Happy International Whores’ Day, a month late, to those who celebrate. Vaguely related… let’s look at #Truth from the New York Times vs. what the stuffy academics at the Oxford English Dictionary have to say about the word “slut”:
From Orwell’s 1984:
“You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,” he said almost sadly. “Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re translations. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?”
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is INGSOC and INGSOC is Newspeak,” he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. “Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
Circling back to International Whores’ Day, it seems that Sean “Diddy” Combs has been found guilty of “transporting people for prostitution”. This is exactly the activity to which Snoop Dogg, one of our official heroes, has freely admitted (example in which he describes a bus that went from state to state). If Combs is sentenced to prison while Snoop Dogg is the official ambassador for the LA Olympics how can we square that with any concept of justice?
> Happy International Whores’ Day, a month late, to those who celebrate.
Too bad I forgot wishing it to the ones I know! Hahahaha!
I don’t think that language control => thought control totally. I mean you can create thoughts in people’s minds with just your actions, no need to communicate them with words, except that this method doesn’t work across time and space in the way natural languages work.
Sure I do agree that it limits expression via the language that’s reduced though.
BTW, I once gave some thought to how “a perfect language” can be created. I figured that it would like how Math is done, i.e. it would be created in silence, not how English and other common languages were created using words that are spoken in certain areas.
Just like there is an objective method of deriving Math from silence by anyone, there must be some methods of deriving sounds for specific ideas by anyone using those rules from silence. I don’t know if Sanskrit or any other language was made like this.
Sanskrit is as boring a cousin of English as any other European language (except Basque and Hungarian, of course).
The British colonizer Sir William Jones was the likely the first who noticed that.
Wouldn’t ‘slut’ be related to the French word ‘salope’ and the German word ‘Schlampe’? I admit it is a little bit of a stretch because I cannot explain the ‘p’ to ‘t’ shift, as ‘p’ shifts to/from ‘f’ (as in ‘köpa/shop/kaufen’ in Swedish/English/German or ‘fish/pisces’) and ‘t’ shifts to/from ‘s’ (as in ‘slut/Schluss’ in Swedish/German, meaning ‘end’). ‘Salope’ and ‘Schlampe’ both mean ‘slut’ nowadays, but they used to mean ‘promiscous’, ‘untidy’, ‘uncouth’.
Time for another round of AI posts. They should be GayI now.
At least the Oxford English Dictionary still does “Oldspeak”, because Merriam-Websters’ dictionary seems to have gone full “Newspeak”. For example, the word “racism”:
– OEM.com: “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race”
– M-W.com: “a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities” (so believing in DNA and genes is racist?)
Anon: That M-W definition is beautiful. Thank you! The person who wrongly believes that being of the Chinese race leads to having straight hair is a racist. It’s a little confusing, though, as to how the righteous are not racist. It is correct to say that “people of color” should be given preference in college admissions, hiring, promotion, etc. But if race is a fundamental determinant of skin color what is the basis for this preference? A child of two white oppressors, for example, might have skin “of color”. What would then be the justification for preferring this child for service on a corporate board?
Both Dogg and Diddy have been accused of exploiting vulnerable individuals for personal gain. Their strong command of showmanship has helped them maintain their popularity, even with serious allegations.
The most serious allegations against Diddy, racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, doesn’t hold much water. Some (all?) of the individuals bringing accusations dating back to 1991 continued to associate with him for many years.
Like Dogg, Diddy will recover his public image and continue to be celebrated, because they are from a historically so called, marginalized communities.