Word usage: no longer about communication
The Friday Letter / No. 548 / July 7, 2023
For some time I have wondered why more people don't object to the woke establishment's new rules on word usage. But then I also don't understand why Americans put up with some food prices that are 50 percent higher than a year ago and not place the blame where it belongs: with Joe Biden and Congress. So some things I am just destined not to understand.
Consider this report at deadline.com:
The Associated Press style guide – which sets the agenda for how most major media uses (sic) its words and phrases in reporting, thus shaping society views – has come out with new guidelines on gender.The AP now instructs journalists to respect LGBTQ subjects’ preferred pronouns and to avoid terms like “biological sex.”
The new guide also suggested avoiding phrases like “both sexes,” indicating there are more than two that people use. Journalists should also avoid referring to a trans person as being born a boy or girl, with “sex assigned at birth” the new preferred usage.
The woke generation doesn't control how normal people speak and write, but it does control how academics and self-styled “journalists” use our language. To the AP and the Modern Language Association (MLA), eliminating all risk of offending the left is more important than writing with clarity.
I am a former college writing instructor, 15 years, part time, all of it, in the composition trenches. I did OK. I wrote some reference letters for successful admissions to graduate school, including medical school. I have heard from former students who earned CPA designations and MBAs, and another admitted to a master of fine arts program (a terminal degree) at Bennington College. These students all came through my community college freshman comp courses.
I have published many articles on the pedagogy of writing instruction, including a peer-reviewed academic journal article, and articles on higher education in non-reviewed but professional publications.
So just for fun, I decided to find out if I am qualified to teach English in a public high school. According to the practice test I took for certification – the union card required to teach in government schools – I am not qualified.
I scored a 54 on the practice test. But here's the thing: Not a single question – not one – had anything to do with writing or even grammar. Writing, I have long argued, widely acknowledged by recognized scholars who have studied these matters over many years, is the basis for learning in school. We write to learn.
Every question tested facts from novels and short stories. That's great, as long as you have read the same stories and novels the test writers have read. I just don't happen to recall many details from novels I have never read.
(I am especially deficient in recalling details from Heather Has Two Mommies, though in fairness this classic didn't appear on my test.)
I might have passed if the test writers had asked about Crime and Punishment, Darkness at Noon, A Farewell to Arms, O Pioneers!, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Trial, The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath, short stories by Guy de Maupassant, Susan Glasspell, Faulkner, or Kate Chopin, or essays by Willie Morris or E.B. White. Alas, my ticket wasn't drawn from that lottery.
English teachers love to teach literature because it keeps them from having to grade their students’ writing. They would rather feed multiple choice answers into a machine and let them do the grading. I don't blame them, but helping students become better writers is part of the deal when you sign up to teach English.
My wife can attest that I used to spend great chunks of weekends hacking my way through piles of student essays. Some semesters I had 80 or more students. If you've never read one of these gems, rest assured that much of what they compose is not pretty. Many students told me over the years that they wrote virtually nothing in high school. Hand-holding patience is a requirement of this job.
Because writing isn't emphasized in many high schools, teachers and “journalists” (that term is not meant as a compliment) don't have a problem with a sentence like this: Ralph picked up their ticket at the will-call window for themself and their husband.
If you hold to the quaint idea, as I do, that one purpose of writing is to communicate an idea with clarity and purpose, you would find the foregoing sentence appalling.
A long time ago, written communications became easier with development of alphabets. This was especially helpful in describing God, who previously could only be described with pictures. Unless you accepted the idea that God looked like the sun or some creature with eight arms, you had a difficult time picturing the concept.
Language began its backward slide decades ago. Perhaps you recall the first time you heard some stupid phrase like “Madam chairperson” in the 1960s or 1970s. At any rate, our transition from communication to propagandizing is in full swing.
Short takes on the news
Daily Mail
Arrogance and a sense of entitlement in politicians are not limited to US power grabbers. Tory Whanau, the mayor of Wellington, New Zealand, skipped out on a $140 (US) restaurant tab, dismissing any concerns by asking the waiter, “Do you know who I am?” Tory denied that she was drunk, even as the restaurant manager had considered not serving her alcohol when she first arrived. She explained her action as “an honest mistake” and paid up the next day.
The Hill
The left-of-center Capitol Hill political newspaper forecasts five US Senate seats likely to flip next year from Democrat to Republican. One of those is Krysten Sinema's seat in Arizona, where Republican Kari Lake is contemplating a run after losing the governor's race last year to Democrat Katie Hobbs. The Hill gives Lake a strong chance but is ignoring the Maricopa County factor. Maricopa, as it has done in previous elections, will deliver whatever votes are needed, taking whatever time is needed, to deliver a Democrat victory.
Unless something major changes in the next 16 months, Arizona and Pennsylvania are practically guaranteed to give their electoral votes to Biden, quashing any possibility of the GOP winning back the presidency.
First Liberty Institute
For 20 years, anatomy and physiology professor Johnson Varkey got away with claiming that x and y chromosomes determine a person's sex. His employer, St. Philip's College, a small community college in San Antonio, recently got wind of what Dr. Varkey was teaching and fired him.
One of the preposterous claims that led students to walk out of his class and file complaints is that for all species to survive, sex must occur between a male and a female. In Dr. Varkey's termination letter, a college bureaucrat said his teaching was offensive and unacceptable.
Although the professor is also a Christian pastor, he didn't preach the Gospel in his classroom. What he did preach was the biological fact that when a sperm joins with an egg, it creates a cell with 46 chromosomes. These cells then divide for 38 weeks, a time when “nothing is added and nothing is taken away,” Dr. Varkey explains, until “a beautiful baby” is born. That really got under the green-haired wackos' craw, because the professor was stating the obvious: Life begins at conception.
Just the News
This is why they tell Kentucky jokes in Indiana. A woman running for attorney general in Kentucky is licensed to practice law in Indiana but not Kentucky. Law license, schmal license. Whatever.
A Friday Letter quiz follow-up
Our civics test was so popular that we follow it up this week with another question. Consider carefully before answering.
Who said the following? “The Declaration of Independence was written by enslavers and didn’t recognize Black people as human. Today is a great day to demand Reparations Now.” (Hint for those who attended government schools: The message was sent as a tweet.)
A George Washington Carver
B Frederick Douglass
C Crispus Attucks
D Congresswoman Cori Bush
Bonus question. Who demanded on July 4 that Mount Rushmore be given to the Indians? (Not the Cleveland Indians, not the Indianapolis Indians, not the Ten Little Indians, and not the Indians from India.)
A The My Pillow Guy
B Marjorie Taylor Greene
C Mark Levin
D Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
If you answered “D” on both questions, welcome to The Friday Letter Board of Contributors!
Recommended
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Daniel Horowitz at The Blaze
Noting that “pipelines attempting to capture and store carbon are not a public good,” Horowitz says only red state governors like Kristi Noem support these scandalous land grabs to help their donors and pals. “They should be dead on arrival in every red state,” he says in describing these “absurd pipelines subsidized by Biden's Green New Deal.” His warning is a call to Republican voters to quash any talk of Noem becoming Trump or DeSantis' running mate – her poorly disguised goal.
“Why Democrats Should Primary Biden”
Jack Shafer at Politico
From the left, the magazine's senior political writer argues why a primary challenge would either toughen up Biden for the campaign or remind voters that he's unfit to run.
I am writing a book for parents on how to help their children survive educational indoctrination. To share your stories, contact me at steve@combsmedia.us