be in Ever since my unfortunate accident that burned off my finger tips, I’ve been feeling badly. Okay, that last one is an unlikely usage, I agree, but maybe that’s the point. How about the analogous case of another word that is both a sense and an action: smell. In the SENSE, we have the sentence The dog, who recently rolled around in dead bird, smells really bad. In the ACTION, we have The poor old dog who had nose surgery has to be shown where his food is because he smells badly. See? It’s easy.

Another one that irks me is because, again, I think the speaker/writer is trying to be “proper” (I HATE that word!). Overuse of I is easy to trace. Most of us were corrected as children and told to use I and not me in many situations. True, but not ALL situations for heaven’s sake! I is the subject (actor) in a sentence; me is the object (the acted UPON) in a sentence. Parents and teachers rightly chastise us when we say Me and Cossette are going out. Of course, that’s incorrect. The test is clear and easy: take away the other person, and you end up with Me are going out. Even if you substitute is you’re never going to have a good sentence. So, all the good children took this to heart and, apparently, forgot we have another pronoun, me. Every day, whether it’s in person or on TV or in a movie, we are assaulted with such sentences as Oh, that was such a joyous celebration for Syl and I. Our childhood correctors are still living in our heads, screaming IT’S ‘I,’ NOT ‘ME’, causing this horror to occur again and again. Same test, my friends! Oh, that was such a joyous celebration for I. Really? Nope. Semi-related is another monstrosity that I’ve observed: I’s as in An amazing event occurred in Fetzger and I’s meeting. It’s only used when there are two possessors, but why?  An amazing event occurred in I’s meeting? Never. What IS that? It is nothing and should be sent back through the hell gate that admitted it.

I have no problem with eliminating whom from the English language. For decades, the “threat” (hah! No one would care!) of losing the who/whom distinction has been dangled before us. That little rascal keeps hanging on though. I also have no problem with using whom. It’s an easy rule, and I’d be happy to share it if anyone had an interest. What bothers me, however, is yet another case of people trying to sound “proper” or intelligent and GETTING IT WRONG! Two rules to always follow: don’t try to use whom if you don’t know how and don’t try to use a semicolon if you don’t know how. The result appears as exactly the opposite of intelligent! You might come up with something similar to what I recently saw in an online ad: Do you wonder whom will be shopping here? Well, no, me do not wonder that! Please just stop.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of using antiquated relics, please don’t use the word whilst in my presence. That’s a request to anyone living in the 21^st century, but, especially if you live in the United States. Really, this is a serious request.

I’m a little on the fence with the lie/lay distinction. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I do silently judge anyone who misuses these, but I also understand how difficult the distinction can be. It was obviously someone’s cosmically cruel joke to make lay the past tense of lie (an intransitive verb that does not take an object) while making laid the past tense of lay (a transitive verb that DOES require an object). So, we could conceive a sentence such as I told my pet chicken to lie down while she was laying an egg. Or My pet chicken lay down while she laid an egg. Or Please lay those pillows down on the bed before you go to lie down on the pillows. So I try not to get too judgy with this because it’s so cruel. It’s interesting that the mistake never occurs in reverse; we hear I have to lay down every day, but we never hear Please lie that stiletto on the table. I should tell you that I once had to quit a dog training class because the trainer insisted on teaching my dog to lay down. I just couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bring myself to use the command, and I didn’t want to confuse my poor pup. I should also mention at this point that the grammar check function did not flag the above lie/lay misuses. Apparently, even Microsoft Word is confused by these.

There are numerous others. As well, there are common expressions that I just can’t stand. But, I’ve already revealed enough of my language obsession for one day, so maybe another time. I won’t lay to you, it felt really good to lie it all out like that. I realize, however, that many of these are just I’s problem.

The saying that England and the United States are two countries separated by the same language has long been attributed to George Bernard Shaw. While he didn’t say it quite in that way, this bit of linguistic wisdom is very true. For hundreds of years, there has been some sort of weird competition between “British English” and “American or US English.” Oh, if only it were as simple as saying “lift” for “elevator,” “knickers” for “panties,” or “braces” for “suspenders.”

People in the US tend to love to hear British accents. People in England tend to have negative feelings toward US accents. As an aside here, I have often wondered at people’s negative (and positive) opinions about accents. WHY, for example, do some people in the northern US say that southerners sound unintelligent? Why do some southerners say that northerners sound rude? Why do many people in the US think English people always sound intelligent (no offense; there are obviously many brilliant people in England, but I’m pretty sure there are some less intelligent ones as well). The fact is, there is absolutely no objective reason that one language or one form of a language is “nicer,” “prettier,” “more romantic,” “less intelligent,” or any other judgmental description. It is purely subjective, based on personal taste and idiosyncracy. One person’s “dumb and slow” is another person’s “charming and folksy.” Let’s examine the history of linguistic animosity from both sides of the Atlantic.

From the beginning of the separation of the two countries, both sides have been very protective of their respective languages. As we’ve discussed before, ALL languages change, and that is no less true for these two varieties of the English language. No, US English doesn’t need to be renamed! They’re both dialects of the same language with the same origin. Of course, they’ve developed and evolved differently, partly by natural process and partly on purpose.

According to the PBS article, “Are Americans Ruining English?” British travelers to the new world were apparently impressed by the “purity” of the colonial English in the earliest days of the American colonies. It wasn’t until around 1776 (hmmm, coincidence?) that the two sides of the pond began to complain about the linguistic stylings of the other. Fast forward a couple hundred years and we have Prince Charles quoted by the London Times saying that US English is “very corrupting.” His Royal Highness went on to say that “We must act now to ensure that English—and that, to my way of thinking, means English English—maintains its position as the world language well into the next century.” Well, he’s a prince, so he should know, right? Actually, the comments from the Prince of Wales show a sad lack of knowledge regarding language development.

Any language is bound to change over time, and two varieties of a single language are bound to change in different ways. Even today, in the US, the many different accents still heard can be traced to their origins. I’m not saying that people in the US sound like the people of the eighteenth century where they came from. I’m saying that the different regions, originally populated by people FROM different regions, saw their language evolve differently, often due to physical barriers like mountains or rivers. People notice, for example, that, to this day, the Charles River in Boston separates the stereotypical “paaak ya caaar” from “park your car.” The language heard in the Appalachian region of the US remains different from the rest of the US, a fact often attributed to its extreme isolation and the difficulty of travel to or from the region in its earliest days of settlement. Traces of eighteenth-century English can still be heard there as change has come much more slowly than in coastal urban areas.

When colonists landed in the US, their language began changing. There were new things to talk about, new scenery to describe, new vocations to pursue. US English is not a corrupt version of British English. Rather, both forms of the language evolved differently and separately from their earlier origins. Present-day British English is not closer to that origin than is present-day US English. No matter how “pretty” British English might sound to the American ear, it truly is no more English than is the variety spoken in North America.

You might be interested to know that there are characteristics of modern US English that are much more conservative (that is, more like the earlier ancestor language of both British and US English). For example, US speakers usually retain the “r” in words such as “mother” and “dear” while British speakers have typically dropped it. US speakers still use the lower, flatter “a” sound in words like “class” where British speakers have replaced it with the “a” sound as in “father.” US speakers have retained the past participle form, “gotten” used in addition to “got” where British speakers have lost the former. It goes both ways. British English is more conservative in the distinction of “t” and “d” in words such as “atom” and “Adam” or “ladder” and “latter.” US English tends to use the same consonant in the middle of all these words.

While it is absolutely true that languages develop naturally in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, it turns out that the development of SOME aspects of US English weren’t purely natural. There might have been just a teensy push on the part of one of the world’s most famous wordsmiths.

In a fascinating article by Mignon Fogarty titled “Why we have both ‘Color’ and ‘Colour,” in her “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing” (check out Grammar Girl podcasts and books when you get the chance!), we learn about some interesting manipulation of the language. It turns out that Noah Webster of Webster’s Dictionary fame did a bit more than just transcribe the language in existence.

Webster lived during the time when the US was becoming the US. The US Constitution was ratified after Webster published his first spelling book, but before his first comprehensive dictionary. Webster, in addition to his linguistic contributions, also wrote political essays. He is said to have known George Washington and Benjamin Franklin quite well, and I like to think of the three of them raising a glass of ale together while discussing the latest politics or sharing the latest joke at the local inn. Webster was part of the political movement that wanted the US to become its own country without the British historical influence as quickly as possible. In the beginning, there was even some debate as to whether English should become the primary language of the US or, if it did become the language, whether it should be called “English” (“Columbian” was, at that time, a popular suggestion for the name of the US language). Many, including Webster, thought it was unpatriotic to study ancient Greek, Latin, or Hebrew, rationalizing that the new country needed its own language and needed the population’s focus to be solely on that language.

To that end, Webster initiated one of the most sweeping spelling reforms of all time to separate the languages. He unilaterally made many (not all, of course) of the changes in spelling that we still recognize today. In his spelling books, for example, he taught children to spell the final letter of the alphabet as “zee” rather than “zed.” Prior to his famous dictionary, Webster wrote a smaller work called The Compendious Dictionary; it was in this work that most of the lasting changes to the language were made.

One of the most obvious changes was dropping the “u” in words such as “colour” and “honour.” He dropped the second “l” from words such as “travelled” and “cancelled.” Also changed under Webster’s linguistic authority was “re” to “er” at the end of words such as “theatre” and “s” for “c” in words such as “defence” and “pretence”; “s” became “z” in words such as “patronize.” He officially (because it was in PRINT, y’all!) formalized previously suggested changes such as dropping the final “k” in “magic” and changing “que” to “k” in “risk” (there’s another discussion about how one word becomes two, don’t you think?).

So, although it is a sacred truth that language development is natural and organic, it seems also to be true that languages can sometimes get a little push in a different direction, a push that creates lasting distinguishing marks. Imagine being able to make so many changes to the language just because you want to and for political, rather than linguistic, reasons! Oh, to have the linguistic power of Noah Webster at a time when speakers were open to sweeping change to reflect their new world.

Are you ever just angry and frustrated and feel like letting off a little verbal steam?  David Sedaris, ever the astute life observer, tells us, “When s*^t brings you down just say ‘f*^k it’, and eat yourself some motherf*^king candy.”

Okay, then. While some might quibble with his delivery, there is no question of his message, is there?

It seems that almost everyone has an opinion about swearing (or cursing or cussing) and a judgment of the person who swears. Those opinions can be extreme: from uncreative, unintelligent potty-mouthed sinner to witty, brilliant, expressive wordsmith. The world notices swearing. We see that in children’s giggles and the pursed lips and punishment of teachers and parents. When you really think about it and put aside any emotional, social, or religious aversion, we’re only looking at a bunch of sounds put together just like any other word. An example I’ve often pointed to is “__uck.” It should be obvious that the intended word here is “duck.” No? Maybe “luck.” “Buck”? One single letter, which changes one single sound is the difference between a gasp and, well, nothing. No reaction at all. Why? There’s nothing wrong with the letter “F” or the phoneme /f/. It’s a perfectly appropriate beginning to “fantabulous” or “fudgalicious” among hundreds of other words that are universally inoffensive. There’s also the weird phenomenon that we “allow” substitutes such as “freakin’,” “darn,” “heck,” and “frack” without hesitation. You’re not fooling anyone!

Whatever your personal feeling, you should be aware that multiple studies, both popular and scholarly, have recently noted that swearing is often a sign of high intelligence. It also seems, according to a study at Rochester University, that intelligent people who swear a lot tend to like spicy food and like to walk around their houses naked. While not relevant to the current discussion, this combination of behaviors bears further examination. Lindsay Holmes, in a 2018 Huffpost.com article, says that people who swear just might be happier and healthier (and, obviously, more honest) than those who do not.

In many ways, we’ve come a long way as a culture regarding our views on swearing, but in other ways we’ve remained quite stagnate. In the 1950s, comedian Lenny Bruce went on trial for using obscenities.  Most of his transgressions were in live clubs, not over the airways, which might have reached uninvited into the living rooms of private citizens, but that is what many remember about him to this day rather than his social and political commentary and satire. Twenty years later, George Carlin schooled us on the seven words we can never say on television. Carlin got it right (and led the US into a 1973 Supreme Court ruling on obscenity over the airwaves (FCC v Pacifica)). The only reason Carlin’s bit seems a little outdated now is that television itself has expanded to include cable and streaming platforms. We STILL, well into a new century, can’t say those seven words on network television.

Every language has swear words or ways to make words into swear words.  How did the whole phenomenon of swearing come about? Very generally, cultures develop subjects that are considered taboo. Typically, these subjects include (but are not limited to) sex, death, and bathroom activities. Over time, words are invented or adopted that describe these activities in ways that shock some members of the culture. We call these words “epithets.” For every epithet, languages usually have what is called a “euphemism,” a word or phrase that, shall we say, lessens the emotional impact of the epithet. So, for every “f*rt,” there’s a “pass gas.” For every “f*^k,” there’s a “make love.” Interestingly, in English, most of our favorite swear words come from Germanic origins via Old English. Our more “genteel” or scientific words tend more often to come from Latin origins. For example, “f*^k” is likely from Old English (Germanic) while “fornicate” is from Latin via Middle English.

All of this history doesn’t really help in answering the question of why some people swear more than others or why some people dislike swearing more than others. Maybe it would help if we look at some of the different reasons for swearing. Again, this is certainly not an exhaustive list. For more detail, I recommend some of the articles written by Steven Pinker, a Harvard linguist, psychologist, and cognitive scientist, who has done many detailed studies of the subject. Here, we’ll just look at a few of the more common purposes behind your everyday, garden variety swearing.

One reason we swear is to show others just how awful we think something is.  It can be a judgment, unspecified but obvious. For example, compare “Fosnick (is a fine young man who) makes love like an angel” with “(That cad) Fosnick is currently f*^king his secretary behind his wife’s back.”

Additionally, we might use a swear word for emphasis: It’s not just cold. It’s f*^king cold. It’s not just a load of work. It’s a s*^tload of work. He’s not just a bad person. He’s a mother*^king, rat bas^#rd, a**hole. See? There’s absolutely no doubt as to just how bad a person he is.

Probably the most common reason for swearing is simple catharsis. When you stub your toe or hammer your thumb, you might yell “ouch” or even “OUCH!”  but it FEELS better (at least to me) to let loose with a string of obscenities that would make a stevedore proud but make your poor grandmother or a member of the clergy blush.  When one is alone in the car and a brainless waste of skin cuts you off, isn’t it better to scream obscenities to yourself in your own car than to do pretty much anything else that road ragers tend to do? Of course it is. It hurts no one.

Swearing for catharsis could be more than a matter of personal preference as discovered in a recent study on swearing and pain relief. Emma Byrne, in her book, Swearing is Good for You notes that researchers thought it unlikely that something NOT useful (“maladaptive” in scientific terminology) would so often be USED to adapt. In one simple test, psychologist Richard Stephens allowed 67 test subjects one swear word and one neutral word to use when subjected to pain (putting their hands into ice water for as long as they could). It turned out that, when swearing, the subjects could keep their hands in the water for 50% longer on average than when they were using their neutral word (such as “brown” or “smooth”). While swearing, the subjects’ heart rates increased and pain perception decreased. Every time. As the testers concluded: “Maladaptive, my a^*!”

See? Swearing can be good for you. Isn’t that a f*^king relief?