Has Stanford University banned any more words today?
Some rambling musings from a nincompoop.
Some rambling musings from a nincompoop.
So have Stanford University banned any more words today or was it a one-time only, 1984 Memory Hole kind of deal? America is a basket case isn’t it? I’m probably not allowed to say “basket case” any more and even if I am, it’ll only be a short time before that phrase takes a trip to an Orwellian hole that the human race has forgotten has been there their entire lives. We’ve just been constantly distracted to care otherwise.
But it isn’t just America I hear you scream and you’d be right and correct of course. This madness has spread like a virus around our entire world, a one world with a one world governance policy with a singular one world response to everything. The science, and everything else for that matter, is “settled”. There’ll be no arguments thank you very much! Here’s your singular cult like religion, your one size fits all prescribed medication and here’s your one world media, piping out the exact same “message” and censoring any and all opposing views.
I was going to “brainstorm” my ideas for this article but I had a thought, then a refreshing shower, and pretty soon the realisation hit me that this word had in fact been banned a long time ago. But it isn’t just the outright banning or censoring of, wait for it, “words that may cause harm”, it’s also the rounding off of the rough edges to old words and phrases that has always fascinated me. I adore language. I pretend to be a writer. I use silly phrases, in-jokes. I write outside a consistent rhythm or timing meter. I’m scattergun (are we still allowed to use this word?), I’m erratic, I ramble and I have half baked ideas that I persist with no fucks whatsoever for the outcome. I have 500 words in my mind, 3,000 words magically appear via my dancing fingertips, but this is me and you are you. You will use language in an entirely different way than me and I hope for your own sanity that your “thought showers” are more healthy and productive than mine.
But we can’t keep allowing words and phrases to be consigned to the memory hole. Can we?
University cancels phrases 'bury the hatchet' and 'killing two birds with one stone'
Stanford University has identified a host of words and phrases it wants to do away with as part of its "elimination of…www.telegraph.co.uk
Since birth I’ve called my beautiful son a nincompoop. Is that word still allowed? According to the officials at the ministries of truth and love, a nincompoop is
“a fool or stupid person”
but I use it exclusively as a beautiful term of endearment and fun, as well as turning its usage upside down in an entirely personal and unique way for a unique and beautiful human being. It’s fun too! Say it out loud. Roll with the language of the word, overly express the ending. It may even make you giggle! It’s a silly, fun word but there’s no fun to be had in this one world of censorship and deletion, safety and effectiveness.
I always return to the cute and flowery rounding off of our language now and one phrase in particular: “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” or even more blandly, PTSD. I have personal teenage experience of this and I’m not mocking or decrying the condition I’m living with as an adult. But it used to be called “Shell Shock” as in the after effects of hearing and experiencing the constant bombardment of shells and bombs in war and the catastrophic unimaginable human tragedy experienced by returning veterans. Shell Shock, as a term, is never used anymore, dispensed with and thrown into the memory hole. Why? Because the curators and killers of our current language don’t want you to associate hard, in your face words such as “Shell Shock” as you might then imagine the horrific horrible human tragedy that war, a forever war, actually is, and you might well demand an end to them. Not a very good business model for the military industrial complex! So the language is neutered to PTSD and the proles continue to see a blood thirsty war, a forever war, of land and Empiric dynasty, as a faraway forever war. It’s not even called a war anymore.
They fight in a fucking “Theatre” now, apparently.
Suffice to say, George Carlin nails it comedically here. A partial transcript:
“There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can’t take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shellshock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables: shellshock.
Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago.”
“Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along, and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shellshock!
Battle fatigue.”
“ Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, we’re up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now.
Operational exhaustion.
Sounds like something that might happen to your car.”
“Then of course came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ll bet you if we’d have still been calling it shellshock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.
I’ll betcha that. I’ll betcha that.”
May your God bless you George Carlin.
White House praises Jan. 6 committee after criminal referrals for Trump
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated her condemnation of "the worst attack on our democracy since…www.washingtonexaminer.com
Along with the deletion of words and phrases is also a re-writing of, and just plain deletion, of history itself. History is for chumps. Who needs history when there’s history being made right here, right now. It’s approved of history, obviously, and with its rubber stamp of approval it is now immediately enshrined within the digital corridors of The Matrix. I guarantee you these particular approved pieces of human history will never see the memory hole of its creator. Take the “Insurrection” on the USA Capitol Building in Washington on 6th January 2021. As recently as Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated yet again that the “insurrection” was in fact “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War”. Without a gun in sight, thousands of Americans in fancy dress were going to take over the established order of Government of the United States of America AND it’s being compared to the Civil War?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Here’s a more frightening question: What are the children of the next generation going to believe? Their own lying eyes or the words of their Government approved history books?
Here’s an arguably more frightening answer too: The approvers of such history? They conspired (at best) in the open assassination of a sitting President of the USA.
So much for all that.
We can’t continue to allow words, phrases and history to be distorted, re-written or downright deleted. I could make my tired argument that long form writing died along with the advent of the internet, social media and the constriction on character limits. Then emojis came along and who needed a word when a funny yellow coloured character would completely sum up your otherwise digital verbal utterance. We are devolving, not evolving.
George Carlin had a comedy bit entitled “Seven words you can never say on television”.
We now have words sent to the memory hole.
And there isn’t a word of protest.
Postscript
This was a wild one even for me! Whew! But if you’re going to protest at what I’ve written this afternoon, please do so quietly. I believe the word “protest” is still allowed but any such acting upon said word must be done quietly.
Shush!
By order of the Authorities governing the Language Police.
Thanks for reading. Here’s three examples of the brilliance you can expect to see within the cave of wonders that is my archives here:
“Down Terrace” (2009)
Ben Wheatley’s disturbing and blackly comedic cinematic debut.medium.com
Stokes and McCullum — Viva la revolution!
Pakistan v England — Karachi, Day 4.medium.com
Argentina Campeones del Mundo!
World Cup Diaries: Day 27medium.com