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Saturday, May 07, 2011

Parsing Language

I just got through watching Condaleeza Rice take Lawrence O'Donnell. over his knee and spank his ass a glowing red. It got my ire up as I tried to explain to my spousal unit what the subtext was. He's high functioning Aspbergers so it has to be pointed out.

Condee Rice smacked him down with language. She used the Progressive Liberal milieu to undermine every singe one of Larry's stupid, idiotic, ill-informed attacks posed as questions. It was very much like watching Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, the dinner scene towards the end where Death comes to dinner party. Death informs them that they are all dead, so they can shut up. Terry Palin, playing an American woman, smirks and says "How can we all have died at the same time?" and emotes a very smug look. Much the same as Larry does when questioning Ms. Rice on decisions made in 2001 and 2002 based on the information they had AT THAT TIME. Condee, like death simply turns it around, however, instead of pointing at the salmon mousse, she points out the intelligence that everyone was basing sanctions on was all they had AT THAT TIME. She said, and I love this, "The information you have today will help you decide what you do tomorrow. However, it can't help you on decisions you made yesterday."

Bravo, Condee. Well done. You teased his stupidity apart and offered him up to the ridicule of everyone who understands language and that words have an exact meaning.

That brought me to my soapbox. Why can't people do this? Why do the somnolent public swallow everything the media tells them is truth, and then take that narrative out into the world with them, showing their complete and utter ignorance of their language, their world, and themselves. Trust me folks, it ain't that I'm so smart. I'm not exactly the quickest of cats on the best of days, but I do understand exactly what it said to me when it's said.

Why? Because I have a love of the English language that was expressed in the written word. I began devouring books as soon as I started reading at the age of 3. By the time I entered traditional schooling age I was so far ahead of everyone else I got to go see a school psychologist who tested me and told my too-ready-to-believe mother that I was a genius with a very high IQ. From that moment on I was treated differently and encouraged to read as much as possible. I loved words strung together. I loved how you could change the meaning of words with inflection and tone. I loved how you could use homophones to make jokes. Mad Libs were very big on car trips for me and my equally intelligent sister.

Today, in schools, books are only read if the kids are forced at the point of a gun. If there isn't a movie made from the book 98% of the kids wouldn't even be aware of the story at all. Their ability to string two correctly spelled or conjugated words together is iffy. Simply put, they can watch the nightly news but they come away with nothing from it, not even the lies that the liberal media try to push down their throats. Again, why do they bother?

Because, my friend, they want us ignorant and completely dependent upon them for our lives. They want us suckling at the government teat so they can tell us what to say and what to think and what's "good for us". If you don't know what they are really saying, you won't notice that it's not good for you and that they control your life.

When I was a kid there was a meme about words. Oxymorons and as kids do, we would giggle at that word. We'd point out things like "jumbo shrimp" and "act natural" because it was hilarious. But, my favorite was "eschew obfuscation". Before we knew what the words meant or even how to pronounce them we would just give that puzzled look and then ask our parents what it meant. And, in the tried and true tradition of parents everywhere, we were told to "look it up". Thank God it was written out or we would have never put those two words together and parsed them out.

Eschew means to avoid habitually. Kinda like not stepping on cracks on the sidewalk so that you don't break your mother's back. Obfuscation means to be evasive, unclear or confusing.

Once you knew the meaning of the two words, it was hilarious! Imagine a ten year old and eight year old laughing themselves silly in the backseat of a station wagon over something as arcane as that.

As a result of that love of language I can usually call BS on a lot of people who are trying to pull one over on me. If I didn't know what I know, I'd be taken to the cleaners much more often than I already am. I'm fallible, I want to believe sometimes, but, for the most part, ideologically, it's nearly impossible to use language to trick my mind into believing something illogical. It's why the ignorant ballot cattle will always pull the lever for people who always promise them better lives and never deliver, because it really will happen "this time".

I take my page from Aristotle who believed that it was impossible to debate without a precise knowledge of language and how to wield it effectively.

Meh, I need to go get the oil changed. And, no, that's not code, the engine sounds like a Singer sewing machine, the husband is not pleased.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do yourself a favor and stop telling people about your IQ. I've heard talk like this a handfull of times in my life and always think one of two things: 1) you are an egomaniac, or 2) you have an inferiority complex. Neither is a good thing.

If you are smart (and you are, I can tell from how you write) let me figure it out. It isn't that difficult.

Severine said...

It's sure that you have never met me in person. As I like to say, I'm not the quickest of cats at the best of times. I honestly have no idea what my IQ number is. I've always been told that it's "high" but not given a numerical value. I am going to assume that it is below Marilyn Vos Savant's.

My only gift, and it's even a pretty lame one, is to spot patterns. My brain is constantly trying to connect the dots, sometimes not successfully. I figure I'm pretty average, which is why I am totally flabbergasted when people don't see the same things I do when we're witnessing the same thing.

Anonymous said...

Actually I knew you what seems like three lifetimes ago. You were half woman/half child. My advice is constructive. I am proud of you for this website. I never saw any of your writing back then and it is nice to see that someone stuck to their principles and nice to see a woman of a conservative/libertarian bent. I didn't realize that was rare when I was young and dumb.

God bless you.