“‘Community’ makes everything sound better”
“Community” is derived from the Anglo-Norman and Middle French communité, meaning, primarily, “joint ownership.”...
Tag Archives: 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,...
“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...
“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...
“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...
“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...
When Michael Oren shifted the definition of “existential”
In 2009, Michael B. Oren, soon to become Israel’s ambassador to the United States,...
“Politicization is the last refuge of the scoundrel”
Politicization is the last refuge of the scoundrel. To “politicize” something — hurricanes, intelligence,...
“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...
“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...