Bill O’Reilly’s word of the day
Last night, it was “scelestious”, an obscure word, but one of my favourites; I find it especially useful when describing bishops. It means “wicked”.
One of the enjoyable things about the Internet is how quickly information spreads. Thus, until recently, although the word site, Wordnik made reference to my use of scelestious, not many other places did:
Examples
- How about calling them: inchoate hooligans scelestious yahoos pimply purveyors of turpitude flagitious degenerates iniquitous ingrates delinquent desperados benighted bastards.
After O’Reilly included it in his word of the day, references to Anglican Samizdat’s use of the word have been multiplying due, no doubt, to people – only the best people – doing searches to find out what it means.
So we have the following, in various stages of mangling.
Yahoo buzz. This is a particularly fitting one since Bishop Michael Bird is keen on sharing the buzz.
Bishop Michael Bird and his accomplices in this sordid villainy are there to punish the volunteers from the church. It is difficult to imagine a more despicable, pecksniffian, anti-Christian act, but I expect the scelestious Bird-Patterson duo will find one…
What Is Scelestious?
Scelestious, the diocese could not make a determination about who to sue: Anic parishes or guardians of the parishes.
Last week it was decided. In court his attorney announced that the diocese is seeking more than $ 200,000 in court costs from the guardians of the parishes, Bishop Michael Bird and his henchmen in this sordid villainy are out to punish the church volunteers. It is hard to imagine a more despicable act pecksniffian, anti-Christian, but I hope that the duo scelestious Bird-Patterson is one.
Scelestious Duo, Bird-Patterson
The Diocese of Niagara sinks to newly plumbed depths of infamy.
An excellent word whose popularity is deservedly waxing.
The most irritating words and phrases of 2010
From a fecund field ripe with vexation, 200 words have been plucked for your aggravation here.
Some samples:
empower and empowered
for all intensive purposes (instead of “for all intents and purposes”)
get our arms around (a project)
if you will
innovative
lay (instead of “lie”)
It’s all good.
mission critical
partner (as a verb)
sustainable
transparency
win-win for everyone
stakeholder (when not killing vampires)
mind-blowing
A few of my own:
rhetoric
disrespect (as a verb)
trajectory (when used to describe anything other than the progress of a missile)
generous pastoral response (when used to excuse a person doing something he shouldn’t)
Holy Spirit (when used to excuse a church doing something it shouldn’t)
mission shaped
missional
prophetic social justice making
continuous culture of innovation
generous culture of stewardship
pursue excellence
Emergent Village
distinctives (as a plural noun)
telling our stories
advocacy work
strive to make a difference
raise awareness
faith communities
people of faith
activist
Irritating word of the month
And the winner is “rhetoric”.
Why? Because its primary meaning according to the Oxford Dictionary is:
n. the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, esp. the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.
A special usage is as follows:
<SPECIAL USAGE> language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content: all we have from the opposition is empty rhetoric.
I defy anyone to find a recent example where it is used to mean “effective or persuasive speaking or writing.” Instead, we find it relentlessly and tiresomely overused in its secondary meaning when the speaker or writer has no intention of addressing what was actually contained in the “rhetoric”.
Annoying words
Leaving aside the obvious “diversity”, “inclusion”, “listening” and “conversation”:
“birth” as a verb. We are constantly “birthing” things in church: I wish we wouldn’t.
“disrespect” as a verb. It may be in the OED, but it shouldn’t be.
“empower” – usually we “empower” women. Let’s not, they already have enough power. As James Thurber noted: “Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.”
“passion” – a vague itch somewhere.
“holistic” – used by doctors when they have no idea what’s wrong with you.
“glass ceiling”, the breaking of which has become an excuse for lady bishops.
“stay at the table” – I insist you stay here and let me talk until you die of boredom.
“intentional” – not the opposite of accidental, rather the art of deception while creating the illusion of agreement.
“holy spirit” – the feeling of certainty a person experiences when he simply must have his own way.
“discernment” – ignoring everyone else’s opinion.
“openness” – ignoring everyone else’s opinion.
“vulnerability” – ignoring everyone else’s opinion while crying.
“deep sadness” – ignoring everyone else’s opinion while pretending to cry.
“transparency” – ignoring everyone else’s opinion while seated comfortably above the glass ceiling.
“missional” – no such word. When used by a church it means communist subversion.
Language and thought
From Theodore Dalrymple
The relation of language to thought has long been a philosophical puzzle, one to which no universally accepted answer has yet been given. Is language a precondition or determinant of thought, or thought a precondition and determinant of language? For myself, I incline to the latter view, on the no doubt simplistic grounds that, when writing, I often have the following experience.
I know that there is something I want to say, but at first the right words do not come to express it. They are, I realise, only an approximation to my idea; then suddenly, dredged from I know not where (though it feels like somewhere located near the base of my skull), the right words arrive and I know at once that they are the best possible words in my possession for what I want to say.
I suppose it might be argued that somewhere in my preconscious there is a linguistic representation of what I am at first unable to verbalise, and that my little eureka experience (so delightful that it makes the struggle seem worthwhile) is only a recognition that the words in my consciousness now accord perfectly with those in my preconscious. Be that as it may, it seems to me that my experience suggests that conscious thought, at least, can be pre-verbal, even when it is propositional in nature.
Not every one agrees, of course, and in Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell put forward the rather dismal idea that reform of language – that is to say, the imposition of certain locutions and the prohibition of others – can actually mould the content of thought, making some ideas unthinkable and others unchallengeable.
This, of course, is what politically-correct language is all about. It is certainly what its proponents hope.
I find myself somewhat inclined to Orwell’s view. I have noticed that when a person’s expression of what he thinks is unclear, then the thought itself is also unclear. And the thought will never be clarified if the right words cannot be found: without clear language there is no clear thought –part of the effort needed to find the right words seems to be subconsciously diverted into clarifying the idea itself.
The very best writers – C. S. Lewis, for example – write with such lucidity that the ideas behind what is written become immediately familiar – to the extent that we are convinced that we should have thought of them for ourselves. In contrast, the meandering prose of, for example Rowan Williams, appears contrived to conceal ideas, not reveal them: the words and thoughts are a tangle together.
So I do think that politically correct language is both intended and effective as a thought straight-jacket.
