Abrahamic, air rage, amuse-bouche, annus horribilis, brain freeze, bushmeat, Chinglish, cojones, hinky, false memory... all waiting to be used.
“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."
( H.L. Mencken writing about US President Warren G. Harding)
Wow, that is an amazing speech-and I never heard of it before.
Fwiw, despite the jibes about Harding above, Mencken would have agreed strongly with that speech-he was an anti-New Deal conservative, but also believed in promoting black education and entrepreneurship, and indeed befriended and promoted the work of, many black authors and journalists.
The thing that stands out to me most about this speech, is the higher level of sophistication and literacy being entrusted to public consumption. The dumbing-down of America has a lot to do with our society's inability to communicate, or to think its way out of complex situations. It is as if the Powers That Were decided the average American shouldn't be literate, but instead should strap on the feed-bag of whatever propaganda the elites had pre-selected and pre-digested for them.
If I recall correctly, James Loewen (R.I.P.) wrote about this issue in his mid-90's work Lies My Teacher Told Me, specifically regarding that the level of sophistication/literacy in popular journalism was in free-fall. Although, I also recall his book repeating some of the popular "lies", including the one about Harding being inducted into the KKK on the White House lawn. I don't have my copy handy, so I could be mistaken, but so it goes.
Oh yeah, Wilson was a real piece of work. I think Princeton U. finally removed his name from their buildings. I would not be at all surprised if he was Klan scum.
Mencken is a brilliant writer but I often wonder if he ever looked in the mirror. He was a bastard and an arrogant son of a bitch.
I write knowing who and what I am. I don't think my autism has anything to with it. My parents taught me to look at my own faults before enjoying the foibles of others.
Too many Americans love HL Menken and think DeSantis, Trump and Reagan were wits not imbeciles.
I am reminded of one of my favourite poems written by one of my favourite poets.
he wrote on seeing a louse on a Lady's bonnet in church
This is my favourite reading but you may prefer the English Translation to the original Scottish
In the last line I tried too and to and they both work well but don't share a common meaning. Sometimes two and two don't make four. English is not an easy language to understand but thankfully Americans speak New English or as I learned it sixty years ago Newspeak and they don't like to read it is too much like work.
Wasn’t Noah Webster sentenced to death in absentia in England for adulterating the English language? Although I’ve lived in this country for many years I remain stubbornly English and continue to take great delight in the differences in usage and, in particular, slang usage. Many years ago I was sitting in a bar in Boston with some of my rugby club teammates and started telling a story to them. My opening line was, “so I was sitting there with a fag in my mouth”. Got a number of confused looks from my American teammates.
I am 75 and have lived all over English speaking north America. Time is a major factor as North America has urbanized and TV has destroyed many urban and local rural dialects.. I am 5 and a half hours drive north of Boston. It useed to be common in Quebec to see people with fags in their mouths but now you must go into a closet to put a fag in your mouth but in Quebec there is no such thing as gender, race or religion but alas we don't speak English so the joke doesn't go well in Quebec where we speak our own special languages and we have a whole department for policing language.
So much of English comes from the French and for those of who speak more than one language we can observe word origins. We have tongue police.
In Quebec it is permissible to put a fag in your mouth as long as you don't set her on fire. That is a joke that went off in my head. In 2023 where I live cigarettes have a gender people not so much.
In Quebec it is illegal to put gender race or religion on a birth certificate because we citizens are free to decide if those appellations. In Quebec we do grow wines but appellations are non controlle we are free to call ourselves what we choose to call ourselves. I am a me.
I have a whole government to service my special needs it is called the Department of Autistic affairs because in Quebec autism is real there is no such thing as "normal." We are free to be who we are not what we are. In Quebec we go in to closets to pray so our children do not need to go into closets to make love.
In Johnson's Dictionary I am a Hebrew Rabbin and the wisest of the wise but at seventy five I can still look in the mirror and smile and laugh at human hubris.
In Quebec we must go into closets to pray so our children don't need to go into closets to make love.
In Quebec we don't allow religious zealots on the bench and you have a zealot majority on your Supreme Court.
Do you want to buy a church?
Ours are for sale and they are historical relics. Our churches need people to take care of them and preserve them. OMG in Sherbrooke is a fine restaurant and the library in Magog was once a busy cathedral.
I used to visit Montreal back in the 1980s for the Montreal Irish rugby festival, not sure I would want to do that today. I watch Canadian PM questions time occasionally and there does seem to be some hope in that the opposition leader seems to be less of a fascist than Trudeau. Other than that, pretty much everything I see from Trudeau and state governments seems to be designed to suppress any contrary opinions. The latest example is the bill which demands that on line content must be Canadian or some such nonsense. Of course the legislation doesn’t define what that means but does provide for the establishment of a censorship board appointed by the government and with a complete lack of transparency. I suspect it’s gonna get worse before it gets any better but the same can easily be said about my homeland and my adopted country.
In Canada the one thing that unites us is Ukraine. Our far right and far left prefer Zelenskiy to Biden. We are all looking at Zelenskiy to lead us to the promised land. I am totally in love with Zelensky. The first time I saw him he was playing the piano on youtube and I didn't know his name. I said Diogenes has returned now all we need is Alexander the Great.
I don't care much for conservatives I don't understand their insistence on their right to be insane but even Boris embraces Zelensky and he is definitely a follower of Doctor Samuel Johnson. Talking about old school and Newspeak.
Here are George Soros and our ethical philosopher and chief our Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland talking Ukraine in 2015 at the Institute for New Economic thinking in 2015 talking about the Future of Europe This is what liberalism or wokeism is all about. Of course America is sore afraid of Soros.
Samuel Johnson was an arrogant son of a bitch and a bastard and he helped write the constitution . He wrote the dictionary. He was a conservative philosopher and an 18th century HL Mencken.
His biography is still considered the ultimate biography but his Taxation no Tyranny is fascism before fascism became a word.
On top of the pyramid sits the English middle class because it is the will of God.
Before I forget remembering that Americans don't know history. The Toleration Act and the Reign of William Mary turned the Empire into a parliamentary democracy. The monarchy lost all of its powers the parliaments were the source of all power.
1645- Englands Birth Right Justified; 1649 - An Agreement Of The People; 1688 - Bill Of Rights Act; 1707 - Act Of Union. Many of these agreements and constitutional arguments owe their genesis to the Levellers and “free born” John Lilburne. They are the basis of English constitutional law and strongly inform the US constitution and the Bill of Rights. Although they are still the law of the land they have been ignored by successive Conservative governments in favour of the suppression of free speech and the censorship of any outlet or individual which dares to challenge the official narrative. People are routinely imprisoned in Britain for expressing their opinion, potential trouble makers are preemptively detained without warrant or charge as leading members of the Republic organisation were on the night prior to the coronation, independent journalists are detained for hours so that digital devices can be “scraped” one again without warrant or charges, a protester is arrested and detained for having a sign with nothing written on it. All of this is illegal but then Britain is going down the same road to fascism which Canada has already travelled. Our media completely ignores protests against authoritarian governments all across Western Europe. Meanwhile Hungary is the only Western government which actually asked its people for their opinions on sanctioning Russia and supplying arms to Ukraine. The Hungarian people gave a resounding no to both.
America is a nation of Roundheads and Cavaliers. A good friend whom I trust talks to his brother in Vienna and their mother passed away recently in Budapest and I am told that Orban is 110% fascist but Hungary is Hungary and the University of Central Europe fled Budapest.
We never discuss the most important book in the English Language in 1776. Paradise Lost by the Unitarian John Milton. Isn't this divide the same old query?
Is it better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Samuel Johnson the great literary critic hated Milton. Johnson was a conservative fascist. Burke was a Whig, Franklin was scoundrel and Voltaire was a Frenchman and Boswell was a Scott.
After the genocide in Ireland it was the Tories that begath both liberals and conservatives. America has two Whig parties and no liberals or conservatives.
Parasites (especially the worms among them) and fungi are not to be neglected either as sources of adjectival bombast. The more you write about the government, the more you should use them. I bet Walter does!
It used to be popular among gay men of a certain age of my acquaintance who used it in the surprisingly once-medically-correct phrase, “syphilitic moron.”
I am 75 and autistic I remember bacteria were animals but it is 2023 and bacteria are neither flora nor fauna. They are a life forms as opposed to virus which are not lifeforms.
When Leeuwenhoek first looked at them, he called them "wee beasties." That's good enough for me!
I think only eukaryotes get to be called animals now, but unlike varuses, bacteria are considered living things. Without them, we would not have arisen ourselves, for better or for worse. And birds are now "officially" dinosaurs.
Hey, if Nancy Pelosi gets to be classified as a mammal, than bacteria should be considered animals. Some of them can at least move around on their own.
Eukaryotes reference all organisms, even bacteria that have a nucleus but not all are animals, and viruses are considered as non-living. Birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs, but are not dinosaurs. On the last part about Pelosi you make a very good point. Forgive me, but once a biology teacher always a biology teacher. Can't help myself.
My father in law studied Esox Lucius as an invasive species. He would get upset when people said that was the Latin name. Esox lucius is its name it describes its genetic characteristics it doesn't come from Rome or Latin America. It speaks fish.🤣
I don't want to look. I loved animals and nature, so I majored in biology where I was taught to kill animals, dissect them, and memorize their classification. The 20th century, the century of the environment, conservation, preservation, Silent Spring and Rachel Carson. During that century and pretty far into it a professor offers a course in ornithology and my genetics teacher calls her out for wasting our time with this garbage, and he does it in front of her class. One cause in invertebrate zoology is enough talk about animals, and the environment. That attitude filtered down into the HS and JHS curricula so no wonder people know so little about the environment, or climate change since most were never taught it. So now you have people stopping traffic, throwing tomato juice at works of art and gluing themselves to walls turning most people off. And now you have a president who is full of shit too when it comes to the environment, because they have come up with so many ways to turn people off.
I can no longer tell the honest bullshit (i.e., genuine lack of knowledge) from the purposeful destruction of science these days. I get it. I had a great biology teacher in the 1980s whose passion for the intricacies of living things was infectious. I'm glad you get to be a teacher back when science expertise in the educational class was highly valued.
Fran, bless your pea pickin heart I know the frustration I was reading The Ecologist in the seventies and Orwell in the sixties and 21st century.
Mark Twain said it best.
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have no influence.
Fred C. Koch's John Birch Society helped Reagan become governor of California. Today the GOP_ is Fred C Koch's Party except I am the enemy and many Catholics make good fascists.
Orwell's Stalin said "All men are created equal but some are more equal than others. " Fred C Koch studied leadership under Stalin.
I read a lot of Orwell and his essays tell us 1984 is not science fiction.
I live in a liberal democracy where race, gender and religion are not real and our kings and queens are our ethical philosophers and our politicians our managers are not ownership.
No fossil fuel burning after 2030 and no religion now and forever. We are rich and getting richer and I remember the Alamo and the American invasion and steal of the Mexican State of Texas.. Quebec is twice the size of Texas and Mexico banned slavery in 1829. The American invaders wanted to plant cotton so slavery was re-established. I remember the Saint Patrick's Battalion who quit the American side and joined the Mexicans in the defense of their homeland. Mexico didn't treat Catholics as sub humans in 1836.
We are secular and humanist and in America that is worse than communist or fascist and we the people are rich, educated and content. We are not afraid of Russian Imperialism. We have Maine, New Hampshire , Vermont and New York on our border and you invaded twice before and stole much of of our land. You can't trust empires. Whether London, Paris, New York, Moscow or Beijing. Like Ukraine we want sovereignty not slavery.
"...Organisms in the Eukarya include 5 kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protozoa and Chromista."
"The protozoans and chromistans are single-celled organisms that have membrane-bound organelles and nuclei. Fungi includes mushrooms, molds, and yeasts. Plantae is a large and diverse group that contains everything from single-celled algae to the largest organisms on the planet: trees. The Animalia contains most of the typical multi-celled organism that we would see in a zoo."
Fran don't pound us over the head with taxonomy. My father in law was an ichthyologist with a Master's degree in Conservation Science from Michigan. He was born in 1912 and shared dorm with Arthur Miller.
Science is the study of evolution. We are always only beginning.
Only religion offers alpha and omega.
Here in Quebec we have outlawed religion in politics and education and teach Darwin.
The speed of light is no longer a constant. There is no such thing as a light year we can bring light to a stop in the laboratory. Some snakes lay eggs other give birth to baby snakes just like sharks. There is only one human race but my genes say I am part Neanderthal. Noah is Biblical allegory our genes speak our history back to protozoans.
The problem with science as Isaac Newton said is "WE are standing on the shoulders of giants" and we always believe we are touching the sky.
I just saw your comment and no one is pounding anyone over the head with taxonomy. So your grandfather has a degree in fishes, with a Masters in Conservation, and I have a Masters in Marine biology. Yes, science evolves, which is nothing I don't know, and sometimes we hold on dogmatically to ideas which are not true. One of the first books I read as a teen was The Cry and the Covenant, which brings that point home dramatically. Why did you think I needed this lesson? I don't dogmatically hold on to ideas proven wrong, and in terms of what I stated here, which is not my personal opinion, but simply the consensus in science at this point in terms of how life is defined, no nucleus, it's not a living entity. Maybe someday it will be considered living, but it is not my major concern at the moment.
Reste tranquille. I was making a joke. Do you completely lack an education in literature? I was being totally complimentary and you understood it as an insult. I write for me and my own enjoyment. I am 75 and autistic. You are obviously informed and educated. Did you not study literature in school? I know they don't teach history but how do you understand the world without history.\I was making a science joke . I didn't think I needed to translate.
I share your consensus but science is fun or we shouldn't be doing it.
Haven't you read Mark Twain. I just gave my second copy of The Gospels According to Mark Twain. Didn't you study America's greatest philosopher in School?
Twain believed in evolution and understood evolution is not the same as progress.
I have salamanders toads frogs and orange striped bumble bees in my garden. I want Monsanto kept out of Quebec and in Quebec we are fighting a winning battle even as we are blamed for the bad air we go fossil fuel free in seven years and more and more forests belong to the public. In Quebec corporations have the same rights as non sentient beings.
I know how tough it is being a scientist I thought you needed to hear a joke.
Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa..
Inb Sherbrooke the only lawns that draw respect are public parks we need our birds and bees and flowers and trees.
In Quebec animals and plants and even bacteria have rights. Corporations, governments and churches have no rights only privileges and polluting our environment is a crime against all of us but we are a democracy and you are an empire.
I have no reputation to protect. I should never have gotten a high school diploma I can't do illogic. I am autistic I am a genius at abstract math and linguistics and can't understand sophistry.
I broke my NY's resolution to like that. Res was to work harder at being nice. However, that is a good one! But, gotta say that she and Trump are probably lizard people.
"...Some scientists even consider viruses to be organisms, as they are self-replicating information molecules usually protected by a protein shell."
"The virus then uses the mechanisms of a cell it infects to replicate itself. Proponents of classifying the virus as an organism point this out, while other scientists note that unlike a living organism, the virus does not create or store energy or the mechanisms to do so."
Thank you I didn't know it was syphilitic. I always thought it was syphlitic.. At 75 I am still learning how to spell. Can I rule out either Alzheimer's or Dementia?
Jon Stewart I believe was the first to call McConnell the “turtle” bc he moved so slow on upgrading health care for first responders and McConnells face screams turtle .. Jon has since gone on to intersect a turtle with a bat to joke about the origins of COVID in Wuhan...He likes saying turtle.
Matt’s style of writing is what lured me in many years ago. It was actually a sports piece, something about which I know or care little! Surely a testament to his talent.
“Teachers often say it’s a no-no to make readers look something up, but I got an extra laugh pausing to learn Humbert was comparing Lolita’s lounging mother to a seal.” -This is the gut laugh joy I get from Mencken.
I love everything you write: pragmatic yet with flair. I’ve come to writing for my actual job later in my life - and it’s tech writing (yawn). But as I look to improve at work, your writing tips are getting filed alongside my favorite mentor’s. Thanks for this. Please keep them coming.
There's something to be said for tech writing. In my limited experience, I have mostly seen it done poorly.
It's a challenge to get complicated ideas across. You want to keep it lean (Matt's rule #1), but there can be many important details to convey. And if you can somehow keep the boringness down without being cute, that's the ultimate.
---
I'm a retired accountant and have written many long financial reports and procedure manuals over my career.
I would occasionally take an hour or two over a weekend to write some short fiction, just to spread my wings (waiting for Matt's guidance on cliches). It was refreshing.
Good to know what you are doing! I was a science grant program manager for many years, and one of my difficult tasks was taking writing by a scientist about a new discovery and converting the information to a form that management could understand.
Oh I agree especially about reading the work of other great writers. It’s surprising how much vocabulary and style sinks in subconsciously and reemerges later. I sometimes think I collect words the way that others collect baseball cards. (Platypus has always been one of my favorites.) I’ve recently started studying the etymology of words. Thank you for the effort you put into your craft and sharing what you’ve learned. While I can admit that text messages serve a useful purpose, if I was reduced to reading nothing but texts and tweets filled with acronyms and devoid of punctuation, my appetite for delicious words in a well-crafted sentence would starve to death.
Can't wait to dive in to the list. I'm in agreement. It's frabjous to look up new words. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a slubberdegullion. Okay, that's going a bit too far. 😂 Recently learned my sister is a pluviophile. Well, I knew she was, but I didn't know what it was called. Thanks, Matt!
Well, I'd never use lickspittle; smellfungus; snollygoster; ninnyhammer; mumpsimus; milksop; mollycoddle; hobbledehoy; pettyfogger to address anyone in a Matt's Thread and for sure not someone whose sister is a pluviophile.
Speaking of which, how one could resist remembering Umberto Eco and his "tetrapyloctomy" or the art of splitting a hair four ways? His "mechanical avunculogratulation," for example, is a set of instructions on how to build machines for greeting uncles.
But what would wordsmiths be without a mathematician? Charles Babbage's letter to Alfred Tennyson:
"Sir:
In your otherwise beautiful poem “The Vision of Sin” there is a verse which reads – “Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born.” It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death.
I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read – “Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born.” The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry.
As an individual of limited means and modest constitution, I would never dare to criticize or engage in idle talk, meaningless chatter, or nonsensical babble with someone as refined and sophisticated as Wyllamizer TootToot.
Out of all the words to use in this world, I can think of none fitting to top your response. Well written, sir! But I will pour out feelings.. Poor mathematicians. To miss out on meaning because... Math... 😔
I was pretty happy with myself when, on another blog, I described California as being at the bottom of the hole, digging for China like a badger. Upon reconsideration, I should have said "rabid badger." Oh well, next time.
This is great. I've also enjoyed just making words up. Sometimes it's obvious what they mean in context, and they can be far more fun and colorful than any existing word.
Like "xenophobiated".
It may be a post on this is coming up, as it's a common practice for those who like language.
Yep, as Paul himself said in Romans 4:17. . . . “ and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” Every word ever used somebody made up from nothing.
Abrahamic, air rage, amuse-bouche, annus horribilis, brain freeze, bushmeat, Chinglish, cojones, hinky, false memory... all waiting to be used.
“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."
( H.L. Mencken writing about US President Warren G. Harding)
But Harding's substance was magnificent!
His address in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 26, 1921, is considered one of the ~25 most important Presidential addresses of all time.
If you haven't read this speech, it is here:
https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/warren-g-harding-address-at-birmingham-speech-text/
His major point starts in paragraph 12 and continues through the rest of the speech.
It is truly remarkable that President Harding made this speech in the very center of the deep south.
Wow, that is an amazing speech-and I never heard of it before.
Fwiw, despite the jibes about Harding above, Mencken would have agreed strongly with that speech-he was an anti-New Deal conservative, but also believed in promoting black education and entrepreneurship, and indeed befriended and promoted the work of, many black authors and journalists.
Thank you for adding this information.
Thank you for this recommendation and link.
The thing that stands out to me most about this speech, is the higher level of sophistication and literacy being entrusted to public consumption. The dumbing-down of America has a lot to do with our society's inability to communicate, or to think its way out of complex situations. It is as if the Powers That Were decided the average American shouldn't be literate, but instead should strap on the feed-bag of whatever propaganda the elites had pre-selected and pre-digested for them.
If I recall correctly, James Loewen (R.I.P.) wrote about this issue in his mid-90's work Lies My Teacher Told Me, specifically regarding that the level of sophistication/literacy in popular journalism was in free-fall. Although, I also recall his book repeating some of the popular "lies", including the one about Harding being inducted into the KKK on the White House lawn. I don't have my copy handy, so I could be mistaken, but so it goes.
Thank you for some very good points.
Woodrow Wilson was the KKK supporter. Indeed he revived it so it reached 4 million members in the 1920s.
Oh yeah, Wilson was a real piece of work. I think Princeton U. finally removed his name from their buildings. I would not be at all surprised if he was Klan scum.
excellent! 🙏🏽
why do you say that? meanwhile he would have had my vote
That is truly wonderful!
Love this
Priceless!
If you don’t love HL Mencken after reading both about him and prescient samples of his work, you probably aren’t much fun to be around.
Harding did come up with "Normalcy" though 😂
I mean not entirely, but he popularized it.
God, "Return to Normalcy" would be a great 2024 slogan.
I'd rather anything but that.
Mencken is a national treasure as a writer and observer of We the People. He's also funny as hell without being jokey, a rare talent.
Mencken is a brilliant writer but I often wonder if he ever looked in the mirror. He was a bastard and an arrogant son of a bitch.
I write knowing who and what I am. I don't think my autism has anything to with it. My parents taught me to look at my own faults before enjoying the foibles of others.
Too many Americans love HL Menken and think DeSantis, Trump and Reagan were wits not imbeciles.
I am reminded of one of my favourite poems written by one of my favourite poets.
he wrote on seeing a louse on a Lady's bonnet in church
This is my favourite reading but you may prefer the English Translation to the original Scottish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsC-Aumx4dk
Oh, to see ourselves as others see us
Too many Americans understand Burns and are ashamed of the label. I know America its people are the world.
In the last line I tried too and to and they both work well but don't share a common meaning. Sometimes two and two don't make four. English is not an easy language to understand but thankfully Americans speak New English or as I learned it sixty years ago Newspeak and they don't like to read it is too much like work.
Wasn’t Noah Webster sentenced to death in absentia in England for adulterating the English language? Although I’ve lived in this country for many years I remain stubbornly English and continue to take great delight in the differences in usage and, in particular, slang usage. Many years ago I was sitting in a bar in Boston with some of my rugby club teammates and started telling a story to them. My opening line was, “so I was sitting there with a fag in my mouth”. Got a number of confused looks from my American teammates.
I am 75 and have lived all over English speaking north America. Time is a major factor as North America has urbanized and TV has destroyed many urban and local rural dialects.. I am 5 and a half hours drive north of Boston. It useed to be common in Quebec to see people with fags in their mouths but now you must go into a closet to put a fag in your mouth but in Quebec there is no such thing as gender, race or religion but alas we don't speak English so the joke doesn't go well in Quebec where we speak our own special languages and we have a whole department for policing language.
So much of English comes from the French and for those of who speak more than one language we can observe word origins. We have tongue police.
In Quebec it is permissible to put a fag in your mouth as long as you don't set her on fire. That is a joke that went off in my head. In 2023 where I live cigarettes have a gender people not so much.
In Quebec it is illegal to put gender race or religion on a birth certificate because we citizens are free to decide if those appellations. In Quebec we do grow wines but appellations are non controlle we are free to call ourselves what we choose to call ourselves. I am a me.
I have a whole government to service my special needs it is called the Department of Autistic affairs because in Quebec autism is real there is no such thing as "normal." We are free to be who we are not what we are. In Quebec we go in to closets to pray so our children do not need to go into closets to make love.
In Johnson's Dictionary I am a Hebrew Rabbin and the wisest of the wise but at seventy five I can still look in the mirror and smile and laugh at human hubris.
In Quebec we must go into closets to pray so our children don't need to go into closets to make love.
In Quebec we don't allow religious zealots on the bench and you have a zealot majority on your Supreme Court.
Do you want to buy a church?
Ours are for sale and they are historical relics. Our churches need people to take care of them and preserve them. OMG in Sherbrooke is a fine restaurant and the library in Magog was once a busy cathedral.
I used to visit Montreal back in the 1980s for the Montreal Irish rugby festival, not sure I would want to do that today. I watch Canadian PM questions time occasionally and there does seem to be some hope in that the opposition leader seems to be less of a fascist than Trudeau. Other than that, pretty much everything I see from Trudeau and state governments seems to be designed to suppress any contrary opinions. The latest example is the bill which demands that on line content must be Canadian or some such nonsense. Of course the legislation doesn’t define what that means but does provide for the establishment of a censorship board appointed by the government and with a complete lack of transparency. I suspect it’s gonna get worse before it gets any better but the same can easily be said about my homeland and my adopted country.
In Canada the one thing that unites us is Ukraine. Our far right and far left prefer Zelenskiy to Biden. We are all looking at Zelenskiy to lead us to the promised land. I am totally in love with Zelensky. The first time I saw him he was playing the piano on youtube and I didn't know his name. I said Diogenes has returned now all we need is Alexander the Great.
I don't care much for conservatives I don't understand their insistence on their right to be insane but even Boris embraces Zelensky and he is definitely a follower of Doctor Samuel Johnson. Talking about old school and Newspeak.
Here are George Soros and our ethical philosopher and chief our Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland talking Ukraine in 2015 at the Institute for New Economic thinking in 2015 talking about the Future of Europe This is what liberalism or wokeism is all about. Of course America is sore afraid of Soros.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdUaEE7mr2w
In Quebec the Patron Saint was John the Baptist whose head was served on a silver platter.
Samuel Johnson was an arrogant son of a bitch and a bastard and he helped write the constitution . He wrote the dictionary. He was a conservative philosopher and an 18th century HL Mencken.
His biography is still considered the ultimate biography but his Taxation no Tyranny is fascism before fascism became a word.
On top of the pyramid sits the English middle class because it is the will of God.
Before I forget remembering that Americans don't know history. The Toleration Act and the Reign of William Mary turned the Empire into a parliamentary democracy. The monarchy lost all of its powers the parliaments were the source of all power.
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/act-of-toleration-1689/
I thought Virginia's understandings most agreeable to everybody from far left to far right.
I am Jewish and autistic . How conformist is that? I know that Noah is great literature but not history.
We read the same book every year and every year its meaning becomes more and more meaningful. It is poetry not prose.
1645- Englands Birth Right Justified; 1649 - An Agreement Of The People; 1688 - Bill Of Rights Act; 1707 - Act Of Union. Many of these agreements and constitutional arguments owe their genesis to the Levellers and “free born” John Lilburne. They are the basis of English constitutional law and strongly inform the US constitution and the Bill of Rights. Although they are still the law of the land they have been ignored by successive Conservative governments in favour of the suppression of free speech and the censorship of any outlet or individual which dares to challenge the official narrative. People are routinely imprisoned in Britain for expressing their opinion, potential trouble makers are preemptively detained without warrant or charge as leading members of the Republic organisation were on the night prior to the coronation, independent journalists are detained for hours so that digital devices can be “scraped” one again without warrant or charges, a protester is arrested and detained for having a sign with nothing written on it. All of this is illegal but then Britain is going down the same road to fascism which Canada has already travelled. Our media completely ignores protests against authoritarian governments all across Western Europe. Meanwhile Hungary is the only Western government which actually asked its people for their opinions on sanctioning Russia and supplying arms to Ukraine. The Hungarian people gave a resounding no to both.
America is a nation of Roundheads and Cavaliers. A good friend whom I trust talks to his brother in Vienna and their mother passed away recently in Budapest and I am told that Orban is 110% fascist but Hungary is Hungary and the University of Central Europe fled Budapest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_European_University
We never discuss the most important book in the English Language in 1776. Paradise Lost by the Unitarian John Milton. Isn't this divide the same old query?
Is it better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Samuel Johnson the great literary critic hated Milton. Johnson was a conservative fascist. Burke was a Whig, Franklin was scoundrel and Voltaire was a Frenchman and Boswell was a Scott.
After the genocide in Ireland it was the Tories that begath both liberals and conservatives. America has two Whig parties and no liberals or conservatives.
wow. (giggle)
I think that essay is called "Gamalielese".
Harding : Master of bloviation. No wonder he was so popular.
Does "syphilitic" count? Spirochetes are bacteria, which in turn are considered animals.
Never thought of that. Syphilitic is a great word.
Parasites (especially the worms among them) and fungi are not to be neglected either as sources of adjectival bombast. The more you write about the government, the more you should use them. I bet Walter does!
Lacertine could be applied to everyone in D.C.
A wonder of paronomastic flippery must be hiding in the parasitic world.
But we have been reading 'syphilitic' in France for ages. We know what it means.
English speakers who know French can often forgo a dictionary for the three-and four-syllable words.
It used to be popular among gay men of a certain age of my acquaintance who used it in the surprisingly once-medically-correct phrase, “syphilitic moron.”
Sybaritic.
Philistine.
Yankee
That's my word! Love it!
Yankee
Syphilitic certainly seems to describe several politicians I can think of.
I am 75 and autistic I remember bacteria were animals but it is 2023 and bacteria are neither flora nor fauna. They are a life forms as opposed to virus which are not lifeforms.
https://www.britannica.com/science/bacteria
Sounds like a good word to describe the Censorship Industrial Complex Syphilitic or bacteria. Thanks!
I practice what I preach, even if what I preach is sometimes soaked in references to community-acquired crotch rot:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Akevinbeck.substack.com+%22syphilitic%22
When did bacteria become defined as animals?
When Leeuwenhoek first looked at them, he called them "wee beasties." That's good enough for me!
I think only eukaryotes get to be called animals now, but unlike varuses, bacteria are considered living things. Without them, we would not have arisen ourselves, for better or for worse. And birds are now "officially" dinosaurs.
Hey, if Nancy Pelosi gets to be classified as a mammal, than bacteria should be considered animals. Some of them can at least move around on their own.
Eukaryotes reference all organisms, even bacteria that have a nucleus but not all are animals, and viruses are considered as non-living. Birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs, but are not dinosaurs. On the last part about Pelosi you make a very good point. Forgive me, but once a biology teacher always a biology teacher. Can't help myself.
"Eukaryotes reference all organisms"
Even prokaryotes?
Also, the taxonomists have been active since you last looked:
https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/12/21/its-official-birds-are-literally-dinosaurs-heres-how-we-know/#:~:text=Birds%20belong%20to%20the%20theropod,(150%20million%20years%20ago).
If they didn't periodically mess with the classification systems, what else would they have to do?
Kevin, Science is philosophy. Philosophy is the study of evolution.
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=philosophy
My father in law studied Esox Lucius as an invasive species. He would get upset when people said that was the Latin name. Esox lucius is its name it describes its genetic characteristics it doesn't come from Rome or Latin America. It speaks fish.🤣
I don't want to look. I loved animals and nature, so I majored in biology where I was taught to kill animals, dissect them, and memorize their classification. The 20th century, the century of the environment, conservation, preservation, Silent Spring and Rachel Carson. During that century and pretty far into it a professor offers a course in ornithology and my genetics teacher calls her out for wasting our time with this garbage, and he does it in front of her class. One cause in invertebrate zoology is enough talk about animals, and the environment. That attitude filtered down into the HS and JHS curricula so no wonder people know so little about the environment, or climate change since most were never taught it. So now you have people stopping traffic, throwing tomato juice at works of art and gluing themselves to walls turning most people off. And now you have a president who is full of shit too when it comes to the environment, because they have come up with so many ways to turn people off.
I can no longer tell the honest bullshit (i.e., genuine lack of knowledge) from the purposeful destruction of science these days. I get it. I had a great biology teacher in the 1980s whose passion for the intricacies of living things was infectious. I'm glad you get to be a teacher back when science expertise in the educational class was highly valued.
Fran, bless your pea pickin heart I know the frustration I was reading The Ecologist in the seventies and Orwell in the sixties and 21st century.
Mark Twain said it best.
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have no influence.
Fred C. Koch's John Birch Society helped Reagan become governor of California. Today the GOP_ is Fred C Koch's Party except I am the enemy and many Catholics make good fascists.
Orwell's Stalin said "All men are created equal but some are more equal than others. " Fred C Koch studied leadership under Stalin.
I read a lot of Orwell and his essays tell us 1984 is not science fiction.
I live in a liberal democracy where race, gender and religion are not real and our kings and queens are our ethical philosophers and our politicians our managers are not ownership.
No fossil fuel burning after 2030 and no religion now and forever. We are rich and getting richer and I remember the Alamo and the American invasion and steal of the Mexican State of Texas.. Quebec is twice the size of Texas and Mexico banned slavery in 1829. The American invaders wanted to plant cotton so slavery was re-established. I remember the Saint Patrick's Battalion who quit the American side and joined the Mexicans in the defense of their homeland. Mexico didn't treat Catholics as sub humans in 1836.
We are secular and humanist and in America that is worse than communist or fascist and we the people are rich, educated and content. We are not afraid of Russian Imperialism. We have Maine, New Hampshire , Vermont and New York on our border and you invaded twice before and stole much of of our land. You can't trust empires. Whether London, Paris, New York, Moscow or Beijing. Like Ukraine we want sovereignty not slavery.
"...Organisms in the Eukarya include 5 kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protozoa and Chromista."
"The protozoans and chromistans are single-celled organisms that have membrane-bound organelles and nuclei. Fungi includes mushrooms, molds, and yeasts. Plantae is a large and diverse group that contains everything from single-celled algae to the largest organisms on the planet: trees. The Animalia contains most of the typical multi-celled organism that we would see in a zoo."
Fran don't pound us over the head with taxonomy. My father in law was an ichthyologist with a Master's degree in Conservation Science from Michigan. He was born in 1912 and shared dorm with Arthur Miller.
Science is the study of evolution. We are always only beginning.
Only religion offers alpha and omega.
Here in Quebec we have outlawed religion in politics and education and teach Darwin.
The speed of light is no longer a constant. There is no such thing as a light year we can bring light to a stop in the laboratory. Some snakes lay eggs other give birth to baby snakes just like sharks. There is only one human race but my genes say I am part Neanderthal. Noah is Biblical allegory our genes speak our history back to protozoans.
The problem with science as Isaac Newton said is "WE are standing on the shoulders of giants" and we always believe we are touching the sky.
You might consider reading Darwin's Black Box. It convinced me (and others) that what I'd been taught about evolution didn't really make sense.
And it was written from a completely scientific perspective. Propaganda is everywhere.
I just saw your comment and no one is pounding anyone over the head with taxonomy. So your grandfather has a degree in fishes, with a Masters in Conservation, and I have a Masters in Marine biology. Yes, science evolves, which is nothing I don't know, and sometimes we hold on dogmatically to ideas which are not true. One of the first books I read as a teen was The Cry and the Covenant, which brings that point home dramatically. Why did you think I needed this lesson? I don't dogmatically hold on to ideas proven wrong, and in terms of what I stated here, which is not my personal opinion, but simply the consensus in science at this point in terms of how life is defined, no nucleus, it's not a living entity. Maybe someday it will be considered living, but it is not my major concern at the moment.
Reste tranquille. I was making a joke. Do you completely lack an education in literature? I was being totally complimentary and you understood it as an insult. I write for me and my own enjoyment. I am 75 and autistic. You are obviously informed and educated. Did you not study literature in school? I know they don't teach history but how do you understand the world without history.\I was making a science joke . I didn't think I needed to translate.
I share your consensus but science is fun or we shouldn't be doing it.
Haven't you read Mark Twain. I just gave my second copy of The Gospels According to Mark Twain. Didn't you study America's greatest philosopher in School?
Twain believed in evolution and understood evolution is not the same as progress.
I have salamanders toads frogs and orange striped bumble bees in my garden. I want Monsanto kept out of Quebec and in Quebec we are fighting a winning battle even as we are blamed for the bad air we go fossil fuel free in seven years and more and more forests belong to the public. In Quebec corporations have the same rights as non sentient beings.
I know how tough it is being a scientist I thought you needed to hear a joke.
Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa..
Inb Sherbrooke the only lawns that draw respect are public parks we need our birds and bees and flowers and trees.
https://www.latribune.ca/partenaires/comment-ca-va/2023/05/19/protection-des-milieux-naturels-pour-lamour-des-environs-JQ5JU2NE45GK3CXAFXGPSEPCSY/
In Quebec animals and plants and even bacteria have rights. Corporations, governments and churches have no rights only privileges and polluting our environment is a crime against all of us but we are a democracy and you are an empire.
I have no reputation to protect. I should never have gotten a high school diploma I can't do illogic. I am autistic I am a genius at abstract math and linguistics and can't understand sophistry.
Nancy who?
It’s a being, though just barely.
You're talking about Pelosi, right?
I broke my NY's resolution to like that. Res was to work harder at being nice. However, that is a good one! But, gotta say that she and Trump are probably lizard people.
No, that's not how organisms are classified if you really meant what you said. Bacteria are living, usually one celled organisms, but not animals.
[Jeez, the edit feature is difficult!]
I'm not a biologist so probably can't define an organism ...
I meant it is a thing with what we commonly think of as having "life" functions. Unlike a virus?
Your right it is a living thing, and so far I think they still define viruses as non-living.
"...Some scientists even consider viruses to be organisms, as they are self-replicating information molecules usually protected by a protein shell."
"The virus then uses the mechanisms of a cell it infects to replicate itself. Proponents of classifying the virus as an organism point this out, while other scientists note that unlike a living organism, the virus does not create or store energy or the mechanisms to do so."
oh yes it counts. in so many many ways
Thank you I didn't know it was syphilitic. I always thought it was syphlitic.. At 75 I am still learning how to spell. Can I rule out either Alzheimer's or Dementia?
Yuck!
This is brilliant, Matt at his best. This needs to be a book.
Or at least a sortable spreadsheet with the seven duplicate entries removed:
https://mitchbarrie.net/files/stats_and_articles/Animal_Adjectives_List.xls
Agreed! A book!
I could help here because I read and read.
When I go into a Bookshop I look for my favorite Authors. IF they are not there I walk out.
I am quite capable of finding books on websites.
Patrick White: read him.
The Tree of Man
Yes.
Voss
Where is Rule #1?
I'm sorry. I took it for What not Where. https://www.racket.news/p/a-brief-note-on-writing/comments
Trash most of your writing. Why, because its trash I guess or finding confluence?
Testudine, would that be Mitch McConnell?
“Testudine” is too nice for McConnell. I think lacertine is best.
True enough
Lizards are too nice for DC
My first thought: https://youtu.be/YtKcE31UsSk
That makes sense lol
McConnell the turtle or McConnell the tortoise?
Jon Stewart I believe was the first to call McConnell the “turtle” bc he moved so slow on upgrading health care for first responders and McConnells face screams turtle .. Jon has since gone on to intersect a turtle with a bat to joke about the origins of COVID in Wuhan...He likes saying turtle.
Thank you. A nice break from stories of Stasi and Gestapo.
It doesn’t surprise me that people who read Matt love interesting words. Looking up a few words isn’t a burden for those who appreciate good writing.
Matt’s style of writing is what lured me in many years ago. It was actually a sports piece, something about which I know or care little! Surely a testament to his talent.
In my browser, if I double-click on a word, it offers to search for the meaning, so even the burden is small.
O Matt... is the fellow in this video you?
you better watch this after that librarian crack
https://youtu.be/4GDT6oVCdCE?t=33
That’s hilarious!
As I commented on it, shades of Edgar Allen Poe. The Cask of Amontillado with a pseudo-seduction in glasses!
Loved it! And I've found being on the good side of librarians has saved me a fine more than once.
That YouTube is a must view!
It is a librarian dream. (I am a librarian).
Somehow I remembered you were a librarian from a different post. The gum under the desk was definitely a Matt move don’t ya think? Lol
I do. Also he alluded to filing cards so that made me know to post that video.
“Teachers often say it’s a no-no to make readers look something up, but I got an extra laugh pausing to learn Humbert was comparing Lolita’s lounging mother to a seal.” -This is the gut laugh joy I get from Mencken.
I love everything you write: pragmatic yet with flair. I’ve come to writing for my actual job later in my life - and it’s tech writing (yawn). But as I look to improve at work, your writing tips are getting filed alongside my favorite mentor’s. Thanks for this. Please keep them coming.
There's something to be said for tech writing. In my limited experience, I have mostly seen it done poorly.
It's a challenge to get complicated ideas across. You want to keep it lean (Matt's rule #1), but there can be many important details to convey. And if you can somehow keep the boringness down without being cute, that's the ultimate.
---
I'm a retired accountant and have written many long financial reports and procedure manuals over my career.
I would occasionally take an hour or two over a weekend to write some short fiction, just to spread my wings (waiting for Matt's guidance on cliches). It was refreshing.
Good to know what you are doing! I was a science grant program manager for many years, and one of my difficult tasks was taking writing by a scientist about a new discovery and converting the information to a form that management could understand.
Oh I agree especially about reading the work of other great writers. It’s surprising how much vocabulary and style sinks in subconsciously and reemerges later. I sometimes think I collect words the way that others collect baseball cards. (Platypus has always been one of my favorites.) I’ve recently started studying the etymology of words. Thank you for the effort you put into your craft and sharing what you’ve learned. While I can admit that text messages serve a useful purpose, if I was reduced to reading nothing but texts and tweets filled with acronyms and devoid of punctuation, my appetite for delicious words in a well-crafted sentence would starve to death.
Can't wait to dive in to the list. I'm in agreement. It's frabjous to look up new words. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a slubberdegullion. Okay, that's going a bit too far. 😂 Recently learned my sister is a pluviophile. Well, I knew she was, but I didn't know what it was called. Thanks, Matt!
Well, I'd never use lickspittle; smellfungus; snollygoster; ninnyhammer; mumpsimus; milksop; mollycoddle; hobbledehoy; pettyfogger to address anyone in a Matt's Thread and for sure not someone whose sister is a pluviophile.
Speaking of which, how one could resist remembering Umberto Eco and his "tetrapyloctomy" or the art of splitting a hair four ways? His "mechanical avunculogratulation," for example, is a set of instructions on how to build machines for greeting uncles.
But what would wordsmiths be without a mathematician? Charles Babbage's letter to Alfred Tennyson:
"Sir:
In your otherwise beautiful poem “The Vision of Sin” there is a verse which reads – “Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born.” It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death.
I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read – “Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born.” The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
Charles Babbage"
Also, thank you for not calling me all those beautiful insults.
As an individual of limited means and modest constitution, I would never dare to criticize or engage in idle talk, meaningless chatter, or nonsensical babble with someone as refined and sophisticated as Wyllamizer TootToot.
😂 🤣 🤣 (not literally rofl, but literally lol)
Out of all the words to use in this world, I can think of none fitting to top your response. Well written, sir! But I will pour out feelings.. Poor mathematicians. To miss out on meaning because... Math... 😔
😂 (My husband is one.)
That’s a new word for me. One dictionary couldn’t identify pluviophile. To me it’s a wonderful world because I love rain.
Many a song has been written about rain. Deservedly so.
Frabjous, I almost thought u made that up..that’s a fun one!
It was in a movie about a spelling bee.
What should the people do once they realize their Constitutional Republic has fallen prey to vulturine institutions?
Be scared as heck..since the alternative is dastardly..vote differently
I was pretty happy with myself when, on another blog, I described California as being at the bottom of the hole, digging for China like a badger. Upon reconsideration, I should have said "rabid badger." Oh well, next time.
I think you might reach Pakistan/India where there are probably no badgers!
People in Michigan and Wisconsin know there is no such thing as a rabid badger. Badgers are born rabid just like wolverines.
Badger and wolverine already say rabid; that is their metaphysics.
The animal list is also a great source of words for scrabble!
That is great sir, appreciate good wordsmiths!
My reading skills are limited to a tape measure or a wiring diagram.
Myself am a dumbass when it comes to words.
Some of my favorites are uh... umm, oh , ah ha, ok, yep .
Me is a word butcher... LoL
This is great. I've also enjoyed just making words up. Sometimes it's obvious what they mean in context, and they can be far more fun and colorful than any existing word.
Like "xenophobiated".
It may be a post on this is coming up, as it's a common practice for those who like language.
like Fictionary
Yep, as Paul himself said in Romans 4:17. . . . “ and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” Every word ever used somebody made up from nothing.