Speculation and Language

Speculation



Maybe this should be entitled Speculation & Planning.  But for
the moment, we will just leave the title as is.  And that will do
just fine



The results of the recent election lit a fuse in my soul.  Now,
not next week, next month, next year -- NOW! -- is the time to begin
planning and action toward the midterm elections and then the
quadrennial contests.  I was happy to receive e-mail from Move
On!, Common Cause, and a few other groups, expressing this same concern
about which I've been blogging in these parts.



In a conversation the other day I was saying that I suspect
Cheneyburton will step down, and that will enable the
Rove-machine-controlled Dubya to install Frist as the Veep, and thus
anoint him as the legacy appointee for 2008.  In such a case, who,
we mused,  would be his running mate?



It was then suggested that the Bush Family Legacy would actually
prevail, and that Jeb would be the 2008 GOP candidate at the top of the
ticket.  Again we pondered the concept, and speculated as to Jeb's
running mate.  I suggested that it would have to be someone not
threatening, a team player, and someone who would carry through the
administration's legacy.  Although Jeb is family, he is a beltway
outsider, and the sense of a continuation of the Dubyadministration
would be a necessity.



So I suggested it should be Condoleezza Rice.  Jeb and
Condi.  Then it hit me -- the slogan for this ticket would be
great:  "The Brother and The Sister!"



I thought this was pretty funny, and intended to post it here. 
But I was hit with an attack of trepidation.  Fear struck. 
Uh-oh, I thought, this might seem racist.  It certainly isn't
meant that way, it is meant as wordplay and humor.  But people can
be very sensitive about issues of race, and some people just don't get
the joy or humor of  wordplay.



Hmmm.  What to do?  I sent it off to two women I know,
bloggers I respect, and told them that I'd thought this up and thought
it was funny.  It happens that these two women are bloggers I know
and respect, and whose opinions I value.  Neither wrote back to
express shock, anger, or concern re racism.



And yes, they are two of the twenty or so women bloggers listed in that ever-growing roll to the right.



I called a few other people to get their opinion.  Each and every
one of them said to go ahead and post it, it isn't racist.  One
sage voice noted that Condi Rice is such a whitebread regime wonk that
she might not even qualify for the sister title. The quick thinking Rageboy [1], as I was telling him the setup, and before I could utter the words, "The Brother and The Sister," opined that such a ticket would be the equivalent of "White on Rice." No wonder he's the Chief Blogging Officer [2]!



One
other person I spoke with, another blogger of significant readership
and  note, told me that anyone who would perceive something I
wrote as racist wasn't worth worrying about.  I appreciated that,
and wish I'd asked his permission to quote him on that.  But since
I didn't, it remains anonymous, sans attribution.



So the ground covered here has gone from speculation to a
sort of cognitive interpretation of language, or perhaps more
specifically, of vernacular.  Which leads to the next matter.



Language



When I went to elementary and junior high school (some of you may think of that as middle
school) we were taught to never begin a sentence with the word,
"but."  And to never being a sentence with the word, "and." 
The rules change over time, yes, yet this was taught as though it were
sacrosanct, the rules of grammar and sentence construction.  Do rules change as idiosyncratic use and widespread vernacular adoption occurs?



Word values sure change.  I recall the word "fart" being equally
as heinous as other four letter words.  Many of those words come
into common usage as one reaches adulthood.  As my kids became
teenagers I simply accepted their use of some words.  It would
have been too hypocritical to give them shit over saying something
like, "oh shit," when that sort of shit comes out of my mouth all the
time.



There were words that were not necessarily so heinous, just too foul
for common usage.  In, say, "mixed company."  I always
wondered what exactly was mixed company . . . was it like all sorts of
Chex (wheat, corn, whatever)?  Or mixed nuts?   Back when I
was a kid, one never used the word "tits" except when speaking with
other boys, usually in hushed tones, and generally as a point of
observation, analysis, comparison, or belovedness.  Then a few
years ago, reading the film review section of Time Magazine, that lofty
publication referred to a genre of movies as "Tits & Zits."



Allow me to add that this was the very frst time I'd ever seen those
two words together, and had never in my mind paired (no pun intended)
the two.



So if Time Magazine can use the word "tits" -- with no warning or
disclaimer -- then it must now be accepted and fair for usage.  It
is worth noting that this took place before Ashcroft became the
Attorney General.  Remember, this is the Cheneyburton
Administration appointee who had government money spent to cover the
brass breast of a famous statue, so he would not be seen in video bites
with that one bare breast behind his right ear.



Just in case you don't recall that moment of puritanic piety, here are some [3] old [4] links [5] to [6] coverage [7] of the event [8], including this very funny one [9].  And there was a cover-up story reported [10] on it, but that one fizzed out real fast.  John Gibson from Fox News [11] even rushed to Ashcroft's defense in Boobergate.  Here's a recent Op-Ed column [12]
about it, prompted by the news that Ashcroft was resigning.  Yep,
$8,000 of your tax money went to cover that offensive mammary
gland.  And we are safer for it, are we not?  Oops, wrong
pol, wrong race.



Will the incoming Attorney General get rid of the blue curtain with the
Dept. of Justice sea, and return the statue to our viewing midst? 
If so, would that be tantamount to him saying to Ashcroft, "tough
titty?"



There's a zits joke inside there somewhere, but let's leave it in
embryonic form.  After all, we know how Ashcroft (still in power)
feels about messing with embryos, and we want him to leave quietly, no
fuss.