Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

SENTENCES ENCOUNTERED TODAY

--  “Abortion is never safe,” she said. “At least one person is guaranteed to die. The other is left wounded, at best.”

-- We live in a hollow culture. 

--  The non Christian world rather likes a non Christian Jesus. 

--  It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.

--  She often ushered the vulnerable into her doubts and championed wrong ideas.

CISGENDER - A MADE UP WORD TO ADVANCE A POLITICAL AGENDA

John Stonestreet speaks of neosexual propaganda:

Words have great power. They shape how we think about ourselves and the world. Even silly, made-up words.

The sociologist Peter Berger once told a story in First Things about his childhood in Mussolini’s Italy and the ideological use of language.

Italian, like Spanish and French, has one way of addressing someone close to you, “tu,” and another for addressing a stranger, “lei,” which is also Italian for “she.”

As Berger told readers, Mussolini thought using “lei” was “effeminate” and “degenerate.” So instead of using “lei,” the Fascists insisted on substituting “voi,’ which is the second person plural – sort of like “you all.”

Linguistically-speaking, this was nonsense. But it had real-world consequences: “From that moment on,” Berger wrote, “every time you said ‘lei’ in Italy you were making an anti-Fascist gesture, consciously or unconsciously . . . And every time you said ‘voi’ you were making the linguistic equivalent of the Fascist salute.”

Berger’s story comes to mind in this latest encounter with a neologism courtesy of the sexual revolution. The new word is “cisgender.” In case you are unfamiliar with this word, it is used to refer to, to quote Wikipedia, “people whose experiences of their own gender agree with the sex they were assigned at birth.”

Now statistically-speaking, that’s virtually everyone. Dare I say, a better word could be “normal.” But note how embedded in the definition itself, gender is chosen and sex is assigned—as if it were not tied to reality at all.

"...PHOBIC" - PAST TIME TO DISPENSE WITH A TIRED, OVERUSED WORD

In writing of Brandeis University's disinviting Ayaan Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary degree, Charles C. W. Cooke says (and I totally agree): 

I object to the use of “phobic” on the grounds that, where once it meant something useful and concrete, it has now been hijacked by our self-appointed arbiters of taste and transmuted into a multipurpose cudgel against dissent.

I also like this observation:

Prepossessed as he was with the all-encompassing wars of his era, George Orwell complained that political language was “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

To survive in the contemporary world, one must constantly deconstruct the deceptive language employed by political speech and propaganda.

TIME TO LEARN A NEW WORD: "PARAPROSDOKIANS"

Some of you, no doubt, already know the meaning of "paraprosdokians," but I didn't until just a few minutes ago.  An email from a friend introduced me to the word.   Here's a definition:

PARAPROSDOKIANS - "A figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation."  Such as, "where there's a will, I want to be in it."

Some paraprosdokians I have heard before include:

             - "A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip."

             - "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they have tried everything else." (attributed to Winston Churchill⁾

             - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism.  To steal from many is research.

Others I've never heard before include these:

             - We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

             - If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

             - Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

             - Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

             - Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

             - Behind every successful man is his woman.  Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.  (The one I'm familiar with is - "Behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law!)

            -  A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

            -  Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

            - I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

            - To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

            - "Your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko!"

Here are some paraprosdokians with specific attributions: (Wikipedia)

            - "If I am reading this graph correctly — I'd be very surprised." —Stephen Colbert^[8]

            - "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." —Groucho Marx^[10]

            - "If I could just say a few words... I'd be a better public speaker." —Homer Simpson^[11]

            - "I sleep eight hours a day and at least ten at night." —Bill Hicks^[3]

Fun, aren't they?