Tag: Politics and the English Language

1,524 words

Vice President Kamala Harris is a vacuous twit.

People on the Right know this. People in the center, independents, and the unaligned know this as well. It’s obvious. When she was selected to run against Donald Trump after Joe Biden’s humiliating exit from the race this past July, this woman did not speak to a largely friendly press for weeks. And once she did, the results were often cringeworthy. From her uncontrolled cackling, to her awkwardly sipping a beer on late-night television, to her fake Jamaican accent, to her admitting on The View that she would not have done anything differently than Joe Biden these past three years, the woman has become a laughing stock. (more…)

2,265 words

England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr. Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. — George Orwell, “England, Your England”

Evening has fallen, the swans are singing.
The last of Sunday’s bells is ringing.
The wind in the trees is sighing,
And old England is dying.
— The Waterboys, “Old England” (more…)

2,583 words

Whenever a conservative or Right-winger accuses Leftists of acting like the Party from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the unerring refrain from the Leftist chorus is “Don’t you know George Orwell was a socialist!” The implication is that, especially in these politically polarized times, Orwell is the property of the Left. He wore their uniform, and so Right-wingers are, by invoking his name, committing a kind of theft.

Orwell’s best-known writings, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, are dark satires of that exact attitude: A man’s thoughts ought to belong to a political faction, and that political faction has some sort of right to them. (more…)

Friends of Dorothy Julian and Sandy speaking palare with Kenneth Horne on Round the Horne.

2,459 words

What stood out was the magical notion that the mere pronunciation of words in a ritual manner could effect a change in the character of material objects. — Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (more…)