The jewel in the crown of Samizdata.net
A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR
[Russ.,= self-publishing house]
There is much to find for those who look
We are not alone
Made possible by...
 
July 26, 2006
Wednesday
 
 
Define your terms
Scott Wickstein (Adelaide, Australia)  Humour

Tim Blair updates the Australian version of the English language.

Comments

I particularly liked 'Intellectual'.....which immediately brought Johnathan Pearce to mind.


Posted by permanent expat at July 26, 2006 10:29 AM

I liked "quagmire". How about - Civil war, n. What any country containing US troops is always on the verge of.


Posted by Dubois at July 26, 2006 11:08 AM

"Global warming, n. Scientifically observed phenomenon whereby scientists the world over receive warm, toasty funding to talk about the weather. "

... and fool the clueless intellectuals.


Posted by Jacob at July 26, 2006 11:57 AM

To the man-in-the-street, who,
I’m sorry to say,
Is a keen observer of life,
The word ‘Intellectual’ suggests straight away
A man who’s untrue to his wife.


Posted by W H Odd one at July 26, 2006 02:11 PM

There is a serious side to labeling, but I do think that humour is probably the best way of dealing with it. The lessons of history do show how important being the first one getting the label in can be. Before the Russian revolution the communists called themselves "Bolsheviks", which, I believe, means Majority. Their opponents, in a mind bogglingly stupid act of accelerating their own demise with a self fulfilling prophesy accepted the label, Menshovik, meaning minority.

In more recent times, how is it possible that the American left got away with calling themselves "liberal" when they are anything but liberal, causing real liberals into lexical juggling acts by taking on the word "libertarian".

At least the global warmers find themselves slightly stymied as they seek to explain even cooling events, like the last cold winter or the postulated interruption of the gulf stream, as caused by human actions, and seek to relabel the increasingly contradictory phenomana as "climate change".

We need more humour like this because the one thing that "passionate" people cannot abide is ridicule.


Posted by Steven Groeneveld at July 27, 2006 10:55 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?


Enter anti-spambot Turing code:





Select some text and click this to format it as a quote Make the selected text bold Make the selected text italic Add a web link


Basic html active.

Alas, but for obscure reasons Mozilla, Mac and Linux users shall not harness to power of the push-button formatting options and shall therefore compose basic html with their bare hands. Yet Mozilla, Mac and Linux users shall not fear, for we shall reveal forthwith the mysteries of Basic Html:

<strong>This text in-between is bold</strong>

<em>This text is in italics</em>

And
<blockquote>This is a quote</blockquote>
Remember to close your opened tags as such: <tag> tagged text and closing </tag> and we promise you will get out of here alive.

For adding links, either use the link URL button on the toolbar or enter your code by hand in the following format:
<a href="http://www.your_link.com">your link text or description here</a>

Movable Type's anti-spambot e-mail address protection is enabled.

You are a guest on private property. Have fun but please be civil and succinct. Blogroaches will be persecuted, not to mention IP banned.

Long third party quotes or articles will also be deleted... so just link to articles you think are germane to your comment, don't quote the whole bloody thing.