Ignorance, arrogance, and "gunsplaining"

Seen on Twitter:

If I have this right, only climate scientists can have an opinion on climate change, but any jackass can opine on guns even if they don’t know a .22 from a 12 gauge.

— J.R. Salzman (@jrsalzman) March 9, 2018

In all modesty, I believe I have an improvement:

"...don't know an ear plug from a rubber bullet."

— Drang (@DWDrang) March 9, 2018

It is my understanding that this sort of attempt by those of us who are knowledgeable about firearms technology and terminology to correct those who are clueless about same is now derided as "Gunsplaining". Note that the link goes to what might be called a "friendly" site, as opposed to the ones that criticize "gunsplaining" as using "jargon" in "bad faith" to "bully" the gun grabbers...

Because terminological inexactitude is unimportant when The Feelz are at stake.

So, remember, next time you feel the need to correct someone on "Standard Capacity" versus "High Capacity" magazines, or to explain the difference between the independent and dependent clauses in certain articles in The Bill of Rights, or why cosmetic features make little or no difference to the actual functioning of a firearm, or why  certain firearm features are actually safety features...

...Remember, I say, that you are engaging in jargon-based, bad-faith, bullying behavior.

Make sure you capture any progressive tears that ensue, as I am assured that they make excellent firearms lubricant.

Ya know how I know?

Sometimes it's oh! so easy to tell when someone is Not From Around Here. A couple I heard on the radio while driving today:

• You refer to a local major highway or expressway using the definite particle and it's numerical identifier, but not it's alphabetical designation, i.e., "THE 5", "THE 167." To a Washingtonian, this screams "I'M A CALIFORNIAN!!!" Whatever you're trying to sell, forget it. 
• The name of the town in which the Western Washington Fair is held is NOT pronounced "Poo-Wallop." Sheesh. 
• The local mollusk with a long "siphon" that causes prudish little old ladies who see it to giggle nervously is pronounced "gooey-duck", with a hard "gee", NOT like it is spelled. Say "Geo-duck", with a soft "gee", and we'll all laugh in your face. 

A few years ago one of the local stations had an ad in which they lampooned other stations, bringing in outsiders, going through local acclimatization training, trying to wrap their heads around the fact that "Sequim" is pronounced "skwim."

Then again, I also recall an ad from a station in Detroit that used the same theme, in which a taling head pronounced "Gratiot Avenue" ("Grash-ut") as "Grat-ee-oh", and "Escanaba" as "Escabana."  (The latter only really jars Yoopers and we trolls who wished we had been born Yoopers...)

Peeves

"Moving forward."
I hate that phrase.
I'm not sure why it irks me as much as it does, but of all the modern management catch phrases, this one, more than any other, is guaranteed to get me an ass-chewing after a staff meeting, when I can't help but grimace.
"Moving forward"?  But we're not talking about something that moves. 
Why not just say "From now on"?  Or "In the future"? 
Sounds passive-voice to me, and I've been drilled to avoid passive voice whenever possible. 
Or maybe it's just that modern management fads piss me off generally.

Who?

During my morning blog-reading I saw that both Bobbi and Tam had referred to some Brit git who had compared the poor-quality YouTube video that allegedly inspired--or at least gave the rationale to--the murderous rioters in Cairo and Benghazi to a Jack Chick Tract.

Having never heard the term, I looked Jack Chick up in Wikipedia.

Jack Thomas Chick (born April 13, 1924) is an American publisher, writer, and comic book artist of fundamentalist Christian tracts and comic books.[1] His comics have been described by the Los Angeles Magazine as "equal parts hate literature and fire-and-brimstone sermonizing".

Oh. Him. Caught an NCO slipping some of that crap into the bag of a woman widely suspected of being a lesbian, and put a stop to it. Hmm:

Chick's company, Chick Publications, claims to have sold over 750 million tracts, comics tracts, videos, books, and posters designed to promote Protestant evangelism from a Christian fundamentalist point of view.

Videos? Oh, goody, he's expanded.

Many of these are controversial, as they accuse Roman Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims and many other groups of murder and conspiracies, while Chick maintains his views are simply politically incorrect.

I think we can take it as given that members of one of those groups is, in fact, given to conspiring to commit murder, among other crimes in the name of their religion.

Look, I'm STILL not saying all Muslims are terrorists or murderers, I'm STILL not saying Islam Delenda Est, but forgetting the truce of the Bear when dealing with Salafis, and/or Wahabists (I'm not sure there's a difference) is foolish.

At best.

LOL -- Updated, w/screen caps

The current deal on Steep and Cheap--which ends about the time I hit "post--is for a

Kershaw Knives 7' Fillet Knife

Under "Product Features" it says "Recommended Use: Fishing."

I don't know where they go fishing, or what for, but there's gotta be a reality show in there, if they need a filet knife that's ten inches longer than I'm tall....

Update!:  It was late, I had a nice vigonier going...
But wait!  Steep and Cheap is operated by Backcountry.com!  Maybe...
Yep.

Kersahw "seven foot fillet knife" on sale @ Backcountry.com.  But wait! There's more!

Kershaw "nine foot fillet knife" on sale @ Backcountry.com

"A note on usage"

Scott Johnson @ Powerline Blog.
I would add that "decimation" is not a synonym for "ruined" or "destroyed."
And the word is "orient", not "orientate."

Although there may be those who would, indeed, use "enormity" to describe Steve Jobs...

Peeves, not pets

I've seen some disputed over some pretty silly things. Matters of taste, for example: early in my Army career, I saw a fight start over "This damnyankee put sugar on his grits!!!" Other things: Beans in chili, dry versus wet BBQ, PC versus Mac...

Reading Nancy's post reminded me, for some reason, of one that arose several years ago, while we were in Colorado Springs, I believe. At a meeting of the local muzzleloaders club someone objected to the use of the term "costume." "I don't wear a costume, I wear period attire."

Ignoring for the moment the point that it is debatable just how period his attire was--Was there a sewing machine involved? Chemical dyes?--one of the definitions of "costume" is, in fact, "The particular mode or fashion of dress worn in a particular time or place."   So we wear costume all the time...

(Perhaps I should point out here that Mrs. Drang, and her "sister" The Raven, and Stitch Witch, as well as many of their friends, belong to various associations of costumers.  I got into muzzleloading through an interest in history as well as shooting, and potentially an extra hunting season; Mrs. Drang was basically indulging me, until she discovered the costuming potential.)

Anyway.  That attitude is actually common in the world of Historical Reenactment/Living History:  "Costume" is what actors wear, not to mention those people, "those people"  being whatever group the speaker holds in disregard:  Science Fiction fen, SCA , Highland Gamers,  Ren Fairies, etc. And you hear the oddest locutions:  "I was in garb..."

Well, I should hope so, as the alternative would be what our pagan friends call "skyclad", and (probably) arrested.

What?  You thought "garb" meant something special?  Like, perhaps, "The particular mode or fashion of dress worn in a particular time or place"?  Perhaps you should say "period garb"?

Or maybe just "costume..."

Question of the day, 08/31/2010

When did the word "literally" come to mean "figuratively" or "so to speak"?  How can otherwise intelligent people expect me to take them seriously when they commit such solecisms catachresis. (Catachreses?  Catachresi?  Make that "commit such a catachresis.")

Say what?

Article in the New York Times Magazine regarding theories of how ones language shapes ones thought.

Nice Choice of Words, Pal...

Interior Secretary Ken Salzar, speaking of the oil slick from the British Petroleum oil rig that just happened to blow up on Earth Day, told Fox News

We were stepping on the neck of BP to do everything we can do

and told CNN

Our job is keep our boot on the neck of British Petroleum and make sure they live up to their responsibilities.

Just a short jump to George Orwell's

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. 

h/t Wizbang.

Speaking of Language...

Dave Kellett, in today's Quote of the Day: "'The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary.'"

Last weekend, at Stitch Witch's birthday party, one of the other guests was wearing a t-shirt that said "English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages into dark alleys, knocks them on the head, and then goes through their pockets for stray grammar and syntax." Or something like that.

"The Indo-European Languages: A Summary"

Writing in The Brussels Journal, "Fjordmann Blogger" says "Since I have written several essays about the
Indo-European language family I can sum up what I have found so far."

Far too long to quote here, and far too interesting not to share.

Go RTWT, if you're interested in language.

Maybe it means something differant in German...

So, after all the jokes about the "iPad"--including revivals of a skit from MadTV featuring electronic feminine hygiene devices--a German firm is bringing out a rival--the WePad.

I see a commercial featuring that Japanese robo-dog...

Definition of the Day, 03/28/2010

So, there I was, trying to craft a really deep, profound, post on the nature of "human rights" and how to define what is, and is not, a human right.

Still struggling with it.

So I go to Google Reader and start reading... reading... Gun Blogger IV participant's blogs... reading... What's Chuck up to...?

Damn it, he summed it up better than I could.

A great litmus test is this:  Does this right have to be provided by someone or something?

If the answer is yes, then it isn't a right.

OK, so a "litmus test" is not a definition, but still.   

Word Of The Day, 03/24/2010

defenestrate:  \dee-FEN-uh-strayt\ , transitive verb; 1. To throw out of a window.


Usage:  "Many Tea Party members feel the Defenestration(s) of Prague set(s) a good example for politicians..."

Explains a lot...

Tamara clears up a lot of philological* questions.   She does not, however, address the relationship between Finnish,  Hungarian, and Korean.

Can't wait for her takes on Euskara ("Basque") and Navajo...

Speaking of Navajo, did you know that the US Army used Code Talkers, too?  Choctaw in WW I, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Comanche in WWII, but they never talked (!) about it; security, and the Army never was as savvy about PR as the Marine Corps...

***

*Philology?  Linguistics?  I have a helluva time telling the difference, assuming there is one, Professor Tolkein forgive me...

Definitons

Thought it might be useful to keep these in mind:

Epidemic ...In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) occurs when new cases of a certain disease occur in a given human population, during a given period, substantially exceed what is "expected," based on recent experience (the number of new cases in the population during a specified period of time is called the "incidence rate"). (An epizootic is the analogous circumstance within an animal population.) In recent usages, the disease is not required to be communicable.

Not necessarily what we thought it was, eh? And then there's the word that only geeks and nerds have heard:

Pandemic: A pandemic (from Greek παν pan all + δήμος demos people) is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide.

Both of above from Wikipedia.

Here's what Wiktionary has to say:

epidemic: Borrowed from French épidémique < épidémie, borrowed from Latin epidemia, borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐπιδήμιος (epidēmios) < ἐπί (epi), “‘upon’”) + δῆμος (dēmos), “‘people’”).
Noun
Singular epidemic;
Plural epidemics epidemic (plural epidemics)
Widespread disease that affects many individuals in a population.
(Epidemiology) An occurrence of a disease or disorder in a population at a frequency higher than that expected in a given time period. Antonyms: endemic

And

Adjective
pandemic: (comparative more pandemic, superlative most pandemic)

Widespread; general.
(medicine) Epidemic over a wide geographical area and affecting a large proportion of the population. World War I might have continued indefinitely if not for a pandemic outbreak of influenza.

Noun Singular pandemic, Plural pandemics
pandemic (plural pandemics) A pandemic disease

So, if the blowhards in DC and the media don't have a clue what the words mean, now we do...

Mea Culpa

in my post Unconstitutional I referred to Obama's intent to transition the US of A to a socialist state.

Jonah Goldberg (Liberal Fascism) points to "Sheldon Richman's entry on Fascism in the Encyclopedia of Economics:"

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society's economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the "national interest"—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

Okay, fine, I was wrong: Obama is not a socialist, he's a fascist.

(And methinks that entry will have to be edited, for proper use of tense...)

Today in History...

One of the two most common English phrases* entered the vernacular:

On this day in 1839, the initials "O.K." are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for "oll correct," a popular slang misspelling of "all correct" at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.

During the late 1830s, it was a favorite practice among younger, educated circles to misspell words intentionally, then abbreviate them and use them as slang when talking to one another. Just as teenagers today have their own slang based on distortions of common words, such as "kewl" for "cool" or "DZ" for "these," the "in crowd" of the 1830s had a whole host of slang terms they abbreviated. Popular abbreviations included "KY" for "No use" ("know yuse"), "KG" for "No go" ("Know go"), and "OW" for all right ("oll wright").

Of all the abbreviations used during that time, OK was propelled into the limelight when it was printed in the Boston Morning Post as part of a joke. Its popularity exploded when it was picked up by contemporary politicians. When the incumbent president Martin Van Buren was up for reelection, his Democratic supporters organized a band of thugs to influence voters. This group was formally called the "O.K. Club," which referred both to Van Buren's nickname "Old Kinderhook" (based on his hometown of Kinderhook, New York), and to the term recently made popular in the papers. At the same time, the opposing Whig Party made use of "OK" to denigrate Van Buren's political mentor Andrew Jackson. According to the Whigs, Jackson invented the abbreviation "OK" to cover up his own misspelling of "all correct."

The man responsible for unraveling the mystery behind "OK" was an American linguist named Allen Walker Read. An English professor at Columbia University, Read dispelled a host of erroneous theories on the origins of "OK," ranging from the name of a popular Army biscuit (Orrin Kendall) to the name of a Haitian port famed for its rum (Aux Cayes) to the signature of a Choctaw chief named Old Keokuk. Whatever its origins, "OK" has become one of the most ubiquitous terms in the world, and certainly one of America's greatest lingual exports.

Courtesy the History Channel, of course...

*The other is allegedly "Coca Cola", but don't ask me for the citation...

Double-plus Good!

Correction: The Left-Speak Glossary is up @ Joe Huffman's blog! A guest post by Lyle of Ultimak, which, when I say it like that, sounds like a character in a cheesy fantasy novel. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. (Not, like, someone from The Eye of Argon, for example...)