Translating ‘Woke’ into English
Having drawn vocabulary from most major world languages, including some “dead” ones, the English language is extraordinarily adaptive – “inclusive,” one might say.
Years ago, earning a reasonable living in most fields required an ability to speak and write Standard English, so schools taught it, and teachers graded students on proper usage. Back then, words had meaning, and misusing them had consequences.
Not anymore.
Effete pseudo-intellectual liberal politicians, media, entertainers, educators (sadly) and “wokesters” (a new “non-classical” word) have made the language nearly unrecognizable to people who learned English vocabulary/grammar thirty-plus years ago, and whose “archaic” English dictionaries lack modern (mis)usages.
The 9.8-pound Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 1967 Edition, defines “inclusive” as “consideration [of a] stated limit or extremes”… “everything concerned; comprehensive…”
Today, in hopeless pursuit of “equity,” liberals have replaced meritocracy with race, class and gender obsessions that effectively redefine the word “inclusive” to mean a universal individual requirement – no exceptions – to endorse and allow preferences for members of allegedly “marginalized” or “persecuted” groups.
The concept, known as “intersectionality” (another newly-fabricated word), features a bizarre system of inverse oppression “superiority” in which “oppressed” identity groups ranked higher on the “oppression” scale, that is, the less-oppressed, are, axiomatically, oppressors of those lower in the hierarchy.
Furthermore, the left has made “diversity” a self-vindicating term that masks otherwise-divisive, often race-based identity politics. Today, “diversity” means “discrimination and bigotry of which liberals approve.”
Their redefinitions would be laughable if so many weren’t discriminatory, even obscene.
Liberals cannot see how overuse has removed the sting from gratuitous, manipulative character assassinations.
For example, the left applies the words “racist” and “racism” so promiscuously that they’ve lost all meaning. Liberals hurl the “racist” slander at anything they don’t like or anyone with whom they merely disagree. “Racist hate speech” can mean any, including benign speech of which liberals disapprove, including “All lives matter.”
Indeed, anyone can be “racist.” Leftists accused fellow-liberal Senate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of being “white nationalists” for voting to keep the filibuster, a rule Democrats have used hundreds of times, fought to keep the last time Republicans held a Senate majority, and will probably need again next year.
No longer “a living child developing in the womb,” the left has redefined “fetus,” alternately, as “a clump of cells” or “lumps of protoplasm.”
They redefined aborting – killing – a living fetus as “reproductive health,” “reproductive rights,” “reproductive freedom,” “a woman’s right to choose,” even “reproductive justice” – but for whom?
Consider a few other common left-wing rhetorical corruptions alongside their Standard English meanings:
“Cultural appropriation” – any American’s “inappropriate” appreciation for and practical application of another cultures’ useful, tasty, pleasant, and/or attractive recipes, products, fashions, designs and/or ideas.
“Microaggression” – any common verbal/nonverbal communication that “triggers” a liberal’s psychotic overreaction.
“Academic freedom” – “scholarship” that doesn’t violate or challenge politically-correct, rigorously-enforced left-wing campus orthodoxies.
“Free speech” – a privilege limited to critics of anyone who challenges politically-correct left-wing orthodoxies.
“Sexuality” – one, possibly multiples of many “diverse” personal “gender” preferences, including “None.”
“Homophobes” – heterosexuals who mind their own business.
“Fairness” – whatever liberals say it is.
“Undocumented workers – 1) illegal aliens, 2) potential Democrats.
“Xenophobes” – 1) white people, 2) anyone who supports border security or limiting immigration to educated, self-sufficient people.
“Haters” – 1) political conservatives, 2) anyone who disagrees with liberals, or, worse, wins an argument with one.
“Nazis” – political conservatives, especially politicians who win offices from liberal Democrats.
“Nazism” – Any expression of personal freedoms “wokesters” don’t like, e.g., America’s Bill of Rights.
And, in the COVID era:
“Far right-wing conspiracy theory,” alternately, “misinformation” – a fact or facts everyone will know in three to six months.
Liberals make English a “Tower of Babel,” because they’re terrible at crafting coherent, logical, persuasive arguments.
They’re outnumbered, so otherwise-unaccomplished liberals misuse – abuse – language to leverage fraudulent, self-assumed moral “authority” into political power by intimidating, shaming, insulting and canceling America’s silent majority, before whining, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
Only acquiescence can give authority to their ultimately-meaningless, often-hostile linguistic idiosyncrasies.
Ordinary Americans can put an end to left-wing nonsense by ignoring and/or ridiculing them, thus denying liberals the respect, attention and power they demand, but haven’t earned.
Dictatorial, self-appointed “morally-superior” bullies hate indifference and mockery, because, to them, those are the harshest punishments of all.
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2022/02/14/jerry-shenk-america-lets-use-standard-english/
