Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Misappropriating Words
I have heard of many usages of English words as of late with irk me because the person using them are using them for other than the traditional meaning. To me, a word is used to convey a certain meaning. It is not supposed to have any side effects, and above all, the word is not the object; it is only a symbol for the object, and if we use such a symbol to refer to a different object, then we are not all playing from the same sheet of music.
Here are some examples:
President Bush says we are fighting a "War on Terrorism". This is not the usual definition of war. In fact, Bush has made a rather sinister misappropriation of the word, expanding its meaning to include certain actions vital to the functioning of a society, such as police actions. The traditional or dictionary definition of war is that it is an armed conflict between or among nations. If by "War on Terror" he means taking action against al Qaeda, then he just elevated al Qaeda to the status of nationhood. None of us want that.
Some groups of black people in this country object to naturalized citizens of the United States who were born in Africa, or Americans descended recently from places like Jamaica and Africa, calling themselves "African-Americans". I know that the ancestors of many blacks in this country suffered greatly under the slavery regime, but that does not change the definition of a word. There is absolutely nothing in either African or American that says anything about mistreatment of slaves. An African-American is a US citizen some of whose ancestors came from Africa, and Colin Powell, Barack Obama, and even Teresa Heinz Kerry all qualify as African-Americans, slavery or no. What these black groups really mean is "descendents of slaves", not "African-Americans".
I heard of an incident wherein a mathematics professor was teaching a group of high-school students. He explained that a square is defined as a rectangle with four equal sides. Indeed, this is one of the usual definitions of rectangle given in geometry texts. The principal of the school was listening, and he criticized the professor because everyone knows that a square is not a rectangle. This is an example of a class of objects with a distinguished subclass. Quite often, then, we use the name of the overall class to refer to an object that is in the class but not the subclass. However, this is confusing, to say the least. In mathematics, we define a term to make it clear what we mean by it.
A member of Toastmasters International referred to a web display as the "Tri-City Toastmasters Club Web Page". However, she was not referring to that page. She was instead referring to the overall Toastmasters International web page, and in particular, to the information that turns up when you search that site for "Tri-City". When you refer to a web page as the "Tri-City Web Page", you mean that the page was authored by the Tri-City club and not by Toastmasters International.
And finally, a misuse of the word f*ck; I will not spell the entire word out for fear of getting filtered out. The word is used by Jim Kunstler, a proponent of the peak oil theory, out of concern for the future running out of cheap oil, and the great economic setbacks that this will cause. He calls his site the "Clusterf*ck Nation". Indeed, I believe sooner or later, peak oil will come, and it is good to make people aware of this issue. But in so doing, Kunstler misused the word f*ck. The word means sex or it means to have sex with, and there is absolutely nothing about a shortage of oil or of high oil prices that makes me want to have sex with anyone. Mr. Kunstler should continue to speak out on this important topic, but he needs to stop calling the issue "clusterf*ck".
Here are some examples:
President Bush says we are fighting a "War on Terrorism". This is not the usual definition of war. In fact, Bush has made a rather sinister misappropriation of the word, expanding its meaning to include certain actions vital to the functioning of a society, such as police actions. The traditional or dictionary definition of war is that it is an armed conflict between or among nations. If by "War on Terror" he means taking action against al Qaeda, then he just elevated al Qaeda to the status of nationhood. None of us want that.
Some groups of black people in this country object to naturalized citizens of the United States who were born in Africa, or Americans descended recently from places like Jamaica and Africa, calling themselves "African-Americans". I know that the ancestors of many blacks in this country suffered greatly under the slavery regime, but that does not change the definition of a word. There is absolutely nothing in either African or American that says anything about mistreatment of slaves. An African-American is a US citizen some of whose ancestors came from Africa, and Colin Powell, Barack Obama, and even Teresa Heinz Kerry all qualify as African-Americans, slavery or no. What these black groups really mean is "descendents of slaves", not "African-Americans".
I heard of an incident wherein a mathematics professor was teaching a group of high-school students. He explained that a square is defined as a rectangle with four equal sides. Indeed, this is one of the usual definitions of rectangle given in geometry texts. The principal of the school was listening, and he criticized the professor because everyone knows that a square is not a rectangle. This is an example of a class of objects with a distinguished subclass. Quite often, then, we use the name of the overall class to refer to an object that is in the class but not the subclass. However, this is confusing, to say the least. In mathematics, we define a term to make it clear what we mean by it.
A member of Toastmasters International referred to a web display as the "Tri-City Toastmasters Club Web Page". However, she was not referring to that page. She was instead referring to the overall Toastmasters International web page, and in particular, to the information that turns up when you search that site for "Tri-City". When you refer to a web page as the "Tri-City Web Page", you mean that the page was authored by the Tri-City club and not by Toastmasters International.
And finally, a misuse of the word f*ck; I will not spell the entire word out for fear of getting filtered out. The word is used by Jim Kunstler, a proponent of the peak oil theory, out of concern for the future running out of cheap oil, and the great economic setbacks that this will cause. He calls his site the "Clusterf*ck Nation". Indeed, I believe sooner or later, peak oil will come, and it is good to make people aware of this issue. But in so doing, Kunstler misused the word f*ck. The word means sex or it means to have sex with, and there is absolutely nothing about a shortage of oil or of high oil prices that makes me want to have sex with anyone. Mr. Kunstler should continue to speak out on this important topic, but he needs to stop calling the issue "clusterf*ck".
