He3isthekey

"You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth. I don't like words that
hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like
euphemisms or euphemistic language. And American english is loaded with
euphemisms. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality.
Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft
language to protect themselves from it. And it gets worse with every
generation. For some reason it just keeps getting worse.

I'll give you an example of that. There's a condition in combat. Most people
know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed
to it's absolute peak and maximum, can't take any more input. The nervous
system has either snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war that
condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two
syllables. Shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was 70
years ago. Then a whole generation went by. And the second world war came
along and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four
syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to be as hard to
say. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock...battle fatigue.

Then we had the war in Korea in 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that
time. And the very same combat condition was called Operational Exhaustion.
Hey we're up to 8 syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed
completely out of the phrase now. It's totally sterile now. Operational
Exhaustion: sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of
course came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about 16 or 17
years. And thanks to the lies and deceit surrounding that war, I guess it's
no surprise that the very same condition was called Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder. Still 8 syllables, but we've added a hyphen. And the pain is
completely buried under jargon. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I bet you, if we'd still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam
veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I bet you
that.

But it didn't happen. And one of the reasons is because we were using that
soft language, that language that takes out the life out of life. And it is a
function of time it does keep getting worse.

Give you another example. Sometime during my life toilet paper became bathroom
tissue. I wasn't notified of this. No one asked me if I agreed with it. It
just happened. Toilet paper became bathroom tissue. Sneakers became running
shoes. False teeth became dental appliances. Medicine became medication.
Information became directory assistance. The dump became the land fill. Car
crashes became automobile accidents. Partly cloudy became partly sunny.
Motels became motor lodges. House trailers became mobile homes. Used cars
became previously owned transportation. Room service became guest room
dining. Constipation became occasional irregularity.

When I was a little kid if I got sick they wanted me to go to a hospital and
see the doctor. Now they want me to go to a health maintenance organization.
Or a wellness center to consult a health care delivery professional. Poor
people used to live in slums. Now the economically disadvantaged occupy
sub-standard housing in the inner cities. And they're broke! They're broke.
They don't have a negative cash flow position. They're f--kin' broke! Because
a lot of them were fired. You know, fired. Management wanted to curtail
redundancies in the human resources area. So many people are no longer viable
members of the work force.

Smug, greedy well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their
sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill people anymore, they
neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie,
it engages in disinformation. The pentagon actually measures radiation in
something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos.
Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom
fighters. Well if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire
what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part of it to us, do
they?

And some of this stuff is just silly. We know that. Like when the airlines
tell us to pre-board. What the hell is pre-board? What does that mean? To get
on before you get on?

They say they're going to pre-board those passengers in need of special
assistance ...cripples! Simple honest direct language. There's no shame
attached to the word cripple I can find in any dictionary. In fact it's a
word used in Bible translations. "Jesus healed the cripples." Doesn't take
seven words to describe that condition. But we don't have cripples in this
country anymore. We have the physically challenged. Is that a grotesque
enough evasion for you? How about differently-abled? I've heard them called
that. Differently-abled! You can't even call these people handicapped
anymore. They say: "We're not handicapped, we're handy capable!" These poor
people have been bullsh-tted by the system into believing that if you change
the name of the condition somehow you'll change the condition. Well hey
cousin ... doesn't happen!

We have no more deaf people in this country. Hearing impaired. No more blind
people. Partially sighted or visually impaired. No more stupid people,
everyone has a learning disorder. Or he's minimally exceptional. How would
you like to told that about your child? 'He's minimally exceptional.'
Psychologists have actually started calling ugly people those with severe
appearance deficits. It's getting so bad that any day now I expect to hear a
rape victim referred to as an unwilling sperm recipient!

And we have no more old people in this country. No more old people. We shipped
them all away and we brought in these senior citizens. Isn't that a typically
American twentieth century phrase? Bloodless. Lifeless. No pulse in one of
them. A senior citizen. But I've accepted that one. I've come to terms with
it. I know it's here to stay. We'll never get rid of it. But the one I do
resist, the one I keep resisting, is when they look at an old guy and
say, "Look at him Dan, he's ninety years young." Imagine the fear of aging
that reveals. To not even be able to use the word old to describe someone. To
have to use an antonym.

And fear of aging is natural. It's universal, isn't it? We all have that. No
one wants to get old. No one wants to die. But we do. So we con ourselves. I
started conning myself when I got in my forties. I'd look in the mirror and
say, "Well...I guess I'm getting ...older." Older sounds a little better than
old, doesn't it? Sounds like it might even last a little longer. I'm getting
old. And it's okay. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I
won't have to die. I'll pass away. Or I'll expire, like a magazine
subscription. If it happens in the hospital they'll call it a terminal
episode. The insurance company will refer to it as negative patient care
outcome. And if it's the result of malpractice they'll say it was a
therapeutic misadventure.

I'm telling ya, some of this language makes me want to vomit. Well, maybe not
vomit ...makes me want to engage in an involuntary personal protein spill."

# posted by Peter @ 11:20 am