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21 March, 2009

Dictionaries, Like Reality, Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias

We're neck-deep in absurdity and getting deeper (h/t):
On the March 17th edition of The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly and author Bernard Goldberg ventured a discussion of whether or not the Yiddish word "schvartzer," which comedian Jackie Mason used to describe President Barack Obama, was a derogatory term or not. It was, in Goldberg's opinion "absolutely not a bad word."

[snip]

But this, via News Hounds, is the funny part:
O'Reilly, playing the voice of balance, pointed out that his dictionary referred to it as, "often disparaging and offensive."

Goldberg's answer? "Forgive my arrogance. The dictionary is written by some liberal person."

[snip]

So there you have it! The definitions of the words commonly used in the English language have a known liberal bias. Which explains why most of Goldberg's books seem like they're written in Esperanto.

One day. Just for one fucking day, a single eensy-weensy day, I'd like it if finding Con dumbfuckery to laugh at were actually difficult. I'd like to go through a day when my head didn't hurt from hitting the desk. I mean, for fuck's sake, if I were writing a fiction novel and put an exchange like that in there, the editors would be asking me if I realized my parody's a little too extreme, and would I maybe like to tone it down a bit for the sake of believability.

They make parody impossible. Seriously. They're like creationists: it doesn't matter how wildly unrealistic you make it, they'll turn right around and say something so fucked up it makes your parody look like a transcription of one of their saner moments.

Is it any wonder I'm sitting here asking myself, "Are these people real? Or are we dealing with malfunctioning androids?"

4 comments:

  1. Why not have an Esperanto translation then!

    Have a look at http://www.apertium.org which will do it for you.

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  2. Did you know that George Soros would not be a multi-billionaire if it were not for the international language Esperanto?

    Born in Hungary in 1930 as Gyorgy Schwartz, the family changed its name in 1936 to Soros, which in Esperanto means "to soar."

    The Soros name-change was an effort to protect the Jewish family from the rise of fascist rulers and the whole family spoke Esperanto at home.

    As a native Esperanto speaker, (someone who has spoken Esperanto from birth), George Soros defected to the West in 1946, while attending an Esperanto youth meeting in Vienna.

    Esperanto enabled Soros both to defect, and to become the 28th most wealthy man in the World, according to the Forbes rich list.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What the meaning and implications of the word are I'll leave to people who understand Yiddish. The idea that the dictionary has a liberal bias is precious, though.

    ReplyDelete

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