Writing

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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Smashwords adding Kobo Plus

This entry was posted in Publishing Writing as business and tagged DRM kobo smashwords on by

The ebook publishing site Smashwords is adding Kobo Plus to its options for self-publishing authors. Smashwords already has Kobo as one of its publishing channels. The difference is that regular Kobo lets people buy books individually, while Kobo Plus is a subscription service letting users view as many books as they want.

Smashwords’ emailed notice says:
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Penguin Random House announces unbowdlerized Dahl books

This entry was posted in Commentary News Writing and tagged books bowdlerization censorship publishers on by

Penguin Random House, which holds the publishing rights to Roald Dahl’s books, had replaced Dahl’s texts with bowdlerized versions. They wanted to “make the books suitable for modern readers,” who evidently have reverted to the Victorian era. They discovered, though, that a lot of people today aren’t “modern readers” and can stand to read what an author actually wrote. As a result, Random Penguin has announced it will issue editions with the original text along with the sanitized versions.Stack of Roald Dahl books. Source: Wikimedia

Perhaps I should mention I’m not a fan of Dahl as a person. His reaction to Khomeini’s murder contract on Salman Rushdie was “This kind of sensationalism does indeed get an indifferent book on the top of the best-seller list — but to my mind it is a cheap way of doing so.” He characterized himself as antisemitic and said, “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity.” The portrayal of the Oompa Loompas is creepy, no matter how movie makers dress it up. For that matter, the punishments inflicted on the “bad” children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are rather horrible. They didn’t do anything that bad!
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CBP grabs Nigerian science fiction author

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Mike Glyer reports on File 770:

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki was reportedly detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities at the Los Angeles Airport on February 23. LA author Woody Dismukes has been asking people to signal boost this message:

 
Thursday afternoon @naacpimageaward nominee @Penprince_ was detained by @CBPLosAngeles at @flyLAXairport . He has not been heard from in 48 hours and we are concerned for his safety. Please share this message widely so we can ensure his safe release.

— Woody Dismukes (@WoodyDismukes) February 25, 2023

 
Jason Sanford noted on Twitter: “Ekpeki has a valid visa and was on his way to a high-profile award ceremony where the Africa Risen anthology was being honored.”

As of my writing this, there are several comments expressing concern, but none of them have any information about what his current situation might be.

Update: A new post says he was reportedly sent back to Nigeria, probably for exceeding his visa limits. We don’t have to like this, but at least he isn’t locked away somewhere.

“The right side of history” 2

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

Once again, let’s look at an expression which is loaded with meaning that most people don’t think about. Some writers use it without thinking, others because they’re promoting their particular philosophy. The expression is “being on the right side of history.” If you don’t support a certain cause, you supposedly aren’t on the right side of history.

What does that mean, though, and why do you want to be on that side? It’s an idea that comes from the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and its two bastard children, Marxism and Fascism. This idea, called historicism, holds that history inexorably follows a certain path. Your only choice is to go with the tide or against it.

If you put the phrase into your writing without thinking about it, you could be lending support to historicism without knowing it.
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On book-burning 1

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Very recently I came upon a discussion in a Reddit atheist forum in which people talked about what to do with Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms. Suggestions included throwing them in a dumpster, defacing them, and using them as toilet paper. A minority objected, but the dominant sentiment was that it’s fine to do those things. The book-burning mentality is distressingly common in America. A few years ago there was a book-burning campaign against J. K. Rowling, different only in its motivation from many other burnings of Rowling’s works.

Burning books is a confession of intellectual bankruptcy. The burner is saying, in effect, “I can’t answer what this book says, so I’ll destroy it before people can read it.” It has been a favorite tactic of authoritarians for centuries. In The Magic Battery, Gottesmann burns Frieda’s book in public because he can’t bear the thought of people reading it. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice featured a cop grabbing someone from behind and a man throwing books into a fire on its seal. The Nazis publicly burned books by the thousands. It’s a distressingly common phenomenon in modern society as well.
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Redefining “equity” 1

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

In a previous post, I quoted a statement by Hamline president Fayneese Miller referring to “a purported stand-off between academic freedom and equity.” This got me thinking about the way some have tried to change the meaning of the word “equity.” It’s hard to tell what Miller meant, since she’s the only one doing the purporting. Others, though, have tried to shift the meaning of “equity” from its traditional one.

The Merriam-Webster definition of “equity” gives several technical meanings in law and finance, as well as “justice according to natural law or right; specifically: freedom from bias or favoritism.” Equity means applying the same standards to everyone; it rejects, for example, laws giving special privileges to the nobility or denying rights to people on the basis of their appearance, sex, or religion.
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Fayneese Miller’s obsession 3

This entry was posted in Censorship Writing and tagged censorship education Hamline religion on by

The situation at Hamline University, which I blogged about a few days ago, has gotten stranger. President Fayneese Miller’s recent statements suggest that the non-renewal of the contract of a lecturer for including Islamic art in an art course is the manifestation of some strange obsession.

The lowliness of the lecturer plays an important role in Miller’s raving. She emphasizes repeatedly that the lecturer was a mere “adjunct instruction” and insists that “the adjunct instructor chosen to teach the course in art history did not ‘lose her job.'” Easy for a university president to say. Not so easy to hear when you’re told you aren’t coming back next term. Miller adds that “the decision not to offer her another class was made at the unit level and in no way reflects on her ability to adequately teach the class.” That’s exactly the issue. A fully competent lecturer isn’t coming back, not because of any problems with her teaching, but because she didn’t follow the commandments of a conservative branch of a religion. But defending a lowly lecturer against a university president’s wrath is, says the university president, a “privileged reaction.”
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Student journalism and cowardice 1

This entry was posted in Censorship Writer ethics Writing and tagged censorship Hamline religion on by

You may have heard about Hamline University’s recent outrageous action. Not everyone has, though, and there’s been misinformation going around, so let me start by summarizing it. A lecturer (not a professor), in a course on art history, devoted a session to Islamic art. Aware that some Muslims regard it as improper to portray Muhammad visually, he informed the class that he would be presenting such an image, a classic Islamic work from the 14th century, and gave people a chance to leave before showing the picture. A student complained anyway. The university announced that it would not renew the untenured lecturer’s contract, so strictly speaking, it didn’t fire the lecturer. The action, however, was intended as punishment for violating Islamic law. Hamline is a Methodist school, not an Islamic one, in Minnesota.

Since this is at least nominally a blog on writing, my focus won’t be on the university’s vile action, but on what played out at the Hamline Oracle, a student news publication. I suspect they took the actions they did under extreme pressure from the administration, but their rolling over as they did was an act of gross cowardice regardless.
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