This week at A.Word.A.Day, words from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four that have entered the English language. Today’s word: doublethink. Yesterday’s: newspeak.
From Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949):
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Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Words from Nineteen Eighty-Four
Monday, August 13, 2018
Avenatti, sheesh
Michael Avenatti, on CNN just now: “The president and me have the ability to work with the media.”
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Not on a first-name basis
One sign of the reality-TV-ification of everything these days is the reduction of persons in political life to first names: Chuck and Nancy, Jared and Ivanka. I think all the way back to the first season of Big Brother: George, Eddie, Jordan. (Those names, I am surprised to discover, have stuck in my head.) “Omarosa,” too, is a character from the world of reality-TV. The woman who worked in the White House is Omarosa Manigault Newman. Newscasters should refer to her by her name: Manigault Newman, or Ms. Manigault Newman.
But the less time cable news spends on Manigault Newman, the better. She offers a form of reality-TV spectacle that distracts from urgent issues of the real: tariffs, Helsinki, North Korea, Russian hacking, emoluments, conspiracy and obstruction, congressional inaction, the firing of Peter Strzok, refugee children separated from their parents, and the incurious, ill-informed, misogynist, racist president at the heart of it all. “Trump at war with Omarosa!” said someone on MSNBC this afternoon. No, that’s entertainment posing as news — which leaves less time for news.
See also this moment when reality and fiction merged: “Omarosa was fired three times on The Apprentice, and this is the fourth time we let her go.”
[My list of issues is incomplete: I had to stop somewhere.]
Words from Nineteen Eighty-Four
This week at A.Word.A.Day, words from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four that have entered the English language. Today’s word: newspeak. (In the novel, it’s capitalized.)
Two quotations accompany today’s word. One from the U.S. president: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” And one from Orwell’s novel: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
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Who cans?
We were trying to find canning supplies at our friendly neighborhood multinational retailer. I said to Elaine, “Someday we’re going to ask a younger person where the canning supplies are and they’ll have no idea what we’re talking about.”
We gave up looking and asked a store clerk. He gave us a blank look. “You know,” I said, “for fruits and vegetables.”
A pause. “Groceries,” he said, and walked off. He must have thought we were asking where to find canned food. He must have thought we were idiots.
An older store clerk saw us looking puzzled and asked if he could help us. He directed us to the canning section, a couple of aisles away. I told him what I had told Elaine. “I grew up on a farm,” he explained. I told him that we were putting up peaches and pickles. “There’s nothing better,” I said. He agreed.
But there are no farms in our past. We have come to canning on our own. Or on Elaine’s own. I’m a designated helper.
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A mystery of the deep
From the BBC: Word of Mouth
An excellent podcast: Word of Mouth (BBC Radio 4). It’s the best podcast on language I’ve heard — smart, witty, respectful of its listener’s intelligence and time. A new series starts in September.
[Has the BBC ever made a bad podcast? I’m also a fan of Soul Music.]
Saturday, August 11, 2018
From the Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Frank Longo, is difficult. A solver who knows something about earthworms, Kentucky history, and defunct television networks may have an advantage, though crosses can make up for the missing knowledge.
A clue I especially liked, in the most difficult (for me) section of the puzzle : 17-Across, five letters: “Big name in little cubes.” RUBIK? No. But so simple once you see it. No spoilers: the answer is in the comments.
Friday, August 10, 2018
Speaking for yourself
“While identity affects your experiences, there’s no guarantee that what you’ve learned from them is going to be the same as what other people of the same identity have learned.” As a person wary of reducing individual identities to group labels, I think that Kwame Anthony Appiah’s essay “Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself” is worth your time.
MSNBC, sheesh
“Stone is of tantamount interest to Mueller.”
Not tantamount : paramount.
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