Whoa, I recently found myself writing “The Ukraine,” when Ukraine would have sufficed! I got the chills reading how we are susceptible to the cadence of language when we need to be focused on the reasoning behind it. Shakespeare understood style and used it as a part of his art, and I love the results of his work, but it is scary listening to documentaries showing Hitler’s staccato, his pretentious poses and his gesticulation. My brother recalled a time when he attended a protest gathering where the speaker told the attendees that to stop the war, people had to kill their tv and their parents. In a crowd of hundreds, he was the only one who laughed out loud at how ridiculous the suggestion was. I fear we have again failed to hear the meaning of what is being said. Yes! Words mean things!
Woke-mindedness has a real, psycholinguistic problem with anything definite -- as, say, biological sex is a natural predicate for identical gender. No, the reality-denying ideology insists, gender, a mental construct and thus free from of any putatively determinate cause, is naturally separate and apart from sex, whose biological nature is governed by rules irrelevant to gender identity. Put simply, and we now all heard the case, a person's gender does not necessarily follow a person's sex. The one is felt, recognized, and decided, ie, chosen; the other is rigorously predetermined by natural rules beyond a person's decision-making ability and preference. In any case, you can see why, for the Woke, indefiniteness is their watchword.
I say, in response, all this spiel about self-esteem-affecting phrases -- the poor, the disenfranchised, the French, the Jews, the Woke, the psycholinguists, the lexicographers, etc -- is, understandably, just neo-Marxist/totalitarian boloney. I add, then, get a clear and certain, truly sound idea, and live in your life, rather than your thought. See, understand, and then think what you must, accordingly. It works better.
I will keep using the definite article -- the -- when effective communication requires it. I will not be cowed into avoiding, -- for the fetishized excitement of a few lying irrationalists -- an established and useful part of speech. If in using the article my attempt to communicate clearly bothers, eg, you, simply avoid talking with me. I won't miss noticing your cheap and imposing thrill at the attempt to curb my disciplined and appropriately understood First Amendment right. I, on the other hand, will enjoy detecting your likely unbridled frustration, maybe even anger, resulting from the discovery that you could not have me moderate my own speech to suit your silly, but seriously onerous obsessions, no less my thoughts and my way of reflecting the real world in all my sex-based personhood, and the meaning it has to me and my interpretation of it.
In my view, to sum up, "the" differs from "a" thing sometimes and I care to highlight that -- again, because perception, logic, and convention support such a grammatical distinction. You're free, of course, to omit the definite article when any ordinary observer finds it, and leave your listener or reader perplexed, confused, and anxious for clarity and certainty. Enjoy such freedom, while it still lasts.
One last thing, if I may, "pluribus," many (in the ablative case because "e," meaning "out of" precedes it here), in "e pluribus unum," implies only many substituent "a's," as in "a state," "a population," etc, of which there are many (13 at the time), as in your favorite kind of state or government, a democracy; there is no "the" there, denoting a single entity (and so, we value our federalism). Thus, "the" and "a" do occur naturally, respectively. Any ideology worth its time, thoughts, and aim recognizes that. Be honest, then, and decent. Own the principle, in all its dimensions. Reflect, practice, replicate what's real and keep the natural, reasonable/creative order. The alternative, as people throughout time have always proved, is only chaos. Avoid it like the plague and enjoy the peace, if you will.
Brilliant. Thank you
Whoa, I recently found myself writing “The Ukraine,” when Ukraine would have sufficed! I got the chills reading how we are susceptible to the cadence of language when we need to be focused on the reasoning behind it. Shakespeare understood style and used it as a part of his art, and I love the results of his work, but it is scary listening to documentaries showing Hitler’s staccato, his pretentious poses and his gesticulation. My brother recalled a time when he attended a protest gathering where the speaker told the attendees that to stop the war, people had to kill their tv and their parents. In a crowd of hundreds, he was the only one who laughed out loud at how ridiculous the suggestion was. I fear we have again failed to hear the meaning of what is being said. Yes! Words mean things!
Woke-mindedness has a real, psycholinguistic problem with anything definite -- as, say, biological sex is a natural predicate for identical gender. No, the reality-denying ideology insists, gender, a mental construct and thus free from of any putatively determinate cause, is naturally separate and apart from sex, whose biological nature is governed by rules irrelevant to gender identity. Put simply, and we now all heard the case, a person's gender does not necessarily follow a person's sex. The one is felt, recognized, and decided, ie, chosen; the other is rigorously predetermined by natural rules beyond a person's decision-making ability and preference. In any case, you can see why, for the Woke, indefiniteness is their watchword.
I say, in response, all this spiel about self-esteem-affecting phrases -- the poor, the disenfranchised, the French, the Jews, the Woke, the psycholinguists, the lexicographers, etc -- is, understandably, just neo-Marxist/totalitarian boloney. I add, then, get a clear and certain, truly sound idea, and live in your life, rather than your thought. See, understand, and then think what you must, accordingly. It works better.
I will keep using the definite article -- the -- when effective communication requires it. I will not be cowed into avoiding, -- for the fetishized excitement of a few lying irrationalists -- an established and useful part of speech. If in using the article my attempt to communicate clearly bothers, eg, you, simply avoid talking with me. I won't miss noticing your cheap and imposing thrill at the attempt to curb my disciplined and appropriately understood First Amendment right. I, on the other hand, will enjoy detecting your likely unbridled frustration, maybe even anger, resulting from the discovery that you could not have me moderate my own speech to suit your silly, but seriously onerous obsessions, no less my thoughts and my way of reflecting the real world in all my sex-based personhood, and the meaning it has to me and my interpretation of it.
In my view, to sum up, "the" differs from "a" thing sometimes and I care to highlight that -- again, because perception, logic, and convention support such a grammatical distinction. You're free, of course, to omit the definite article when any ordinary observer finds it, and leave your listener or reader perplexed, confused, and anxious for clarity and certainty. Enjoy such freedom, while it still lasts.
One last thing, if I may, "pluribus," many (in the ablative case because "e," meaning "out of" precedes it here), in "e pluribus unum," implies only many substituent "a's," as in "a state," "a population," etc, of which there are many (13 at the time), as in your favorite kind of state or government, a democracy; there is no "the" there, denoting a single entity (and so, we value our federalism). Thus, "the" and "a" do occur naturally, respectively. Any ideology worth its time, thoughts, and aim recognizes that. Be honest, then, and decent. Own the principle, in all its dimensions. Reflect, practice, replicate what's real and keep the natural, reasonable/creative order. The alternative, as people throughout time have always proved, is only chaos. Avoid it like the plague and enjoy the peace, if you will.