“‘Community’ makes everything sound better”
“Community” is derived from the Anglo-Norman and Middle French communité, meaning, primarily, “joint ownership.” A community, at least in theory, is a […]
Tag: Semantics
“‘Classified’ still conjures images of top-secret government plots, but, in Trump’s Washington, it’s more often used to describe information that the president would prefer to keep quiet”
Trump has been merciless toward anyone else in government who reveals his administration’s secrets, tweeting that ‘‘the real story that Congress, the […]
“Pettiness often manifests itself as an outsize form of revenge — responding to mild slights by putting an absurd amount of energy into plotting meaningless reprisals”
Pettiness often manifests itself as an outsize form of revenge — responding to mild slights by putting an absurd amount of energy […]
“Through the whole late 20th century, ‘existential’ floated through American conversation mostly as a kind of mush…”
Through the whole late 20th century, “existential” floated through American conversation mostly as a kind of mush — a loose gesture in […]
“The way we use ‘entitled’ feels less strange when you consider that its two meanings have slightly different origins”
The way we use “entitled” feels less strange when you consider that its two meanings have slightly different origins. Once upon a […]
“Owning someone isn’t just about taking his things; it’s about diminishing him as a person”
“Owned” is borrowed from hacker slang. If you got owned, that meant some hacker jimmied the lock on a virtual back door, […]
When Michael Oren shifted the definition of “existential”
In 2009, Michael B. Oren, soon to become Israel’s ambassador to the United States, wrote an essay for Commentary examining seven “existential” […]
“Politicization is the last refuge of the scoundrel”
Politicization is the last refuge of the scoundrel. To “politicize” something — hurricanes, intelligence, science, football, gun violence — is to render […]
“Part of what makes the modern use of ‘winning’ so strange is that it’s often used in contexts that are not competitions”
Part of what makes the modern use of “winning” so strange is that it’s often used in contexts that are not competitions. […]
“Owning someone sets you up to be owned yourself, sometimes in the same breath”
The most successful ownage finds hubristic targets, people who think they know more than they do. But ownage is itself a hubristic […]
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Tagged community, Language, Semantics