Language Follies 19 (Tell it like it isn't)

We start off today rather liquidy as we gaze upon the walls of sports arenas. At one venue the host soccer team advises us that it has an “Official Water Technology Partner.” At another British site, we discover a company called “Victorian Plumbing.” But I guess if you had to wet your whistle there’s always “Pipeline Punch.”

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Call Me By My Rightful Name (Or Not) Dept.

The shameful messes that control European football (i. e., soccer) (UEFA) and world football (FIFA) impose a strict censorship over product mentions during competition broadcasts. That goes as far as preventing announcers from correctly naming the venue if the stadium’s naming rights conflict with a competition sponsor. An example of this took place this past week when Arsenal hosted Shakhtar Donetsk in the UEFA Champions League. Arsenal’s stadium in North London is named after Emirates Airlines, but because of a conflict with a UEFA sponsor (Qatar Airways), the television announcer was made to call the venue “London Stadium.” One big, stupid problem: There is a London Stadium; it is the home field of West Ham United Football Club.

Of course, all this is minor compared to the use of euphemism that seriously undermines political reality. Here’s George Orwell in his essay “Politics and the English Language” 1946:

Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. (1)

Whitney Darrow, Jr. contributed this two decades later:

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While we’re on the truth front, here’s J. D. Vance about his involvement in the Haitians' eating cats lies:

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” (2)

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Here from The New Yorker, Oct. 12, 1968, about Alabama's racist governor:

One thousand three hundred and twenty-four innocent citizens were recently cornered by employees of Louis Harris seeking their opinions on the third-party candidate for President, and, according to the results, which were published on September 30th, eighty-six per cent, or one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight and sixty-four hundredths, of those consulted claimed to admire George Wallace for his"courage to say what he really thinks.”

 

And here from a recent Los Angeles Times story:

Donald Trump’s supporters often say they admire him because he always speaks his mind. (3)

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“Zero-morpheme growth” is the term used to describe the metamorphosing of one part of speech into another without a change in form. Because English does not have the complicated case endings that many other languages have, it is easy for English speakers to turn nouns into verbs or adjectives into nouns, for example. Of course, this can lead to some people pulling out their hair. Anyway, here are some recent examples:

“Let’s find your rich”;

“Our goal is to give every kid incredible”;

“A new way to cloud”;

“No one Carolinas like we do”;

“How to business differently.”

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Need a lawyer? How about the firm that calls itself “The Unicorn of Injury Law”?

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Or maybe you need today’s worst bargain:

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Or perhaps you’d like grandma’s noodle kugel recipe—straight from the old world, one suspects, if the old world is South East Asia:

 

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Headline in The Atlantic:

TRUMP: ‘I NEED THE KIND OF GENERALS THAT HITLER HAD’(4)

MEMO: To Donald J. Trump 

Hitler’s generals tried to kill him. (5)

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(1) https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/

(2) https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/vance-immigrants-pets-springfield-ohio-cnntv/index.html

(3) https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-05-27/column-trump-has-a-reputation-as-refreshingly-plainspoken-on-some-subjects-hes-anything-but

(4) https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/

(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot 

Lost in the Stars

Who are . . .

Susan Kassin

Caitlin Casey

Rachel Somerville

Alice Shapely

Erica Nelson

Pratika Dayal

Priyamvada Natarajan    ?

These seven women are astrophysicists who are cited in a recent article in Quanta magazine that discusses the “beautiful confusion of the first billion years” of the universe.* en

What struck me as I read the article was how the presence of these highly-regarded women scientists upset my pre-conceived notion that present-day astrophysics was a male-dominated province. Enlightened as I like to think I am, I soon saw that our culture had prejudiced my ideas of what gender roles were in science. I soon looked up on the ’net other women who—over the centuries—contributed to our knowledge of astronomy and astrophysics.** But, of course, those pioneers were a drop in the bucket compared to the number of males in those fields. 

How many women had to take lesser roles in the search for the secrets of the heavens? And how many didn’t even get a sniff of a chance to use their intelligence at all?

How much has humankind lost over the millennia by not allowing women the opportunities that have been available to the male sex?

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Enter J. D. Vance.

He whose great desire is to see women barefoot and pregnant:

 “Our people aren’t having enough children to replace themselves. That should bother us . . . . We want more babies because children are good.”***

Vance may not be a card-carrying pronatalist, but he certainly seems like a fellow traveler. According to The New Yorker,

Pronatalism typically combines concerns about falling birth rates with anti-immigration and anti-feminist ideas. It champions not just having children but having many—large families for the sake of large families, reproduction for reproduction’s sake. Except that, in this world view, not all reproduction is equal. Pronatalism favors native-born baby makers.****

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When women are forced to spend so much of their lives in the maternity ward or at home changing diapers, they have little opportunity to spend time in the laboratory or the observatory.  

Consider this: every time a woman gets pregnant a man has gotten laid. How nice for the men to have such women around to satisfy their sexual itch.

The universe can wait. 

*https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-beautiful-confusion-of-the-first-billion-years-comes-into-view-20241009/

**https://www.space.com/trailblazing-women-in-astronomy-astrophysics

***https://apnews.com/article/jd-vance-childless-cat-ladies-birth-rates-555c0f78ef8dd4c13c88b9e8d5f0024a

****https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/j-d-vance-and-the-rights-call-to-have-more-babies 

Do the Right Thing

The Ethicist column was initiated by the New York Times in 1999. I don’t recall when I first became aware of it, but having become aware of it, I was eager to read the opinions expressed in it. Unfortunately, either the first, or nearly the first, question that was posed to the ethicist which I came across caused me to put the paper down and never again bother with the column. The question asked whether it was ethical to drive an SUV. What in hell had that to do with ethics?*

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I once asked an ethicist what in his view was the difference between ethics and morals. He said he saw no difference. I didn’t engage further with him, but clearly he was wrong.** Consider the following scenarios:

A—A college professor is sleeping with a student in his class. To me, that is certainly unethical, because the romantic relationship can (and most likely will) influence the grading of the student’s work, which the professor is responsible for evaluating fairly on its merits.

B—A college professor is sleeping with a student who is not in his class. To me, there is no ethical issue here, as there is no power issue in this case. To some, this scenario may, however, be immoral. But I won’t bother to engage with that.

C—A college professor is sleeping with a student in his class. The student happens to be his wife, who is taking the course because her husband is the only faculty member in the state who offers a course in Paleosomethingorother. Would you care to make an ethical issue out of that? 

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Although I don’t bother to read the Times’ Ethicist column, I can’t help coming across the questions when reading the paper. Two recent questions have confirmed my choice not to follow the column:

1—Is It OK to Leave the U.S. if the Wrong Candidate Becomes President?

2—I’m a Queer Man Who Had a Fling With Another Guy. Should His Girlfriend Be Told?

For the first issue: How can it be an ethical issue if one feels the need to leave one’s country?*** How did the United States get populated—except by people leaving their homelands, for manifold reasons, including economic, religious, and, yes, political reasons. I can conceive of an ethical issue if one is barred from leaving one’s country, but not the reverse.****

As far as the second issue goes, why even ask the question? Unless you are determined to wreck someone’s life, keep shtum. The unethical nature of the question is lit up in neon lights. 

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The greatest ethical test of my life occurred around 3&1/2 to 4 decades ago. I helped out at my tennis club, teaching a few classes to mostly little kids. One day I was asked by Gilda, the manager, if I could take over a class the next day that the pro, Doug, would be unable to conduct as he was going out of town. The class consisted of four high school girls (some of whom may have been on their school’s tennis team). At the end of the hour, two of the girls approached me with a request: would I take over the class permanently? I was flattered by the request and would have loved to teach them. But without hesitation, I turned them down. I was doing the tennis teaching basically for fun, but this was Doug’s livelihood. How could I take away a source of his income? The girls and I parted with regrets, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

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* I can see an ethical issue arising in the following totally unlikely scenario:

On an island with few petroleum resources, everybody drives a Mini. One day the ferry docks and a ganzer macher drives off the boat in a Hummer. That unfair use of the limited resources raises an ethical question.

** From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morals\

Ethics vs Morals: Is there a difference?

Ethics and morals are both used in the plural and are often regarded as synonyms, but there is some distinction in how they are used.

Morals often describes one's particular values concerning what is right and what is wrong:

“It would go against my morals to help you cheat on the test.”

. . .

While ethics can refer broadly to moral principles, one often sees it applied to questions of correct behavior within a relatively narrow area of activity:

“Our class had a debate over the ethics of genetic testing.”

. . .

In addition, morals usually connotes an element of subjective preference, while ethics tends to suggest aspects of universal fairness and the question of whether or not an action is responsible.

*** Unless one is leaving one's pets and one's children behind. Then there might be an ethical issue.

**** In Candide, Voltaire subtly satirizes (by contrast) the actions of European governments, when Candide, in El Dorado, asks the King for permission to leave the country:

“I have not the right to detain strangers. It is a tyranny which neither our manners nor our laws permit. All men are free. Go when you wish.”

 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19942/19942-h/19942-h.htm#Page_80 [Page 87]