dagblog - Comments for "Taking Care With Language"

Thanks.

HSG — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 17:28:32 +0000

In reply to I thought it was a fine

Thanks.

I thought it was a fine

Michael Maiello — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 15:53:51 +0000

In reply to I shouldn't have piled on

I thought it was a fine comment.

I shouldn't have piled on

HSG — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 15:06:49 +0000

In reply to This is probably the wrong

I shouldn't have piled on here. My comment was redundant. No need to reply.

This is probably the wrong

Michael Maiello — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 13:32:09 +0000

In reply to As I mentioned in a recent

This is probably the wrong thread for me to say, "your mileage may vary," isn't it?

As I mentioned in a recent

HSG — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 12:34:19 +0000

In reply to Taking Care With Language

As I mentioned in a recent comment regarding the definitions of the terms "men" and "women", language evolves - except possibly in France where l'Academie stands athwart lexicography and shouts stop. Tragedy doesn't just mean Agamemnon and Hamlet any more. It now can describe a pointless death or deaths that involve mayhem or that occur in an unexpected manner. Tragic events also tend to resonate beyond the immediate time and specific place in which they occur. I think it's fair to characterize as tragic a murder by a 20-year old unmedicated schizophrenic activated by hate groups.

I love my Aristotle too, but

Obey — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 11:03:18 +0000

In reply to Taking Care With Language

I love my Aristotle too, but I think we can accept the idea of the English language having moved on since whenever we thought an old Greek dude could tell us how to speak it.

In partial defense of the OED, an airplane crash is tragic. Because to characterize it that way is to look at it as something terrible that just happened. It's a horrific accident. It's an event that just happens TO someone.

A murder, an act of terror, a driver deliberately plowing his car through a crowd of innocent people to kill and maim as many people as possible, isn't just a tragedy. Because it wasn't just something that happened. It wasn't "a car hitting a woman" as many of the first reports described it. A man drove that car, and did so with the intent to take lives, in the name of an ideology of terror and genocide and ethnic cleansing. To call it tragic is to elide those details.

So it isn't strictly false to call it tragic. But for someone to see it in that light says more about the observer than the event itself. It's like someone who views Donald Trump mainly as a loving father. It may not be strictly wrong, but there is something strikingly odd about the way you are missing some pretty central features of the man.

Corporations are people, my

artappraiser — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 02:56:59 +0000

In reply to Yeah, I hate that, too. Also

Corporations are people, my friend ~ Mitt Romney

Yeah, I hate that, too. Also

Michael Maiello — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 02:42:18 +0000

In reply to You have a superlative

Yeah, I hate that, too. Also, I hate when companies are personified as "who."

You have a superlative

NCD — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 01:02:40 +0000

In reply to Yes, good point. There's a

You have a superlative theatrically possessed conceptually inspired intuitive sense of the vain pomp and glory of this world. (last part, Henry VI).

My language beef is when that is used instead of who, when referring to a person.

Like "It was Eisenhower that warned us of the military industrial complex."

Yes, good point. There's a

Michael Maiello — Mon, 14 Aug 2017 23:49:12 +0000

In reply to I have nothing to add about

Yes, good point. There's a struggle for something good that comes crashing down.