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Sunday, November 20, 2016

Not Really, Literally

I believe my first exposure to the word/concept of “literally” was in an academic setting, used in a class or as a word to remember for spelling.  And that definition was something like: “adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression”.  To my mind, simply put, the term literally was used in cases where a common figure of speech or colloquial saying actually happened.  For example: you would say “It’s literally raining cats and dogs” only if an airplane carrying cats and dogs exploded in the sky creating such a downpour.

Alas, literally has seemed over the last decade or so to mean the opposite of this cherished definition.  Now, in a crazy downpour, you are likely to hear someone say, “It’s literally raining cats and dogs”.  No cats.  No dogs.  Literally is used for emphasis, it is an intensifier.

The benchmark of critique of this apparent change in usage is David Cross’ bit about the word.  How galvanizing that was in my critical view of the word: “[B]ecause when you misuse the word literally you are using it in the exact opposite way it was intended.  When you fuck that up you fuck that up so bad it’s not like a little goof, it’s not like when you said penultimate and meant ultimate where you’re off by one, you completely fucking misuse it.  You should stop using the word, forever, until you figure it out.”  Excoriating.

But, inevitably, things change.  I remember my Linguistics prof in college saying that the task of language was to get across meaning.  If what you say conveys what it is you meant to convey then you are correct.  If tend to agree with that.  So, I thought, let’s not be so critical of the misuse of literally.  Apocryphally, I heard somewhere that the definition had changed since the misuse is now so common – fair enough.

But when I went to track down proof of the change of the definition of literally I came to a stunning discovery: the definition, for as long as the word has existed could mean BOTH.  I should have known.  Merriam-Webster’s definition No. 2: in effect : virtually.  Shucks.

Still, to not let it go.  I would say definition No. 1 is the dominant definition.  The feeling is that those not familiar with the intricacies of language have co-opted the word.  In an unknowing fashion.  That is the what the critique of its No. 2 use is picking up on, whether or not it actually is correct be damned.  Does it represent a decline in national literacy?

Metaphorically, I see the misuse (yeah: misuse.  Why not, let’s be a militant grammarian.) as a sign of people’s need for certainty.  They need concretize what they are saying, to disambiguate what they are saying.  It is a running away from the horrible vicissitudes of life, the gnawing sensation that reality is not what it seems.  There are questions that people have about life – and especially life in the United States right now – questions which they cannot quite formulate.  Metaphor is shunned.  What is on the surface is simple, graspable.  I feel like using the word literally (misusing) is a code for all these feelings.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Post election observations, or, Fuck you mainstream media

My joy in this election result comes from sticking it to the mainstream media.  Apparently ridicule can only go so far, or loses its efficacy once the insult has been cast and the laughing has subsided.  A liberal media?  Fuck that.  The mainstream media are basically the cheerleaders of Corporatism and ignorance – don’t think motherfucker, consume.  How long has it been since the mainstream media has served the people instead of simply serving the people to advertisers?  (There are some bright spots in the press: Democracy Now, The Intercept . . . Russia Today – really a Russian news agency that does a better job than most American outlets.)

And joy from watching the election coverage as the commentators grappled with the idea that not everyone is a college-educated bandwagon-rider who benefits from the system (i.e. enviro-destruction with a green face, off-shoring of jobs, militarism, and finance, finance, finance) like they are.  Fuck them!  And really a fuck you to the average American whose wagons are ridiculously tied to this bandwagon so mindlessly, emulating those they actually have only a tenuous connection to – most of that connection comes from laughing at the ridicule heaped on those who want to change the system.  Wake up!   Where do you truly get rewards from?  Who is making you throw your goddamned God-stamped morals out the window?  Don’t you realize it?  Break the fucking spell!

And to see the reaction by media pundits, anchors and show host: what is it that you decry in this election result?  What garners such looks of disbelief and shock and your outraged responses?  Surely not your complicity in the system that has steadily impoverished the average American?  Surely not you lack of coverage of the increasing wealth gap, the freezing of any increase in real wages over the last 40 years?  Surely not your lack of covering the link between policy and arms manufacturers?  Surely not calling out the bullshit companies that make so-called “food” and that you so hungrily accept advertising money from?  How can you criticize someone newly elected president who has not done anything with the office yet while at the same time have such a damning laundry list of misdeeds and inaction hanging around your neck?  Fix that goddamned problem first.

Trump may prove to be whatever, whatever, etc. – we’ll find out soon enough.  And his average follower is most likely a fucking moron – that typifies Americans supporting both of the candidates this election anyway.  But, to my sources of joy:  hooray! for the sentiments of change and hooray! to the ridiculous confusion of mainstream culture.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Kony(Clinton/Trump) 2016 -or- Kony Baloney

Remember the Kony 2012 thing?  “One thing we can all agree on”?  Critical observers met this with frustration since Joseph Kony was one of many in a line of disreputable characters and issues: it took slick production and deft social media manipulation to get people involved.  Why this?  Because it is the way of the world.

It is the same today with the presidential election.  The points to get involved before the election are legion – so many ways to get involved, so many topics to study-up on and make decisions about.  But it is the presidential election, with all its history and glamor that stirs people from their slumbers.  Like when white people protest, novel things happen each election cycle.  As with white people protesting, things get fucked up.  It seems with each prezzie election the wheel is remade again and again and again.

Kony was effectively (if not explicitly) condoned by our national security apparatus.  The aims of the movement would have helped move the American pieces on the chessboard in a beneficial way.  So too, the presidential election allows for beneficial manipulation of the American public.  It’s like: “This is your time to express yourself through your vote and don’t forget: your vote counts!”  With the subtext: “Oh yeah, and don’t do anything else.  Don’t pay attention to anything except the mainstream media.  Keep giving a fuck about sports.  Keep watching TV shows and movies.  And . . . vote!  Good job!”

With the election we have all come to the alert and are paying attention.  Let’s not talk about the Deep State.  Let’s not talk about leaving the world in a livable state seven generations from now.  Let’s not talk about the selling of our souls for Saudi crude.