[Bones McCoy]

I forgot to mention the other full page article entitled 'You can't blame everything on climate change'.

Let's try

You can't blame everything on woke.

[Andy McDandy]

It's just become a catch-all for "anything we don't like".

[safe_timber_man]

It's fascinating the way these media buzzwords start taking shape. Happened with snowflake and many more before that.

It starts with a few fringe weirdos saying it on social media. It creeps into tabloid articles. Starts being used in actual headlines, albeit with quotation marks to start with. Then it's used more and more and more in a huge proportion of their headlines and TV. It then starts entering political discourse and you end up with literal Ministers, PM's and the fucking Prime Minister blurting it out in the House of Commons. All this because some tabloid journo saw it being used by Paul Joseph Watson or some other loon.

And to top it off...they don't even understand what the meaning of the word is!

[Watchman]

And not just “what we don’t like”, but also, “ we can’t have people thinking for themselves about the plight of others, or understanding of what’s happening in society other than our narrative “

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Not to mention 'We want to be able to carry on being offensive to pooftahs and blacks...'

[Andy McDandy]

As part of the "stop telling me what to do!" tendency, you often get Mailites saying that of course nobody wants racism, sexism, homophobia etc, but by being "forced" to mind their language and behaviour, they're in a way reacting against it and coming out with their shite. Oh, if only we could just choose to be not racist, they say.

Right before falling back on "what's a bit of teasing, whatever happened to sticks and stones*, take it as a compliment luv".

*In my first year at secondary school, so 1988-89, our head repeated that old chestnut, before adding that it was complete rubbish, and as far as he was concerned, verbal bullying was just as bad as physical.

[Crabcakes]

As ever, anyone claiming to “just want to be free to call a spade a spade” probably really just wants to be free to call a black person a spade. And, of course, suffer no consequences.

Similarly, they’d be the first ones whining to the likes of the Mail if someone called them ‘gammon’ or ‘Karen’. Funny how *those* names are apparently as hurtful as sticks and/or stones.

[Andy McDandy]

They ignore the significance of point of view. If a black teenager is hauled over by the cops for having a nice car and spits "Honky pigs" at them, that's from a position of inferiority, of vulnerability, and frustration. They're saying that those words are at that point their only weapon, the only way to get some sort of jab in at the person making their life a misery.

And that's the point - you can be the most qualified, famous, successful by any metric POC, and your life can be ruined at a whim by one white person with a trace of authority.

Now, if a white person calls someone a nigger, or a Paki, (or a poof, or a bitch, or a whore, or whatever else), they're doing so from a position of power. One of comfort that the person can't fight back. And it's designed to be dehumanising. Not a real person. Not worthy of respect.

And those slurs attack people for things that are central to them - race, sex, sexuality and so on. Gammon and Karen make fun of learned and chosen behaviour.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Spot
On

[Watchman]

As ever, anyone claiming to “just want to be free to call a spade a spade” probably really just wants to be free to call a black person a spade. And, of course, suffer no consequences.

Id just love one of them to try that on in somewhere like Brixton

[safe_timber_man]

As ever, anyone claiming to “just want to be free to call a spade a spade” probably really just wants to be free to call a black person a spade. And, of course, suffer no consequences.

Id just love one of them to try that on in somewhere like Brixton

That's the thing with these types. They never would. It's all very hush hush, wink wink among their friends and on the internet. Actually going around call black people niggers to their faces isn't really that common because usually they'd get the shit beaten out of them. Plus they don't necessarily want to do that, they just want to be free to do that.

[Crabcakes]

Also, they want other, usually stupider and more violent, people to be able to do that. Because they know that the atmosphere of fear this creates helps keeps them in a position of power but with the luxury of not having to do any dirty work. In exchange, the low-level bigots know that having people like that in positions of authority means any punishment they get for being more public with their bigotry will be watered down or even nonexistent.

[Andy McDandy]

Not going to link to it, but effort 3 is rip up the law and deport some people. Spirit of 2019, apparently. Starting to get political, building up the "You voted for me, I could have fixed this" narrative.

[Andy McDandy]

8n case you're wondering, this weekend's effort was about getting Ukraine into NATO. Seems he thinks any country should be able to join if it wants to. But basically a load of "pity I'm not in charge" crap.

He's also set up a "dictionary corner" where he gives definitions of the purposely obscure words he chooses to litter his copy with. I can hear my English teachers now, "if you have to explain what a word means, in simpler language, then why didn't you just use the more familiar word?".

[Boiler]

He's also set up a "dictionary corner" where he gives definitions of the purposely obscure words he chooses to litter his copy with. I can hear my English teachers now, "if you have to explain what a word means, in simpler language, then why didn't you just use the more familiar word?".

Did anybody ever tell Will Self that?

[Youngian]

Or Russell Brand who is more punchable by the day.
Never felt that way about Jonathan Meades whose use of obscure words aren’t pretentious verbosity but enhance his colourful commentary and humour.

[Boiler]

I never could stand Jonathan Meades...

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Or Russell Brand who is more punchable by the day.
Never felt that way about Jonathan Meades whose use of obscure words aren’t pretentious verbosity but enhance his colourful commentary and humour.

Meades is genuinely clever, knowledgeable and has thought about his subject.
He uses the correct words to convey complex and sophisticated meaning. They aren't obscure to everybody.

I worry about the desire to dumb everything down.

[Crabcakes]

A competent but vain or insecure writer will use longer words in preference to shorter ones because they think it makes them look clever. A good writer will use the right word whether it’s long or short. A considerate writer will use plain language so that their work is accessible to as wide an audience as possible. An excellent writer will know when they can use plain or complex language based on context, and be able to tailor their output to their audience.

A really shit writer will use complex words to make themselves look clever, then take up even more space explaining what they meant - thus making the use of their longer words pointless - because they contemptuously assume everyone else is too stupid to work it out or look it up.

A really, really shit writer (such as, say, A. Johnson) will do the above, but use Latin phrases as well.

Bonus level: the above, but all the grammar rules are wrong and they often use the words in the wrong way, yet demand people obey their style even though it is completely incorrect, inconsistent and in some cases contradictory. This is exclusively reserved for Jacob Rees-Mogg.

[MisterMuncher]

The crossover occurs when the desire to inform the reader of the subject is overtaken by the desire to inform the reader of your knowledge of the subject, which seems like it should be a subtle thing, but then you remember that old Dunning-Kruger confidence/competence bathtub curve