vocabulary

“Phobia” again

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

After an unpleasant online discussion yesterday, I’m more convinced than before of the need to push back against “phobia” as an epithet. The amount of sheer rage directed at those who question the term — it seems I’m a promoter of “genocide” — shows that something important is going on.

A phobia, as I’ve said before, is a habitual, involuntary, irrational fear. Acrophobia is fear of heights; people with it get dizzy when looking down from high places. Claustrophobia is fear of enclosure in a small space; it can lead to a panic attack when stuck in an elevator that stops moving (or for some, being in an elevator at all). And so on. The involuntary aspect is central. The refusal to think is wrong because it’s irrational and voluntary, and it’s an entirely different case. People aren’t morally responsible for their phobias, though they can be responsible for the degree to which they let them control them.
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Redefining “equity” 1

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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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The war on words

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Calling someone a “villain” is a city-ist insult. The word originally means “base or low-born rustic,” clearly an insult by the urban higher classes aimed at farmers, serfs, and others from the villages. By the censorious standards we run into so often, we should stop using the word and denounce anyone who does. This is, of course, silly, but no sillier than many actual attacks on words.

In some circles, you can’t have a “master” switch or password anymore. The word has a range of meanings, generally in the categories of someone in authority or someone with extensive knowledge and skill (or at least a degree saying so). One of these meanings is “a person in authority over slaves,” so the use of the word is deemed an endorsement of slavery, and it has to go. There are even people trying to rename the Maine coon cat. The origin of the name is obscure, but the most likely explanation is that the tail somewhat resembles a raccoon’s. However, the term “coon” has been used as a racial insult, so the name has to go. Probably raccoons need to be renamed as well.

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The misuse of “identity” 1

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

If you’ve followed this blog regularly, you know that the misappropriation of words is a favorite topic of mine. Today I’d like to discuss the misuse of “identity.” Some people misuse it deliberately, but writers can fall into accepting it as it’s misused. Hopefully this post will help in avoiding that pitfall.

“Identity” is a straightforward word. It means “who someone is.” We can talk about the identity of someone who committed a crime, a case of mistaken identity, a secret identity for a superhero, establishing your identity, and identity theft. Some people, though insist that your identity is your group membership: your skin color, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, etc. Interestingly, people on the “left” as well as white supremacists like to promote this view.
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Words banned from Wordle

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When Wordle moved to the New York Times’ website, I stopped playing it. I’m glad the creator got a big chunk of money, but having it under the auspices of a media company which has fallen so far from its best days took something away from it. An article I came across said that the Times made a few changes, including removing some unpleasant words from its vocabulary. The article mentioned “slave” and “lynch.” It’s not a huge deal, but it smacks of the notion that you can make bad things go away by erasing their names.

Wondering what other words the Times might have excluded, I made a list of others to try. By the Wordle rules, they all have to be five letters. My criterion was not just that the words refer to bad things, but that their mention can make you cringe. This is very subjective, of course. I confirmed that “slave” and “lynch” weren’t recognized, and neither was “COVID.” But it recognized “bigot,” “hates,” “kills,” “raped,” “stabs,” and “thief.”
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You aren’t a virtual person

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You don’t lose reality by communicating at a distance. You don’t become a “virtual” person. I wrote about this a year ago, but the silliness hasn’t abated, so I want to make the point again.

An online gathering of people can appropriately be called a “virtual” gathering. They aren’t really coming together; they get the effect of it through technology. The people participating, though, remain real. You’d think that after over a century of telephones, everyone would grasp that people can be real without being in the same room.
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How to impress people with the word “algorithm” 1

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

If you want to come across as a writer who really understands computers, the best way is to learn about them. Read technical books and blogs. Learn how HTML and HTTP work. Find out what the common security fallacies are.

But that’s a lot of work. A quicker way is to use the word “algorithm” a lot.

An algorithm is a precise but abstract description of a computational process. “Precise” means laying out each step mathematically, so that any implementation should produce the same results. “Abstract” means it’s independent of a particular programming language or operating system. You can implement an algorithm in C, PHP, Java, or any other language. Some algorithms work more easily in some languages than in others, but there’s no inherent requirement to use specific technology.
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British English for American writers

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Ghostwriters have to write in a voice different from their normal one, and sometimes even in a different dialect. When writing for a Canadian, British, or Australian site, you want to look like a native writer. It’s tricky to get it really right.

Each nation’s treatment of English is different. British, Australian, and New Zealand English are fairly close to one another (in spelling, not pronunciation!). Canadians use a version that’s somewhere between American and British English. I’ll focus mostly on the American and British versions here, for the sake of brevity.
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The right word 4

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

Of all the crimes against good writing, the worst is using the wrong word. A grammatical error looks sloppy, but as long as it doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence, people will get what you mean. Use the wrong word, though, and you fail to convey what you’re trying to say. That amounts to failing as a writer.

Usage errors fall into several categories. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it includes the types of errors that annoy me the most.
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