AP Suppresses the Truth

For John, BLUF:  If we can't use correct terms we can not effectively communicate ideas.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Bipartisan House Coalition Urges AP to Change Stylebook Rule Advising Against ‘Terrorist’ Term for Hamas

Here is the sub-headline:

“The decision by the AP to avoid using terms such as ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ due to their perceived politicization is deeply unsettling.”

From Legal Insurrection, by Blogger Stacey Matthews, 23 December 2023 at 06:00pm.

Here is the lede plus two:

For several decades now, the Associated Press Stylebook has become the gold standard among many mainstream media organizations for, among other things, guidance on terminology that they suggest journalists should either use or avoid using when covering stories.

Unfortunately, this has meant that these same outlets over the years have willingly subjected themselves to falling in line with the AP‘s politically motivated evolution on the use of words like “abortion,” “riots,” “man” and “woman,” and even “the,” an evolution that conveniently almost always seems to match up with whatever Democrats and their affiliated special interest groups happen to be calling for at any given time.

As Legal Insurrectionc reported in October, the AP was, per their Israel-Hamas Topical Guide, only allowing their reporters to refer to Hamas terrorists as “militants,” “fighters,” “attackers,” or “combatants” despite confirmed reports of the atrocities committed against 1,400 Israeli civilians, including kidnapping, torture, rape, murder, and the beheading of infants.

At the risk of appearing arrogant, I would posit that the Hamas strategy is to evoke an over reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamib "Bibi" Netanyahu, thus garnering condemnation on the part of other nations, isolating Isreal on the international stage.  How would one provoke Bibi?  Through acts of depravity against the Israeli People.  In common parlance this is terrorism.

So, why is the AP (and others, like the BBC) avoiding words like "terror"?  I would say it is a way to clean up Hamas and make them more attractive to the West.  Change them from the ruthless fighters they are into peaceful people yearning ot be free and forced by circumstaances to kill their oppressors.  It is a much better sounding story.  Yes, it is a distortion of the truth, but for a "good cause".

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Odd Terms

For John, BLUF:  Being a Blow In to Lowell, I sometimes use terms unfamiliar to Lowellians  On the City Life show this morning I used the term "Pencil whip' and drew blanks from the producer and the three others around the table.  I was discussing the Sttes Registry of Motor Vehicles issuing driver's licenses without actually administering the road test.  In my lrevious existence, in thes Air Force, we would have said it was "pencil whipped".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Pencil Whip

Here is the Definition from The Free Dictionary:

pencil whip
1. To complete a form or record, especially a checklist, without doing the work required or by providing falsified or incomplete information.
It has come to light that the safety supervisor aboard the oil rig had been pencil whipping his observational reports for several weeks leading up to the disaster.
2. To approve such a form without actually verifying that the contents are accurate or properly completed
We're supposed to fill out a detailed checklist after each shift, but I know my boss just pencil whips them.

A Lesson Learned, or re-learned.  We are a pretty big and diverse nation and not every idiom is present in evdery cornor of the Country,

So, if I use a word that is not familiar to you, please ask me to define it.  I will try not to pencil whip it.

Regards  —  Cliff

In Plain Words

For John, BLUF:  NBC Sports Reporter Kelli Stavast put her spin on what the crowd was shouting at Talladega Superspeedway, after Driver Brandon Brown's Saturday, 2 October 2021 victory.  It goes international.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Canada Bans Public Employees from Using 'Let's Go Brandon'

From VodkaPundit, by Columnist Stephen Green, 18 October 2021, 10:28 AM ET.

Here is the lede plus one:

“Let’s Go Brandon” has made its way north of the border, where Canadian officials have banned its use by government workers.

In a notice written late last week, a [REDACTED] official (see photo below) warned that “the use of the wording ‘Let’s Go Brandon” and any variation thereof under any circumstances is banned.”

I assume that means also no Allons Brandon.

I wonder what Sir Ernest Gowers would have thought?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Communicating Clearly

For John, BLUF:  The inability of the Bureaucrats of the Federal Governmen to communicate well is a problem.  Either they don't wish to communcate or they did very poorly in school.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Hack

Here is the sub-headline:

How to write about attacking the United States:  The Cosmopolitan Globalists' Guide to Style

From the Claire Berlinski Substack, by the Cosmopolitan Globalists, 18 Decembewr 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

The Cosmopolitan Globalists, we have grandly announced, will not chase breaking news.  It breaks, we shrug.

But the Cosmopolitan Globalists have done nothing useful today because we can’t take our eyes off the breaking news.  It’s best we be honest about this.  And we don’t know what it means any more than you do.

Is Russia about to invade a NATO country?

We don’t know.

What does “a grave risk to government and private networks” entail?

We don’t know.

How secure is the American nuclear deterrent?

We don’t know.

Who now controls American nuclear weapons?

We don’t know.

But one thing we do know: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency can’t go in there without an editor.

Then begins the writing lesson.  An important one.  For example, while I like the expression "Supply Chain", it may not convey information to a lot of readers.  To me it is the line of actions from the clerk writing a requisition to the delivery of the item needed, and maybe on to the payment of the bill.  All needed to keep parts flowing so things get done.  But, what does it mean to Joe Bagadonuts?  I don't think we can be sure.

I recommend the book Plain Words.  One thing I remember is that a sentence shouldn't exceed 20 words.  It takes a very good writer to write an intelligible sentence over 20 words.  Good advice.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Now, Something Important

For John, BLUF:  Sometimes it is hard to keep up.  Sometimes the real news leaps ahead of attempts at humor.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Are Your Texts Passive-Aggressive?  The Answer May Lie In Your Punctuation

From NPR, by Associate Danny Hensel, 5 September 2020.

Here is the lede plus six:

Katherine Rooks remembers when she first learned that a punctuation mark could wield a lot of power.

The Denver-based writer had sent her high school-aged son a text message about logistics — coming home from school.

"I could tell from his response that he was agitated all of a sudden in our thread.  And when he came home, he walked in the door and he came over and he said, 'What did you mean by this?'"

Rooks was confused. How could an innocuous text message send confusion?

"And so we looked at the text together and I said, 'Well, I meant, see you later, or something.  I don't remember exactly what it said.'  And he said, 'But you ended with a period! I thought you were really angry!'"

Rooks wasn't angry, and she explained to her son that, well, periods are how you end a sentence.

But in text messaging — at least for younger adults — periods do more than just end a sentence:  they also can set a tone.

Who knew?

If the "full stop" punctuation can cause such anxiety, one wonders what an exclamation point might do.  Or one of the colons.

I still don't know when to put punctuation inside or outside a quote mark, so this new wrinkle has me totally flumoxed.

But remember, it is NPR, who told us Looting was OK.

Regards  —  Cliff

Terminology Issues

For John, BLUF:  In every group of people too large under existing coronavirus rules there is always someone who has a new word or a different use for a word you thought you knew.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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I was on an EMail amongst my two Brothers and their friends, with a discussion of an AAR—After Action Report.

I referred to AAR as an Acronym.  One of my Brothers' wisenheimer friends asked if it was an Acronym or if it was an Initialism.  An Initialism?  What kind of a woke expression is "Initialism"?  Yes, Initialism is a word in the Dictionary.

I could see the distinction based on pronounceable and not pronounceable, but not using a world like "Initialism".

By the way, based upon my personal experience with AARs, I pronounce it Arrrgh.

Regards  —  Cliff

French Language Threat

For John, BLUF:  It's all Greek to me.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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French Language Under Assault From English

From The Wanderer, by Monsieur John J Metzler, 15 August 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

PARIS — A long linguistic battle between French and English appears to have been settled: English won.  Some twenty-five years after passage of legislation to specifically defend use of the French language, and protect its patrimony throughout the land, what’s known as the Toubon law has become a quaint footnote.

The respected French daily newspaper Le Figaro headlines, “Advertising, Business, and Politics:  Franglais is gaining territory.” Franglais, which is a mix of French heavily mixed with English words and terms, has evolved since WWII.  It does not have its roots in British English but in American English, which like the Latin of old, has become the lingua franca of our modern age.

This is a language driven by entertainment, commerce, and computers more than by the pages of Hemingway.

But the reality is less that of Shakespeare and Longfellow surpassing Molière and Proust, but rather the language of Google and Facebook setting the linguistic parameters in an Anglo information universe. Long before globalization put English on the fast track, it was American music, television, and movie that brought English into the homes and cinemas of France, making it the cultural soundtrack for a generation.

Now, for example, the slogan of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics is Made for Sharing!

Even Air France, the national airline, uses the advertising and branding slogan, France is in the Air!

Though the Toubon linguistic legislation was passed in August 1994 to reaffirm French as the official language of the Republic, practically speaking English has been gaining rapidly in usage especially among the young and the business classes.  Back then the all-knowing State assembled an informal dictionary of 3,000 English words to supplant with French words.  This quickly fell by the wayside as the new expanding Internet injected English phrases into usage on steroids.

Today phrases like start-up, meeting, marketing, and benchmarks proliferate in the French commercial sector.

Part of this, in my opinion, has less to do with the words being English per se, but more to do with being more direct, short, and precise in their meaning and intent than their French counterparts.

For example, I’m looking at a catalogue for the cellphone/cable/WiFi provider Orange.  Here we see Livebox Fibre, 4G Home, Packs Open Up offerings from which to choose.

French radio is swamped by American music.  This is nothing new.  Stations play a steady stream of entertainment from Top 40, to Jazz and Hip Hop.  It’s the same at the movies.  Despite a strong and highly state-subsidized French cinema, the most popular films across France are usually American.  This summer, Lion King has captivated French moviegoers.  Usually about half the major films playing in France are made in the USA.

In a way, it is sad.  But, I remember the introduction of the Toulon Law.  Some of the proposed Français versions of Anglais terms were a little over the top.

Personally, I blame President Trump.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Words We Pick

For John, BLUF:  This is disturbing. . I wonder if Caucasian progressives dumb themselves down when the speak to Republicans.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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"White liberals dumb themselves down when they speak to black people, a new study contends."

From Althouse, by Law Prof Ann Althouse, 30 December 2018, from a Wash Post article.

There is a lot of explaining in the blog post and article, but I will cut to the chase:  Republicans tend to treat everyone as equals, until they prove otherwise.  Democrats, not so much.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff

Two Spaces

For John, BLUF:  This seems so obvious, but some are slow learners.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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One space between each sentence, they said.  Science just proved them wrong.

From The Wash Post, by Reporter Avi Selk, 4 May 2018.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.

Hat tip to my friend Dave Maxwell.

Regards  —  Cliff

Who Gets Protection?

For John, BLUF:  Yes, the bureaucrats in the Federal government could be creating resistance to immigration, by slowing assimilation.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Regulators sue Albertsons for allegedly banning employees from speaking Spanish in front of non-Spanish speakers

From The San Diego Union Tribune, by Ms Morgan Cook, Contact Reporter, 3 May 2018.

Here are the first four paragraphs:

Albertsons grocery stores violated the rights of Hispanic employees in San Diego with a policy forbidding workers to speak Spanish around non-Spanish speakers — even when conversing with each other during breaks or helping Spanish-speaking customers, according to a new lawsuit.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Albertsons Companies, Inc., on Thursday in federal court.  The lawsuit accuses the Idaho-based chain of discriminating against Hispanic employees at San Diego-area stores, harassing them and subjecting them to a hostile workplace because of their race or country of origin.

“Employers have to be aware of the consequences of certain language policies,” Anna Park, an attorney for the commission’s district office covering San Diego County, said in a statement on Thursday.  “Targeting a particular language for censorship is often synonymous with targeting a particular national origin, which is both illegal and highly destructive to workplace morale and productivity.”

According to the lawsuit, the national grocery retailer is one of the country’s largest, employing some 280,000 employees across 35 states.  The company’s stores serve about 2,300 communities and operate under 19 well-known banners, including Albertsons, Vons and Safeway.

Yes, Albertsons and Vons are real supermarkets.

From Law Professor Gail Heriot, teaching in San Diego:

I can’t help but wonder if Americans would have a more favorable attitude toward immigration if the federal government hadn’t been zealously pursuing anti-assimilationist policies for so many decades.  Attempts to impose bilingual education and affirmative action are two of the biggest ones.  (Why identify with the majority if your one of your grandparents will get you diversity points?) But in a small way these “Speak English, please” rules are another example.  (By the way, the EEOC seems to be going out of its way to “interpret” the Albertsons rule to be more demanding than it really is.  It is not the intent of the rule to prevent Spanish-speaking employees from assisting Spanish-speaking customers in Spanish if they happen to be within earshot of an English-speaking customer.)

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Parsing for the Truth

For John, BLUF:  There is a kernel of truth in President Trump's comment about third world nations.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Of Sh*tholes And Second Thoughts

From The American Conservative, by Mr Rod Dreher, 19 January 2018.

Another person who is willing to look at all facets of this item in the punch bowl.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

- 2 / Thur 4.5

Unbecoming America

For John, BLUF:  Unless you were a member of a "disfavored group" you should be OK, if you watch your tongue.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Speaking Bolshevik

From The Hoover Institute, by Mr Paul R. Gregory, Thursday, 5 October 2017.

Here is the lede plus two:

Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek said totalitarian regimes—Bolshevism, Fascism, and Nazism—are forms of government that direct “members of society by a single will supposed to represent the ‘whole.’” This “single will” is dictated by a Stalin, Mao, Hitler, or some collective rule. Per Hayek, such dictatorships require that “everything be governed by a single system of thought,” which rules out freedom of speech and press. These regimes may claim to aspire to lofty goals that compensate for the loss of freedoms, but they inevitably turn brutal, particularly against those who reject their ideology.

A single system of thought has many faults. At a minimum, it rules out competition of ideas. Just as the economy stagnates without competition among firms, so too do social and political regimes stagnate without a competition of ideas. This principle has applications today. The modern left disavows the most destructive aspects of totalitarianism. And yet, its approach to language and ideas is increasingly dictatorial. In recent years, radical leftists have been trying to promote a single system of thought via politically correct speech. This effort is doomed to fail.

In communist and fascist states—as exemplified by the USSR, China, North Korea, and Nazi Germany—a ruling monopoly party dictates a single system of thought which is drummed into the people by a propaganda ministry, a state-media monopoly, and the state-educational establishment. A pervasive secret police apparatus (KGB, Gestapo, or Stasi) finds and punishes those who resist.

After further discussion of how ideologically oriented regimes, such as communism and fascism, corrupt language and require conformity of thought, he looks at America today.

Surely such things would not be a problem in the United States. American constitutional guarantees of free speech, a competitive political system, the private ownership of media and entertainment, and a system of local public schools should rule out a single political language in the United States. Yet leftists have been actively working to stifle free speech on campuses, in corporations, and on social media platforms in recent times. It seems as if these progressives are campaigning to become the arbiters of what speech is allowed and what is forbidden in American society. They are promoting a new variant of speaking Bolshevik— “speaking PC.”

Read the whole thing and be prepared.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

English Language Requirement

For John, BLUF:  So the White House Press Corps wants to exclude English speakers?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Here I wrote About the Press and Immigration

In one of the videos CNN Reporter Jim Acosta asks the White House Spokesperson, Mr Steve Miller, about the English language requirement:

Are you just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?

I am guessing Mr Acosta has never met anyone from India or Pakistan.  Or asked for Help from some on-line service, which has been out-sourced to the subcontinent.

I am guessing that Mr Acosta has never traveled to Europe, where he has talked to the locals in English.

On the other hand, referencing Great British, there is this cautionary tale.♠

Want an example?

A few years ago I was shopping around a resume of a Dutchman.

One of our PhD Cognative Psychologists retorted that "We are doing a data dictionary.  We need someone who speaks English.

My response was "His English is better than yours."

"Get me some writing samples."

I got a couple of term papers from when this person was getting a Masters Degree from (Virginia's) Old Dominion University.

When I left the company this person moved right up.

I am guessing that Mr Acosta believes, based on his own experience, that either (a) all people from Canada speak French or (b) no Canadians ever want to immigrate to these United States, just Winter in Florida.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  There is the exception of Scotland, as show in this YouTube video (skip the add).