I'm not sure what I'm trying to say in this post but I'll try to say it as best I can.
According to William Shakespeare, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
But are changes in what we call things meant to clarify or to obfuscate? To provoke or to mollify? To inflame passions or to soothe them?
Many of you are thinking, "What is he talking about?"
It occurred to me that some name changes get closer to the truth and some get farther away.
As children, many of us were taught this little jingle: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
It isn't true; words can hurt deeply. Negative epithets are tossed about with impunity.
Somebody ought to do something.
Truth be told, somebody usually does. Words that are in fashion and acceptable become out of fashion and unacceptable.
Take the words moron, imbecile, and idiot, for example. Back in the dawn of modern psychology, the words had precise meanings. A person of what was deemed average intelligence was said to have an IQ (intelligence quotient) of 100. If a person's IQ fell below 75, he or she was termed a moron. Imbecile meant an IQ below 50; idiot meant an IQ below 25.
The words became pejoratives, however, turning into insults to throw around in anger. I knew one woman who referred to he husband constantly to others as a moron. He wasn't; he held patents. She was venting her anger with an insulting negative epithet. She may have thought her displeasure was justified but she just came across as mean.
Gradually those three terms became unacceptable and the phrase "mentally retarded" entered the lexicon. After a few years, "retarded" also fell out of favor and people said "the R word" intead.
Another phrase was needed so the mentally retarded became the mentally challenged. The social narrative coninued to evolve. More recent phrases include "people with learning disabilities" and "people with special needs" and "the differently abled" in what I'm sure are sincere efforts to remove stigmas, lessen antagonism, learn to accept all manner of people.
It is a noble effort, I suppose, or it could be the self-appointed Languge Police doing their thing in controlling how the rest of us think and act. I wonder where it will end, or if it will ever end, this apparent need not to offend, to be kind but also accurate while avoiding cruelty in our dealings with our fellow human beings.
I probably should go back and rework this post but I'm going to put it out there as it is and see what sort of comments it might inspires.
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
News Flash: I found 'em!
What did I find? Why, the missing comments some of you have been wondering about (British, about which some of you have been wondering).
They were in spam, which I rarely check, mainly because I have been doing most of my blogging on my iPhone and I can't reach the spam folder in blogger (or, more accurately, if one should be able to, I don't know how to access blogger's spam folder from my iPhone) so haven't checked it in a long time. Thank you, Rachel, for making that suggestion in an e-mail. I don't know why I have blogged almost exclusively from my phone lately, except that it's always with me and therefore more accessible than having to go to my desktop computer in our bedroom. Doing that would separate me from Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie), which I don't like to happen, as she is always—ALWAYS—in the living room watching television. Please do not suggest that we add a television set in our bedroom because if we did that neither of us would ever leave our bedroom at all.
Anyway, I was using the desktop computer this morning while Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) was still sleeping, and remembered the missing comments. I went to blogger's comments and found FIFTEEN (15) (British, (15)) comments from Emma, kylie, Rachel, and Red (note that I still use the Oxford comma no matter what the editors of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) say) in the months of September and October. I promptly approved every last one of them. My next step, which may take a little time, will be to try to find them all and reply to each one.
I will endeavor in the future to do more, even most, of my blogging from my desktop computer and check the spam folder frequently.
Blogging with the desktop computer's keyboard is much better and much faster for the simple reason that I can type at the speed of thought (almost) instead of having to plug along one slow letter at a time on the iPhone using an index finger (I have never mastered the art of two-thumb typing on an iPhone like the young folk do). It's also one letter at a time on the computer keyboard, of course, but you know what I mean.
In the meantime, have a good day, all.
They were in spam, which I rarely check, mainly because I have been doing most of my blogging on my iPhone and I can't reach the spam folder in blogger (or, more accurately, if one should be able to, I don't know how to access blogger's spam folder from my iPhone) so haven't checked it in a long time. Thank you, Rachel, for making that suggestion in an e-mail. I don't know why I have blogged almost exclusively from my phone lately, except that it's always with me and therefore more accessible than having to go to my desktop computer in our bedroom. Doing that would separate me from Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie), which I don't like to happen, as she is always—ALWAYS—in the living room watching television. Please do not suggest that we add a television set in our bedroom because if we did that neither of us would ever leave our bedroom at all.
Anyway, I was using the desktop computer this morning while Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) was still sleeping, and remembered the missing comments. I went to blogger's comments and found FIFTEEN (15) (British, (15)) comments from Emma, kylie, Rachel, and Red (note that I still use the Oxford comma no matter what the editors of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) say) in the months of September and October. I promptly approved every last one of them. My next step, which may take a little time, will be to try to find them all and reply to each one.
I will endeavor in the future to do more, even most, of my blogging from my desktop computer and check the spam folder frequently.
Blogging with the desktop computer's keyboard is much better and much faster for the simple reason that I can type at the speed of thought (almost) instead of having to plug along one slow letter at a time on the iPhone using an index finger (I have never mastered the art of two-thumb typing on an iPhone like the young folk do). It's also one letter at a time on the computer keyboard, of course, but you know what I mean.
In the meantime, have a good day, all.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
I apologize for my absence
...so for my faithful few remaining readers I'll start off with several weeks' worth of you-know-whats from you-know-where:
What is Lloyds of Londn?
What is the Lions Club?
What is turpitude?
What is Embassy Row?
What is Project Runway?
Who is Delilah?
Who are the Dionne quintuplets?
What is blithering?
What is Burkina Faso?
What is the Smithsonian?
What is the War of 1812?
What is Charing Cross?
What is jejune?
Who is Marco Polo?
Who is Charlemagne?
What is a Grand Duke?
What are bloodstones?
Who are the BeeGees?
What is the Atomic Energy Commission?
Yes, it's true. Nobody on Jeopardy! that day knew the BeeGees. I felt very old, to say nothing of the day on which they didn't know the Dionne quintuplets.
And just so you know, turpitude is always preceded by moral and blithering is always followed by idiot, just as violets are always shrinking and everything that looms is always large, never medium.
Trite phrases abound, n'est-ce pas?
During my absence from the blogosphere I missed the opportunity to observe publicly on October 4th the 69th anniversary of my mother's death in 1957. In many ways it seems like yesterday. I always remember the date because the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space that day, which I didn't learn of until three days later. Mark Twain went out with Halley's Comet and Mama went out with Sputnik, by which I mean left, not dated. One has to be so careful not to confuse readers. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't.
Time is elastic and unpredictable. It occurs to me that you can spend a lifetime with one person and it seems like an afternoon (Ellie and I have been married for 63 years, for instance), and you can spend an afternoon with another person and it seems like a lifetime (I won't name names, but it has happened to me).
In the next three months, if all goes as hoped, our fifth, sixth, and seventh great-grandchildren will be born.
Hope, as you may or may not know, is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. Emily Dickinson said that. She was called the Belle of Amherst. It's the sort of thing Jeopardy! fans know, like the fact that Burkina Faso used to be called Upper Volta.
Since I don't want to wear out my welcome and lose what few remaining readers I still have, I will bring this post to a close. I hope (see above) to post more frequently in the future.
What is Lloyds of Londn?
What is the Lions Club?
What is turpitude?
What is Embassy Row?
What is Project Runway?
Who is Delilah?
Who are the Dionne quintuplets?
What is blithering?
What is Burkina Faso?
What is the Smithsonian?
What is the War of 1812?
What is Charing Cross?
What is jejune?
Who is Marco Polo?
Who is Charlemagne?
What is a Grand Duke?
What are bloodstones?
Who are the BeeGees?
What is the Atomic Energy Commission?
Yes, it's true. Nobody on Jeopardy! that day knew the BeeGees. I felt very old, to say nothing of the day on which they didn't know the Dionne quintuplets.
And just so you know, turpitude is always preceded by moral and blithering is always followed by idiot, just as violets are always shrinking and everything that looms is always large, never medium.
Trite phrases abound, n'est-ce pas?
During my absence from the blogosphere I missed the opportunity to observe publicly on October 4th the 69th anniversary of my mother's death in 1957. In many ways it seems like yesterday. I always remember the date because the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space that day, which I didn't learn of until three days later. Mark Twain went out with Halley's Comet and Mama went out with Sputnik, by which I mean left, not dated. One has to be so careful not to confuse readers. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't.
Time is elastic and unpredictable. It occurs to me that you can spend a lifetime with one person and it seems like an afternoon (Ellie and I have been married for 63 years, for instance), and you can spend an afternoon with another person and it seems like a lifetime (I won't name names, but it has happened to me).
In the next three months, if all goes as hoped, our fifth, sixth, and seventh great-grandchildren will be born.
Hope, as you may or may not know, is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. Emily Dickinson said that. She was called the Belle of Amherst. It's the sort of thing Jeopardy! fans know, like the fact that Burkina Faso used to be called Upper Volta.
Since I don't want to wear out my welcome and lose what few remaining readers I still have, I will bring this post to a close. I hope (see above) to post more frequently in the future.
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