On Evil Euphemisms

[Blackknight]

pro-choice is indeed a misleading term, they should really be called pro-abortion.

 

[Julina]

i really don't think anyone is actually pro-abortion

 

[MariaRegina]

i really don't think anyone is actually pro-abortion

Actually, the pro-abortion lobby is just as militant as the pro-death penalty and the pro-euthanasia lobby. All are pro-death and part of the culture of death.

 

[Blackknight]

i really don't think anyone is actually pro-abortion

You haven't been paying attention then.

 

[Greg the byzantine]

i really don't think anyone is actually pro-abortion

I could introduce you to a few.

 

[Protoevangel]

i really don't think anyone is actually pro-abortion

Hon, anyone who thinks a choice is more important than a life is pro-death.

 

[Julina]

pro-abortion implies that women want to get pregnant just so they can have an abortion

 

[Greg the byzantine]

pro-abortion implies that women want to get pregnant just so they can have an abortion

Not necessarily. Any woman or man for that matter who considers abortion as a form of birth control is pro-abortion.

 

[Blackknight]

pro-abortion implies that women want to get pregnant just so they can have an abortion

Pregnancy is easily avoided if you practice some self control. Yes, there's cases of rape but the majority are from consensual acts.

 

[Mary of Bethany]

Affirming. Another word that has been hijacked.

Can't we all just affirm each other?

Mary

 

[rusmeister]

I'd just like to remind people that this is a thread that should be read from the beginning, and above all to have read Chesterton's short essay, "On Evil Euphemisms". If you haven't read that yet, please do so before posting!!! (See page one, post #1. If your comments aren't taking that into account, they're meaningless.)

Plus, it'd be much more interesting if people commented on that essay...

 

[MariaRegina]

Thanks, Rus

and another thread dies at the hand of:

The Education Thread Killer



j/k

 

[rusmeister]

Thanks, Rus

and another thread dies at the hand of:

The Education Thread Killer

j/k

Hi Maria,

I'd like to clarify that the reason I said that is that I am actually interested in arriving at truth, not merely in engaging in minor chit-chat. The trouble is, EVERYONE has opinions. If everyone merely expresses their own opinions, who learns anything? What is this forum business but a colossal waste of time?

We should have a desire to learn. What I am offering in this thread is such an opportunity, because I learned from it. If I want minor chit-chat I'll post in the cafe thread.

Is there any harm in asking people to read Chesterton, one of the greatest Christian minds of our age (and greater than CS Lewis)? What he does is he offers an x-ray on modern thought - which here, is about the language that we use and are generally unconscious of using. And he does it better than any man Jack of us here can possibly do. (I've been studying him for going on four years, and I've only read a fraction of what he wrote, and he still amazes me in nearly everything I pick up.) Chesterton is an entire education in himself. I've been forced to learn so much about history, literature, and philosophy, things that he took for granted I had to look up and learn about. And in many cases I've been forced to revise my views.

I want to be part of something that builds and learns, not merely passes as a 'thread' that dies because either people can't hear each other or there is nothing to say. That's what I tried to construct in my education thread, and that's what I want to do here. If no one's with me, so be it.

I'm not killing the thread. If people do not want to learn anything, then they don't need to participate. But that doesn't say something about me. It says something about people that aren't interested in anything but 'expressing themselves'. I don't want to 'express myself'. I've learned things that are bigger than me, I want to share them, and I am not finished learning yet.

 

[MariaRegina]

Dear Rus,

Of course I was just kidding. Didn't you see the j/k at the end of my post?

Currently, I am reading C.S. Lewis in depth and I am immensely enjoying his writing style. I also picked up a book on Major British Writers in which he has written an entire section. Quite superb.

Have you read Lewis' small book of 143 pages entitled, An Experiment in Criticism? It was published in 1961 by Cambridge UP. The review by Church Times fascinated me:

Lewis is at one and the same time provocative, tactful, biased, open-minded, old-fashioned, far-seeing, very annoying, and very wise.

Then there is another book I am reading that is written by Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A very short introduction. This book was published by Oxford Press in 1997. It far surpasses the Marxist propagandist garbage that is sold in our college bookstores as literary theory.

Okay, I recently purchased a scholarly book on euphemisms after reading your first thread on this topic. I have got to find it first because I misplaced it when I had to evacuate during that Station Fire (which is still burning now for more than a month here in L.A.). This book went into the various types of euphemisms and gave many excellent examples. I found it on amazon.com. Euphemisms and Dysphemisms: Language used as a shield and weapon by Keith Allan. It was published in 1991 by Oxford UP. Have you obtained a copy? Of course, it is written by a contemporary linguist, so you may take some exceptions, but there is a lot of truth and interesting information in that book.

See you later,
Maria

 

[rusmeister]

Dear Rus,

Of course I was just kidding. Didn't you see the j/k at the end of my post?

No I didn't.

Okay, I recently purchased a scholarly book on euphemisms after reading your first thread on this topic. I have got to find it first because I misplaced it when I had to evacuate during that Station Fire (which is still burning now for more than a month here in L.A.). This book went into the various types of euphemisms and gave many excellent examples. I found it on amazon.com. Euphemisms and Dysphemisms: Language used as a shield and weapon by Keith Allan. It was published in 1991 by Oxford UP. Have you obtained a copy? Of course, it is written by a contemporary linguist, so you may take some exceptions, but there is a lot of truth and interesting information in that book.

That sounds very interesting and relevant! I don't know how I could get a hold of a copy, though. Amazon is not readily available to me.

 

[Blackknight]

Want me to mail you a copy?

 

[MariaRegina]

Just a warning:

In the book Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language used as sheild and weapon, from
pages 52 to 152 (about half the book), the subjects of profanity, blasphemy, and dirty sexual language are covered in detail.

There was one poem on page 140 with an anti-DUI message that drove the point home while explicitly using the DIE word (which is not socially acceptable anymore). It is a play on that stupid Dick and Jane, look, see, and say method of learning to read. I was taught that whole word method without any phonics instruction, and so I did not learn to read until my parents pulled me out of California schools and then moved into Nevada, where they had an outstanding phonemic awareness and explicit systematic phonics program in their primary grades.

This poem (p. 140) was all in caps:

SEE DICK DRINK
SEE DICK DRIVE
SEE DICK DIE
DON'T BE A DICK
[meaning: Don't be stupid, but the other meaning is implied too.]

 

[rusmeister]

Good question (and thanks for the offer)!
The cost and trouble of mailing things to Russia, the chance that it might be gobbled up by the Russian Post Office (I'd say 20-25&#37 and my general unwillingness about sharing true info about my identity online all make that a difficult question. (I just foresee a time when everything about our lives will be online and can and will be used against us.)

If none of that bothers you, I could give you an address in Moscow. pm me if so lead.

 

[Khaleas]

Bumped for Blackknight

 

[Chesterton]

Here's a topical one: "community organizer". Okay, well maybe not a euphemism, but an evil double entendre.