usage

“Fascism” as a coded term

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged fascism language usage on by

In my early college years, I was basically conservative in my political views. As a result, I got called a “fascist” or “fascist pig” on a lot of occasions. In one memorable moment, people who were blocking the entrance to MIT yelled “Fascist!” at me as I tried to get past them.

The term is still used as a general-purpose smear, with little regard for the actual meaning of Fascism. The history of this practice goes back a long way and has its roots in Marxism, especially the Soviet variety. Stalin said in 1924: “Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.” During World War II, the USSR often characterized its fight as one against “fascism,” even though its battles were with Germany’s Nazi government and not Italy’s Fascist government. ……
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Sympathy and empathy

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged language SanityProject usage vocabulary on by

This is a post about word usage, not about the murder of Charlie Kirk, but it started from seeing a lot of online rage about a statement of his. According to Snopes, he once said:

I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That’s a separate topic for a different time.

It’s strange that of all the things he said, this should draw so much anger. If I were cynical, I’d say it’s because people saw an opportunity to pull the first sentence out of context and create a deceptive impression. In this case, cynicism is fully justified.

How much difference is there between sympathy and empathy, anyway?
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Tech buzzword panic

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged language SanityProject technology usage on by

EFF has run a valuable campaign on the risks of leaking metadata to third parties. If you upload a photo to a public website, for instance, the file might contain information on exactly when and where you took the picture. A stalker can make use of the information, especially if you upload photographs wherever you go. If you make a phone call or text message, the associated metadata may get less privacy protection than the what you said or typed. The US government has claimed that warrantless searches of communication metadata, which might identify the sender, receiver, and time of a message, are OK. Unfortunately, this has led some people to think that metadata themselves (I’m standing by “data” as a plural) are evil.
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A curiously missing word

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged usage vocabulary on by

A few days ago, I started to write something complaining about people who use “white supremacy” when they mean “white supremacism.” Supremacy, I was going to say, is the state of being supreme. Usually they mean the unfounded assertion of being supreme. People who make that claim are supremacists, so the claim should be called supremacism, right? Like “racist” and “racism.”

But my spelling checker complained about the word “supremacism,” so I checked to make sure. Neither Merriam-Webster nor dictionary.com recognizes it as a word, though both recognize “supremacist.” The OED recognizes the word, though, so it’s OK to use it east of the Atlantic.

If one word exists, shouldn’t the other? I’d start a campaign to get it listed in dictionaries, except that “campaigning for supremacism” doesn’t sound so good.

Americans do not have a commander in chief 2

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged language usage vocabulary on by

We’re regularly subjected to the obscene notion that the president of the United States is the “commander in chief” of the American people. It’s part of the cult of the presidency, the notion that we live or should live under a powerful ruler. It’s an idea that goes against everything the country was founded on.

The Constitution says: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” If you’re in those categories, then he’s your commander. Otherwise, no. If you’re a civilian employee of the executive branch, he’s your boss, not your commander.
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