Bone In The Throat

That’s primarily what keeps bringing me back to American Thinker.

Most of the articles are written at an English proficiency level beyond those of Slate, Mother Jones, or often The Atlantic.

This was underscored for me this morning as I read the following piece in American Thinker, “The Top 10 COVID Villains of 2021“

I know, the title alone is enough to put most of my liberal friends and acquaintances off. I ask them, “Where’s your egalitarianism? some of you correctly demanded that I broaden my reading scope. Surely, reading one article will not cause your “Progressive card” to be revoked.” Unless of course you’ve submitted to constant monitoring of your data stream by “The Party”

By no means, do I think the article was written as anything more than a “Fun Piece,” with a bit of a sting… In being a “Fun Piece” the article excels. When was the last time in any main stream press article that you saw words like, consigliere, execrable, harpy, fatuously, cudgel, avuncular,  and brucellosis (Had to look that one up) in one place used correctly?

When was the last time one of those articles mentioned, Jimmy Hoffa, Michael Corleone, Grendel’s mother, Donna Reed, Margaret Hamilton, Oompa Loompas, Machiavelli, Mister Rogers, Dr. Evil, Dr. Strangelove, and Marcus Welby MD, in the same piece?

For the linguistic legerdemain and funny callbacks to cultural icons, the article is worth the 5 minutes to read.

Something else that caught my attention. As I read aloud some of the bits that made me chuckle to the other half, I noticed that the vocabulary was unapologetic. If your vocabulary wasn’t sufficient you wouldn’t be amused by the article. Same goes for your knowledge of cultural references. This piece was written for Americans who spoke American English and have shared American experiences.

Then while pondering this. It occurred to me that many of the other articles in mainstream publications are written very simply. They often have typos which are artifacts of either someone who speaks English as a second language, or the author is using some kind of transcription software, rather than actually physically typing their article manually.

I have used similar transcription software but find that it is often more trouble than it is worth. I spend far more time editing the results than I would’ve done just typing what I had to say in the first place. It’s also far easier to miss errors if you’re editing a large block of transcribed text.

This lead me to ponder when the next major evolution of the English language would happen. For the moment people seem to have contented themselves with rendering all pronouns utterly useless. I will not be surprised to discover that, “To, Two, Too, Their, There, They’re, & Your, You’re,” are next on the agenda to be eliminated. I’m sure those offensive words will be followed shortly by homonyms.

The obvious justification for these words elimination from our lexicon will be that they are racist. Clearly these words are a plot by white supremacy to confuse the language, making it harder for BIPOC folks to score well on English Exams. That will be the selling point.

The reality is much more mundane. The transcription software can’t differentiate which of the words is meant. Rather than tell “Journalists” or journalism majors, that they have to type instead of dictate, it’s more in line with equity to remove the words entirely.

Et Voilà, suddenly, there will be another tell tale by which White Supremacy can be detected. If a writer or speaker, has a broad vocabulary they must by definition be part of the patriarchal white supremacist group.

The above argument is stupid on its face. However I’ll not be surprised by some variation of this stupidity being touted as truth and justice, or CRT.

I keep coming back to American Thinker because the articles are more often than not well thought out, and they use English. I love reading English that isn’t dumbed down, homogenized, and written on par with a Dick and Jane book. I enjoy reading something where the words used, have the meaning intended.

Any article will quickly lose my interest if there are multiple examples of the incorrect word being used in the piece.

I’m reading the article because it had something in the title that caught my attention, if I’m having to guess at the intended meaning of paragraphs or sentences then I conclude that the author doesn’t know what they’re talking about and is quite probably wrong. Therefore there is no need to waste further time on a piece.

There was a recent article (within the past year) in a mainstream publication where the author asserted that our planet orbited our star in the center of our galaxy, which in turn orbited an almost infinite solar system that contained at its center, a massive black hole. This was repeated several times in the article and clearly demonstrated a very flawed understanding of at best, the terms Galaxy and Solar System. At worst, astronomy in general. I’ll leave it to the reader to pick apart how horribly wrong the author’s statements were.

Where are the fact checkers for that kind of misinformation? It’s pretty easy stuff to look up!

I’m also bored very quickly if an article in a publication requires me to have the Urban Dictionary open in the background so that I may decode the bastardization of common words.

I remember when Urban Dictionary was a satire site, you went there during lunch to amuse yourself while eating at your desk. Now it’s almost an indispensable reference, especially if I happen to read a Rolling Stone article.

I’d prefer to think this is not a function of me getting older. However there is only so far my powers of denial will go.

If you’d like to read opinion pieces more complex than Dick and Jane, but not as heavy as War and Peace give American Thinker a go. As I discover additional media that doesn’t require a lobotomy or drug induced haze to read, I’ll pass them along.