Tag: the English language

661 words

The recent trend of adding words such as broughtupsy and carry-go-bring-come—terms originating from Jamaican dialect into the Oxford English Dictionary represents a significant degradation of the English language. While dictionaries are, by their nature, descriptive rather than prescriptive, the deliberate inclusion of colloquialisms over abstract, sophisticated, and idea-laden words signals a shift in what is considered “worthy” of codification. (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…)

Leonid Pasternak, The Passion of Creation (1892)

2,009 words

Recently I took part in a discussion of writing and how to do it on Counter-Currents. This being a topic of some importance to me, I decided to throw together a few thoughts in a form more coherent that I could do in a podcast. A danger in doing this is that readers will joyfully point out instances in which I have failed to follow my own suggestions. (more…)

674 words

Commander John Irving, Royal Navy
Royal Navalese: A Glossary of Fo’csle Language
London: Focal Point Publications, 2020 (originally published 1946)

Somebody recently gifted me with this trim, entertaining little book. Perhaps because of the season, I immediately identified it as one of that peculiar species of “Christmas books”: small volumes, usually elegantly designed, illustrated with line drawings, and often found stacked near the bookseller’s cash register in December. (more…)

Mark Weber

266 words / 1:01:23

Mark Weber of the Institute for Historical Review was Greg Johnson‘s guest on the latest broadcast of Counter-Currents Radio, which was a pre-recorded discussion on the perils of empire, and it is now available for download and online listening. (more…)

Rishu Sunak

2,188 words

We’ve tried the cowboys, now for the Indians

There is nothing so exciting or colorful as the election of a Hindu Prime Minister. The splendor of India, the heat and dust, the parade of many-armed goddesses and elephant gods, the dusky maidens in bright saris doing that thing with their necks that parrots do, the flowers, the smell of spice, the . . . (more…)