Biden Expresses Regret for Calling Laken Riley’s Alleged Killer ‘an Illegal’ https://t.co/McWvsZB68h — Paul Epps (@paulepps) March 11, 2024 There’s so much about this that I don’t like. He doesn’t express regret for an immigration policy that allows people to enter the country illegally and to stay in the country even after being arrested for multiple crimes. He doesn’t express regret for a young woman being murdered as a result of that policy. There’s no moral equivalence between word games and murder. It’s beyond contemptible. Anyone who thinks it’s important to tell people how to speak, what words they can and can’t use, is a person to be ignored and shunned. As a free citizen, I’ll speak the way I want to. Biden was given a secure border and instructions on how to keep it secure. He issued close to 100 executive orders undoing everything the previous administration had done.… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Language
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Sometimes when two people are leaving each other’s company, one of them will say as a parting shot, “Stay out of trouble.” It doesn’t make sense, except as something to say to someone who’s in serious trouble all the time. Otherwise, it sounds like the speaker is trying to position both people involved as affable rakes who might stir up a bit of naughty fun from time to time, no harm done, that sort of thing. When someone says “Stay out of trouble” to me, I respond by saying “You too” and then Swatting them. Read more →
Cats and Puppies
Pregnant Transgender Man Gets Backlash Over Glamour UK Pride Issue: “I’m A Pregnant Man, And I’m Trans” — msn.com He’s going to have a hard time pushing the baby out his dick. Is an OB/GYN involved in the process? Why would a man go to an OB/GYN? “My dog identifies as a cat. You know what that means?” “No, what?” “A cat can have puppies.” It’s just a silly word game . . . Abraham Lincoln used to ask “How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?” The answer is four. As Abe would point out, calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. And calling a woman a man doesn’t make her a man. Read more →
How to Tell If You’re a Violent Extremist
NEW: Docs we obtained show how @FBI equates protected online speech to violence. According to @FBI using the terms “based” or “red pilled” are signs of "Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism" pic.twitter.com/JSQiCoiKdT — Oversight Project (@OversightPR) April 3, 2023 The FBI uses a “glossary of terms” to look for online that could indicate someone is involved with “violent extremism. According to the FBI glossary, “based” means “someone who has been converted to racist ideology.” “Red pill” or being “redpilled” means someone is accepting racist, antisemitic or fascist beliefs, according to the FBI. I’ve never heard those definitions. I’ve heard “based” used in tech culture to admire, sometimes ironically, someone’s authenticity and boldness. Let’s run it by ChatGPT: The word “based” is often used to indicate that something has a foundation, source, or origin in something else. It means that a particular thing, person, or concept is rooted or founded… Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Gender-Affirming Care
Is gender-affirming care the same thing as gender-affirming therapy? I’m sick of both phrases but it seems like gender-affirming therapy obviously involves a therapist. I thought the job of a therapist is to get at the true cause of whatever is keeping the patient from moving forward in life, not to give patients a pat on the head and affirm whatever self-diagnosis they present with. And I’ve always taken gender-affirming care to mean that a doctor is involved. When I visit a doctor, I expect the doctor to gather the evidence and provide a diagnosis. I don’t expect to have my intestines removed because I “feel” like I have colon cancer. What does affirmation have to do with the job of a doctor? Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Gender-Affirming
“Gender-affirming” can be used in a couple of ways. One is just generically by itself, suggesting that a male announces he’s a female or a female announces she’s a male, and someone with no qualifications at all to diagnose or treat gender dysphoria, e.g., a school teacher, takes the announcement at face value and encourages the person to “be who they are,” or some such thing. “Gender-affirming” can also be used in a phrase, often “gender-affirming therapy.” Is that really the job of a therapist, to “affirm” whatever self-diagnosis a patient presents with, perhaps accompanied by a little pat on the head? I thought the job of a therapist was to get to the root of whatever is causing a problem in a patient’s life and to work with them in a way that enables them to move forward. And the root of the problem may not be what the… Read more →
It’s Great to Be an American
Stanford University has released a guide to eliminate “harmful language.” I haven’t read it. It must be pretty extensive as it has 10 “harmful language” sections: ableist, ageism, colonialism, culturally appropriative, gender-based, imprecise language, institutionalized racism, person-first, violent and additional considerations. Among the words the university urges people to avoid is “American.” People are instead urged to use “U.S. Citizen” because “American” typically refers to “people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas.” The Americas, the index notes, comprises 42 countries. Well . . . the United States is the most important country in the Americas. Or if it isn’t, what is? Anyway, this guide reminds me of a couple of things. George Orwell used to say “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And Salman… Read more →
What Does “Woke” Mean?
Recently I’ve heard “woke” defined as being awake to injustice, particularly racial injustice. That takes the edge off it. It makes it sound like a good thing, except to the extent that it propagates untrue ideas like racism is everywhere, or anything you don’t like is racist. Having an awareness of injustice is universal though, isn’t it? Although people have very different ideas about what’s just or unjust, everyone has their own sense of it. It doesn’t require a new word. We have words like “compassionate” and “empathetic” that seem to mean the same thing. I don’t think even the person or persons who coined the word “woke” meant it to be as inoffensive as “being awake to injustice.” I think it was intended to be confrontational. Here’s another possible definition: Making sweeping, prejudicial generalizations about race, gender and sexual orientation. I like that definition better. I think it’s useful… Read more →
Christmas Cake
From urbandictionary.com: A woman 26 years+ who is considered to be past her prime, undesirable, used goods and/or no good. The term originates from Japan where it is tradition to eat cake on Christmas. So a cake intended for Christmas that was not eaten or is left over is considered bad and should be thrown out. Japanese businessmen coined the term, once again emphasizing the Japanese desire for a young and virginal wife. Japanese women over the age of 26 most often have to rely on either a hastily semi-arranged marriage to a friend of the family or, more frequently, marry a foreigner as they are rarely aware of the stigma or don’t care. “If we wait until after grad school, I’ll be Christmas Cake.” “She just turned 26. She’s Christmas Cake now.” “She married her husband at 30, so you know he wasn’t bothered that she was Christmas Cake.” Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Assigned at Birth
As in, “He was assigned male at birth.” It sounds like other options were available, doesn’t it? Like a child being assigned a name or a house at Hogwarts. Is there any plausible scenario where the child would be assigned anything other than male at birth? Suppose the doctor said, “I assign this child as female.” And then the parents freak out and say “Are you fucking nuts?! He’s not female, he’s got a penis.” “Hmmm,” says the doctor. “Well . . . you’ve got me there.” If it wasn’t so easy to determine the sex of a newborn at a glance — it doesn’t require a medical degree — you could go with a DNA test, since every cell in the human body is marked male or female. That never changes, no matter how many hormones you take or how many surgeries you have. It’s biological and permanent. In… Read more →
“People Who Menstruate …”
“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” – George Orwell https://t.co/uPOyP7aHDQ — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 14, 2022 Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: “Insurrection”
What is an “insurrection”? I guess I could look it up. Have any of the arrested protestors been charged with insurrection? If not, why do we keep saying it? The Revolutionary War was definitely an insurrection, which suggests that insurrection is not always a bad thing. Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Accidental Overdose
I hardly ever hear the word “overdose” by itself anymore, as in “so-and-so died of an overdose.” It’s always “so-and-so died of an accidental overdose.” Isn’t that redundant? If you want to put it that way, wouldn’t the only alternative be an intentional overdose? Which would be a suicide. The word “overdose” implies accidental. Someone tried to make themselves feel better in a high-risk way and miscalibrated. So it’s either a suicide or an overdose, not an “accidental overdose.” End of story. Read more →
Pronouns
I know people who identify themselves with plural pronouns, e.g., “they/them,” but I’ve never heard any of them refer to themselves with plural pronouns, e.g., “us” or “we.” They always say “I” or “me.” A couple of possibilities, not mutually exclusive: They want to call attention to themselves but in a way that they haven’t really thought through. They realize how ridiculous it sounds to refer to an individual person with a plural pronoun. I mean, go ahead and call yourself anything you want, but if you’re going to burden others with absurdities, you should have to live with them yourself. Read more →
How Many Synonyms Can There Be For the Word “Lies”?
I’m hearing from the media that whereas President Trump provided “a torrent of lies,” President Biden has “missteps,” “characteristic stumbles” and “false statistical interpretations.” But not lies. 🙂 I’m envisioning media gnomes wearing out their thesauruses for the next four years trying to come up with synonyms for the word “lies.” A couple of things I don’t like: Being treated like an imbecile who doesn’t grasp nuances of the English language and doesn’t know when he’s being brainwashed. The absence in our country of an honest free press. This would really solve a lot of problems. A lot. Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is demanding that people stop using animal terms as insults — such as calling other humans “chicken” or “pig” — not because they want to encourage good manners but because it’s “speciesist” language. I really don’t understand the obsession some people have with telling other people how to speak. Read more →
Profanity in Book Titles
Powell’s Books emailed a list of self-care titles aimed at making readers happier and healthier and saner. A surprisingly high (to me) percentage of the titles — 3 out of 25 (12 percent) — contain the word “fuck.” One title includes the word “shit” but it’s also one of the titles that uses “fuck” so I’m not going to double-count it. Is this a new publishing industry strategy to reawaken people’s interest in reading? Personally I don’t care for it . . . Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of
“Calendar” as a verb: “Can you given me an estimated delivery date so I can calendar it?” I’ve never heard that before today and I’m already sick of it. Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Coming Forward
You’re the accuser. You get on the witness stand. You testify. You make your accusation. You get cross-examined. THEN the accused responds. It turns the entire legal system on its head. It is INSANE to ask an accused person to deny the accusation before he has heard the accusation being made and cross-examined. — Alan Dershowitz I’m tired of the phrase “coming forward” being used to describe people making unsubstantiated allegations, because it presumes the truth of something that’s unknown and, in some cases, unknowable. The burden is still on the accuser, thank god for all of us. I “come forward” to accuse you — via the media, on Twitter, wherever — of having done a bad thing decades ago in high school. I don’t remember the details of when or where or who else was present, but now that you’ve been credibly accused, how do you respond to this… Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Whenever I hear Let’s be clear or Make no mistake, it’s never followed by something clear or unmistakable, but always by some completely unsupportable hallucination . . . Read more →