Monthly Archives: June 2023

More words that don’t mean what people think they mean 1

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

The other day I was talking with a friend about words that people use in ways that show they don’t understand their meaning. I’ve talked about some before, such as “phobia” and “exponential.” Here are some more.

Inigo Montoya with text: You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.ballistic: A ballistic course is one followed by an object that isn’t under acceleration except by gravity. The laws of physics say it follows a parabola, moving horizontally at a constant rate and being vertically affected by a constant force (assuming it doesn’t go so high that gravity significantly weakens). Someone who “goes ballistic” is enraged and suddenly follows a different course. A truly ballistic person would coast along and follow a smooth course, eventually coming back down to earth.

quantum: Quantum effects occur at a sub-microscopic scale. A quantum leap, properly, is the smallest change a particle or system can undergo, yet people use “quantum leap” to mean a huge, sudden change.
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Banning book bans in Illinois

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged books Illinois law libraries on by

Illinois has enacted a law which many articles have characterized as “outlawing book bans.” More precisely:

Illinois public libraries that restrict or ban materials because of “partisan or doctrinal” disapproval will be ineligible for state funding as of Jan. 1, 2024, when the new law goes into effect.

Here’s the full text. It encourages libraries to adopt the American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights.” This sounds like a good idea on the face of it, but it may accomplish less than expected and have unintended consequences.
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(Un)banning the Bible in Utah

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged books censorship education religion on by

The Davis school district in Utah has reversed an earlier decision removing the Bible from middle and elementary schools. Few people thought it should be banned; the challenge to it was supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum of the policies that led to the removal of other books. Unfortunately, the appeal committee and the district officials missed the point. They said that “the Bible has significant, serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains.” Of course it does. The point is, so do many other books. Violence and vulgarity, even outright immorality, aren’t a sufficient reason to exclude books from school libraries.

The Bible is a horrible book. The Old Testament presents a sadistic, murderous God who drowns nearly the entire world population, firebombs cities, orders the extermination of every man, woman, and child in other cities, and decrees death penalties for many kinds of actions. In the New Testament, this sadist comes to us, not to beg for forgiveness for his crimes, but to say that he’ll forgive us, on the condition that we believe he turned himself into a human in order to be executed. People who don’t believe that claim will be tortured forever.
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Chengdu Worldcon GoH gets Putin appointment

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged China fandom Russia science fiction on by

Congratulations to Sergei Lukianenko on being (probably) the first person ever to be both a guest of honor at a Worldcon and an appointee of Vladimir Putin. Putin appointed the loyal advocate of the war of aggression against Ukraine to Russia’s Civic Chamber. He’s also a guest of honor at the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon.

In an interview for the occasion he recommended “the establishment of some kind of federal structure that would publish books that are niche, but useful, educating the reader in the right values and the ability to think.” In other words, a government bureau to publish propaganda books. I’m sure he’d be glad to write some of them.

The Snow Forest cancelled because of review bombers

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged books Internet Russia Ukraine on by

War and Peace. Crime and Punishment. We the Living. Are all of these classic novels now unacceptable? Based on reactions to Elizabeth Gilbert’s no longer forthcoming The Snow Forest, it appears so. They’re set in Russia, and to a certain online mob such novels can’t be endured.

Elizabeth Gilbert was set to release her next novel, The Snow Forest. It has become, according to Time, “the target of review bombing, a practice where online users post multiple negative reviews on social media and review sites.” Faced with that reaction, she has pulled it from the publication schedule.

What was the problem? “The historical novel, which centers around a family in the 1930s that finds refuge from the Soviet government in the woods of Siberia, received backlash online from Ukrainian readers who criticized her for publishing a book set in Russia amid the Russian war in Ukraine.”
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Racially discriminatory typography

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged racism typography writing on by

A disturbing number of major websites have adopted a double standard in typography. Skin-color terms are capitalized or not, based on what color is in question. I’ve seen sentences where the typographical standard is changed in mid-sentence, even in mid-phrase, capitalizing “Black” and putting “white” in lower case. I haven’t seen a consistent pattern in other color terms, such as “brown” (or is it “Brown”?).

Authors aren’t to blame for this, except when they’re running their own websites. The site sets the typographic standard (or lack of one), and the authors have to live with it or find other outlets.
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The thug’s veto in Lancaster, New Hampshire

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged censorship libraries New Hampshire on by

The Weeks Memorial Library in Lancaster, a small town in northern New Hampshire, was going to put on a “drag queen story hour,” then it cancelled the event because of alleged threats of violence. A WMUR news article says,

Linda Hutchins, board chair of Weeks Memorial Library, said the library has a non-discrimination policy when it comes to renting out their room, but when they started receiving violent threats and word of multiple protests, safety became a top priority.

However, an NHPR news article makes it doubtful whether these threats were real:
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CUNY misrepresents American freedoms

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged censorship education law on by

The bogus claim that there’s a “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment of the US Constitution usually comes from a left-wing position, but anyone can use it. The Board of Trustees of the City University of New York claimed that the speech made by student Fatima Mousa Mohammed at the May 12 Law School commencement constituted “hate speech.” The statement asserts that “hate speech … should not be confused with free speech and has no place on our campuses or in our city, our state or our nation.” Presumably the university plans or has already engaged in some action penalizing the speaker, though I haven’t been able to find out what it did or is going to do.

This case is particularly interesting because it doesn’t follow the usual script of people holding a left-wing view claiming that positions they don’t like are unprotected “hate speech.” According to an article on FIRE’s website, Ms. Mohammed “accused Israel of ‘indiscriminately raining bullets and bombs’ on Palestinians, criticized CUNY for working with the ‘fascist’ New York City Police Department and military, and expressed disdain for ‘capitalism, racism, imperialism and Zionism.'” Those sound more like the positions of someone who’d fling “hate speech” accusations rather than being on the receiving end.
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