re: #285 ObserverArt

You are a determined cuss aren’t you?!

I understand what you mean. But really I find the simplification of words tragic.

It’s like buying the Crayola 88 color box of crayons and they are all grey.

All of the old authors and poets of the classics are spinning in their graves.

Dude - I’m off work for a couple days. Determined to do nothing of consequence. What could be less consequential than arguing trivial points with people with whom you’re in nearly complete agreement?

But really, I feel like insisting on denotative meaning without accounting for connotative meaning is simplification of words. Language is a living thing, it changes as people use it to express their ideas and as those ideas run into other ideas.

Sometimes, it can drive you batty, like when people get angry about the word ‘Entitlements’ being applied to Medicare and Social Security. But that’s now language is.

“Moralizing”, in the minds of most people, means the kind of hypocritical, holier-than-thou preaching that characterized Cosby’s “Pull Up Your Pants” speeches. OTOH, The Cosby Show presented a black family that was affluent, middle class, intact, and yet not simply a white family in blackface. Exemplifying, not moralizing.