Once upon a time, in a far off land, the words Gentleman and Lady had meanings different from today. Gentlemen were males privy to the very person of the King; ladies were females privy to the very person of the Queen.
Over the years, the terms came to have more egalitarian, but still recognizable, meanings. Gentleman came to mean a male of independent means and reasonably high social standing, and frequently but not always of higher educational status than the population at large. Mere shopkeepers and even affluent merchants were infrequently denominated “gentleman.”
Again, Lady had a parallel meaning. Gradually, the terms devolved into designations of the gender-appropriate toilet facilities, generally printed on signs on the door. Now, perhaps finally, the words have all but disappeared. The terms “Men” and “Women” frequently adorn the sacred doors, and remaining uses for even these words are disappearing with the advent of unisex facilities.
Notwithstanding their dilution, Gentleman and Lady retain some vestiges of their former glory. To call someone a Gentleman or a Lady occasionally expresses an anticipation, or at least a fleeting wish, that the person so called will behave in a socially acceptable fashion.
The meanings of other words have also changed over time and in many cases new words have evolved with roots in common with the old. Most likely, “Car,” of which there are now many, evolved out of “Carriage,” of which there are now few. “Montana” is derived from the Spanish word “Montaña,” meaning “mountain.” Sometime, translations from one language to another produce unintentionally appropriate results. In at least some internet translations, which tend to be rather literal, of Spanish language newspapers, “Fidel Castro” becomes “Fidel I Castrate,” because Castro is also the present tense, first person singular form of the verb “to castrate,” castrar. But I digress.
Many of these changes are inoffensive and even necessary. I mean, you know. Others can be offensive. The devolution which I find most offensive involves the word “liberal.” Frankly, my mind simply can no longer bend itself around this word. Thomas Jefferson considered himself a liberal but would, most likely, find little in common with those who appropriate the term today. Lock Mr. Jefferson (of Virginia) in a room with any one of the many so called liberals of today, and they would possibly come to blows, the event being at least forestalled because Mr. Jefferson was a “gentleman” in the eighteenth century sense of the word. Query, how many people who nowadays call themselves liberals believe that their views on life, the universe and everything reflect those of Mr. Jefferson. After all, he was a “liberal,” and so are they.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
A man after my own heart, Dan. I love words and language, and have made myself persona non grata on more than one occasion on these threads because of that passion.
As a liberal (but not a leftist) myself, I very much enjoyed your article.
Completely off topic: what kind of a sailboat did you have for your trip?
There must be something in the water in New Haven, because the year I turned fifteen, my father (Yale '37) loaded my mother, me (oldest child), my brother (8 yo), and my sister (only two at the time), and set off for pre-Castro Cuba from Miami. A year and a number of other islands later we landed again in Florida, but continued to live on the boat another two years.
By the time Dad sold his last boat many years later, I'd already bought my first, an Allied Princess ketch.
2 - Dan Miller
Thanks, Clavos. I appreciate your kind comments on my first Blogcritics article.
I hope the gods won't be excessively offended by a short response to the off topic bit.
Namaste was a solid fiberglass Charlie Morgan Heritage West Indies 46, who began life many years ago as a ketch but had become a sloop when we bought her in run down condition in St. Croix in 1995. We sailed her back to Annapolis, and did a lot of work. Then, in 1996 we sailed with the Caribbean 1500 group from Norfolk, Va to the BVI in November. We managed to sail around in the Caribbean for about six years, eventually reaching Panama, where we swallowed the hook and have lived happily ever since in Chiriqui Province in a very rural area up in the highlands. We have a small farm, nine horses, five dogs, three cats, and a bunch of chickens. Life is very good.
I always thought the Allied Princess ketch was a very handsome and sturdy boat, and often lusted after one.
Dan
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dan,
A very nice article, even though I am no liberal - I am a syndicalist socialist - and damned proud of it.
If you notice, in all my comments, I rarely ever use words like "liberal" or "conservative" and have a taste for using words appropriately, as you do. It's not anything in the water of New Haven, (although I visited there often enough as a child) that gives one this taste. What does it is a catholic and liberal amount of reading good writers who know the language. That necessitates putting the graphic novels aside, turning off the television set and picking up serious literature.
A few thoughts for you.
1. The word liberal should be used today in its non-political senses only, i.e. "a liberal allowance" to indicate generosity, or "a liberal amount of salt/sugar/pepper, etc., to indicate a lot of the spice intended. Not all of these senses are so praiseworthy either. "She was rather liberal with whom she had intimate relations" does not say the nicest thing about a woman. It certainly does not make her sound "lady-like".
Of course, my mother, of blessèd memory, used another term to describe this quality. "The dog was democratic as to where he left his leavings." I'll leave you to guess which political party she was a lifelong member of.
2. Liberal means two different things on the different sides of the Pond. In Italy or Israel, "liberal" means someone who believes strongly in free enterprise, democratic procedure and due process of law. Both nations used to have socialist parties which had either state socialist (Italy) or syndicalist socialist (Israel leanings and neither of these parties cared much about democracy, free enterprise or due process of law. In Israel, the Labor Party and its further left "companion" "Meretz", still stink of Stalinism.
In addition, if I remember correctly, the Liberal Party of Australia is distinctly a right wing bunch.
3. The American political "chicken" has only one wing, the right wing. The left wing was excised in two stages: the first stage was the "Red Scare" after WWI and the second stage was "The McCarthy Era" after WWII. American "liberals" have a mish-mosh of ideas, but the lot of them would not recognize socialism if it smacked them in their politically correct faces. To put it a little differently, they are at the left edge of the right (and only) wing of the chicken, somewhere near its smelly armpit - or perhaps nearer the cloaca. The only other true leftists on this list are Les Slater and Stan Denham, the sharp witted Aussie who goes under the name Silver Surfer.
Anyway, Dan, I enjoyed this article immensely, and look forward to further pieces from your electronic pen.
Blessings from Samaria,
Reuven
4 - Dan Miller
Ruve,
Many thanks for your kind words and for your thoughts, which I will keep in mind.
One of my very favorite writers is Bertrand Russell. He was rational, expressive, witty and economical with words. Agree or disagree with him, he always said it well. I often agreed with what he wrote, and often disagreed. But he was always lucid and sometimes even humorous -- intentionally rather than unintentionally (Unpopular Essays, for example). In his last years, some characterized him as "a very intelligent old silly," and they may have been right (as in "correct," rather than politically, although they probably were that as well, come to think of it).
As to the U.S. Chicken, I think we have some points of disagreement which might be fun to explore in later posts. Perhaps some explication of the terms "left" and "right" might be useful.
Best wishes,
Dan
5 - Dr Dreadful
Good article, Dan, even if I disagree with some of your conclusions. I had been mulling over a similar opinion piece myself, so now you've saved me the trouble! ;-)
Mine, though, would also have tackled those who are nowadays called - and call themselves - conservatives, when by the classical definition of the term they quite clearly are not.
Perhaps I should still write that bit, as a companion piece to yours?
6 - bliffle
Word evolution seems to be common in all languages. Very often words evolve to mean quite the opposite of what they started out to mean. I think it may be a sort of defense mechanism. For example, the word "bad" has been evolved within a very few years to mean the opposite of what it used to mean. Young people, I suppose, got tired of being called "bad" by their elders, so they started using it among themselves to mean something like 'cool'. If old folks think it's bad it must be good!
Etymology is full of such examples.
Which means that Wittgenstein was right when he said that context defines the meaning of a word.
So all this calls into question much of what we think we have learned from old writings. The meanings of words may have changed. We can trace some of those changes through historical continuity.
In particular, people who claim that the Bible is the literal word of god are on very shaky ground. What we know of the Bible is largely from old Greek texts, and we may not really know what the words mean. We know a lot about modern Greek but maybe not much about archaic Greek.
7 - Dan Miller
Dr. Deadful,
Thanks for the kind words.
In my initial draft, I had included some stuff about "Conservatives," but deleted it because I decided that "Liberals" was all I could handle at one time.
I don't think the evolution (devolution?) of "Conservative" has been quite as remarkable, and hope that this thought will incite you to riot, or at least to write an article about it.
Dan
8 - Baronius
I think the word "conservative" has had a shorter journey in politics. It's gone through as much of a change in meaning in the last hundred or so years, though.
"Liberal" started out to mean erudite and (here's another word that's changed) republican. It implied the belief that all men could be educated, which would make them capable of making decisions for the betterment of society. Then "liberalism" came to mean advancing the cause of the poor. That was the jumping point for its contemporary meaning.
"Conservative" typically means resistant to change. It came to mean opposition to progressivism. From there it developed into its modern meaning.
I'm always bothered by these reports of psychologists claiming to understand the conservative mindset, with regard to optimism or rigidity or whatever. When they say "conservative", do they include internet gaamblers who want to overthrow the IRS?
That's the problem. Conservatives and liberals can be reactionary or radical, depending on the status quo.
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Bliffle,
Maybe the Christian book is from Greek texts, and the Christians never had the scribal traditions we do. But most of the Tana"kh is written in Hebrew, and old as it is, I still understand it. I do have trouble with the Aramaic, sometimes....
Nevertheless, because of our scribal tradition, I'm reasonably sure that what I read now in the Torah is what was received at Sinai.
10 - bliffle
Really, Ruvy?
Why do you think that the words you read now have the same meaning as the word used hundreds and thousands of years ago?
Can you testify that (the equivalent of) "bad" has not turned into "good"?
Or is it just a feeling. One that you find consistent with your beliefs and desires?
11 - Clavos
"Can you testify that (the equivalent of) "bad" has not turned into "good"?"
Only in certain circles. To educated people bad still means not good.
12 - STM
Interestingly, in Australia, the Liberal Party is the equivalent of the Conservative Party in Britain or the Republican party in the US.
That is because true liberalism is actually a fairly broad church that encompasses everything from "wet" liberals with quite left views on social-justice issues, to conservatives and libertarians who would be regarded in this country as fairly to the right (although they'd be in the centre of politics in the US).
I think sometimes Americans equate liberalism with the Left, simply because they have never really had a genuine party of the Left representing the workers like the Labor/Labour parties in Australia, Britain, NZ or Canada (which are now also really parties of the centre with a focus on social justice).
Therefore liberalism here means something quite different to what it has come to mean in the US.
I am insulted when some Americans call me a liberal, both because of its namy-pamby connotation and because of its association in Australia with the right - the last thing I am in both respects.
I've been a Labor voter all my life, and I've stood on picket lines and been on strike for better wages and conditions on numerous occasions. I would consider myself in tune with the quite conservative, right views of old Labor.
So liberal I ain't, in either sense of the word as it used here or in the US.
We are indeed one people separated by the barrier of a common language.
13 - bliffle
All of this confusion over the meanings of 'liberal' and 'conservative' illustrates one thing: the foolishness of trying to summarize a person in one word.
And foolish it is. For underneath such summarization is a very vicious desire to force a person into a category so that he can be persecuted. Every dictator and persecutor searches for some little trace of evidence of some 'evil' category that he can force on an enemy so that his entire person can be condemned and persecuted.
It may be fairly hypothesized that the very search for making the final true and irrevocable meanings of the words 'liberal' and 'conservative' is the beginning of intolerance and persecution.
14 - Christopher Rose
Clavos, I don't think it is accurate to imply that the people who use the word "bad" to mean "good" are uneducated. It would however possibly be accurate to describe many of the people this trend annoys as old...
15 - Christopher Rose
As to the way the word "liberal" has changed in meaning, my perception is that the main driving force in its evolution has been the way it is used by those who have been trying to roll back many of the cultural, political and social changes that started to emerge in the late 50s and throughout the 60s.
Of course, one of the things they really want to attack is the greater sense of diversity, possibility and tolerance that has been a notable feature of the last 50 years but they recognise that to attack tolerance would sound offensive, so they use the word liberal instead.
16 - Dan Miller
Christopher Rose,
That may be part of it, but it seems to me that the beast has two feet, left and right. "Liberals" themselves have claimed the word, with all of its good connotations from the past, as their own. Members of the Congress and others seem to vie for position as the most "liberal," even though Senator Obama now tries to assure us that he is not really a "liberal." Possibly he does so because, as you suggest, "conservatives," delight in throwing the label at their foes.
Dan Miller
17 - miriam
Conservative is also misused to mean "whatever I disapprove of." Thus you see the Nazis characterized as conservative, although it was a socialist movement. Crazy religious mullahs who exhort their followers to murder innocents are also labeled conservative.
At any rate, your post was interesting and provocative.
18 - Jet in Columbus
from my greatest hits album/cd...
Normal:
Anyone who is white, heterosexual, married (or engaged to be), attends church at least once a week, and a registered Republican voter.
The opposite-terms "abnormal", "repugnant", "evil", and of course "offensive" are usually used nearby as a companion in the same paragraph or comment with this word. Blacks and Hispanics can sometimes be included in this category, but only if they completely adhere to strict guidelines, and stay in the background as much as possible.
Law-abiding:
This "hijacked" term has been twisted to mean "those who adhere only to "God's law", in an attempt to misguide the uneducated into believing there's a difference between "god's law" and "civil" laws. For instance, several states and/or municipalities have "Consenting Adult" laws, which state that any two adults of legal consent age, regardless of sex, may engage in sexual activities in the privacy of their own home. To the Religious/Political Right, this is not one of God's laws, and therefore if you recognize the concept of "Consenting Adult" you are not a "law-abiding" citizen. The same goes for a lawful legal abortion, etc. etc. ad nauseam.
Patriot:
Only those who strictly worship the Flag, the Bible, and any denomination of the Baptist Church as a holy trinity. Anyone who does not do so is branded "unpatriotic". Example: the "Patriot Act" has nothing to do with being patriotic, in the literal sense of the word.
Homosexual:
This term is used frequently to stress the "sex" in homosexual, because the only difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual is who they sleep with at night. The idea behind using the word "homosexual" is to emphasize the myth that gays are nothing more than sexual beings, to the exclusion of all else, as if this is the only thing they think about night and day. This increases the "icky" factor, causing normal god-fearing people to shield their children and themselves from such beasts. Usually in the same sentence or article you'll find such terms as "predator", "recruits or recruiter", "pedophile" or "degenerate" to bolster the claim that gays are only dangerous sexual beings. The term "gay" is to be avoided at all cost.
Special Rights:
This a term describes a set of basic human essentials that the Religious/Political Right reserves only and wholly for itself. By using the term "special" it convinces regular folks that gays want rights that "normal God fearing" Christians don't or can't have, and that they covet exclusively for themselves! In actuality the "special" rights that the "Religious/Political Right" would have you believe that gays want are the following:
Evil:
This term should be obvious, but isn't. The word "evil" was hijacked by the Religious/Political Right, and they love to use this term to describe anything that they don't agree with. For example, the "Evil Empire" to describe the Soviet Union (not the one associated with Darth Vader). An associated adjective would be "evildoers". In some ways, by their own definition, The U.S. is doing "evil" by haphazardly tapping innocent citizens phones because they "might" be terrorists, and/or holding foreign prisoners captive without legal representation, and in some cases psychologically or physically torturing them for the purpose of getting information from them.
Liberal:
This used to be a proud term, meaning all-inclusive, all-encompassing and all-accepting. It used to be that you'd brag proudly of attending a Liberal College or studying Liberal Arts. However when used by the Religious/Political Right it means, (forgive me for being blunt here) "Fag lover", "God-hater", "Baby Killer" and "Against the Flag".
Pedophile:
A pedophile is a homosexual that is attracted to, and tends to kidnap, eat, and/or molest innocent little children of either sex (go figure) and is unsavable. A heterosexual with the same tendencies is a "misguided soul" who needs some loving prayer and religious help, in order to redeem himself in the eyes of the lord.
Secular:
This term has taken on a meaning of it's own, and usually when used by the Religious/Political Right is opposite of its intended "worldly" definition. A new religion as been defined as Secular Humanism, a very slippery term which can mean anything they conveniently want to oppose.
Offensive: see "Evil".
Beware I'm about to use most of the Liberal Thesaurus on this next two terms!
God-fearing: This term is probably the most self-serving, judgmental, hypocritical, morally ambiguous, intellectually bankrupt, long-winded and Biblically challenged phrase of them all. They use this term to make ordinary people "fear" god, and in so doing to fear them. To fear God, is to fear your reverend/priest/minister, through whom God speaks to you.
God:
God is actually someone you unconditionally love, and who loves and accepts everyone; in other words a liberal. (Hmmmm I wasn't struck by lightning while typing that sentence!) God speaks through you, and to you, and not through self-appointed, self-anointed men who pick and choose which Bible verses are important and which aren't, in order to argue in favor of slavery, prohibition, or the suppression and segregation of one population over another.
19 - Dr Dreadful
Jet: good to see you back, and nice comment.
From the cogency of what you write I surmise that your vision has improved somewhat or that you've got yourself some voice recognition software.
Hope you're hanging on in there.
Best wishes,
Dread
20 - Jet in Columbus
Internet explorer will magnify 300%, it's that little box in the lower right hand corner. on my 28 inch widescreen that's enough to read anything.
I couldn't stay away that long.
Eye appointment is next week, I still can't drive...
The experpt is from one of my articles...
21 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Why do you think that the words you read (in Hebrew) now have the same meaning as the word used hundreds and thousands of years ago?
Can you testify that (the equivalent of) "bad" has not turned into "good"?
Please, Bliffle, don't embarrass yourself. The Hebrew language, the one found in the Torah and Tana"kh, had a vocabulary of a few thousand words. Hebrew stopped being a spoken language of normal discourse about 1,900 years ago. However, as a liturgical language, and language of religious study, it continued in use, adding words from Aramaic, Persian, Greek, Syriac, Latin and Arabic over the centuries.
Hebrew was brought back from the cryogenic freezer by a European scholar who researched the meanings and the roots, and was famous for not letting his kid, Itamar, talk any language other than Hebrew. The reason I know with such certainty how the language evolved and grew, and little it has really changed over 4,000 years or more is the work of this scholar, and the Hebrew Academy he founded.
That, plus the fact that I studied philology and linguistics, and know how the Hebrew scribal tradition works and how effective it has been....
22 - Jet in Columbus
It seems there are a few more from the Republican'ts word and phrase book...
"Racially balanced"
...as in "The Republican Party is very racially balanced." This phrase is used during hurriedly arranged photo ops after someone of prominence has made the insinuation to the mainstream media that the Religious/Political right is composed of mostly rich white men. Someone is bound to utter this phrase just as you notice that all of the women, blacks and hispanics in the group have suddenly been pushed up into the front row smiling proudly, not realizing that behind them the next solid three rows are the white guys grinning for the camera because they know that they're really the ones in charge.
"Judeo-Christian Values"
Note Judeo always comes first. This phrase is used often and loudly when the right-wing Christian section is emphasizing that they have generously included Jews in their outrage about abortion, gay rights, or tax breaks for major corporations. Usually the next day the more extreme fundamentalists of the group give a sermon to their followers stressing that while they love their Jewish brothers (well, maybe just enough to get the election swung in their favor), they must still realize that in order for Jews to get into their heaven, they still must first accept Jesus Christ as their savior. Sort of how they feel about their private golf clubs.
"Pro-business liberal"
This one threw me the first time I saw it in print, because by rights, according to all good conservatives, there is no such thing as a "pro-business liberal". Apparently this phrase is employed to throw blame at liberal democrats with their liberal businesses joining the liberal wing of the Republican Party and ruining everything. In other words, just throw the word "liberal" on anything to make it sound bad or to assign or distract blame.
"God, America, and the flag"
...is the new holy trinity, replacing "Baseball, mom, and apple pie". You must worship all three equally or be branded a traitorous liberal unchristian deviant.
"Budget Surplus"
... is a phrase never used in mixed company (i.e. Republicans with Democrats). The budget surplus is what the Republican Congress proudly claimed as theirs, not President Clinton's, from the steps of the Capitol Building. In the late 90s the budget surplus was the direct result of their "Contract with America"... well that is until GW spent it all at Halliburton. Now the political right wing would rather we didn't mention it, and if we do, they claim it didn't really exist anyway and was just on paper--shhhhhhh!
"Your facts are erroneous"
... is a phrase used most often when they know Democrats are speaking the truth, but they haven't found time to "Google or Yahoo" something opposing from a right-wing slanted website to refute it yet.
"Knee-jerk reaction"
... translates to "They've intelligently reacted to something important before we did, causing us embarrassment, so we'll dismiss it as nothing in order to distract the public." The press is currently having a knee-jerk reaction to rising gas prices at the pump, but don't worry... soon it'll be "old news". (see below) Currently President Bush is stressing that we should leave prices as they are (no matter how high they go) and instead use conservation and alternate fuels. Thus we preserve "big oil's" profit line; which should cause another "knee jerk" reaction from the voting public.
"Some of my best friends are gay"
They live about three miles from me. My sister's hairdresser's maid introduced me to a plumber who lives next door to them, but I can't remember his name. He says they're nice people.
"This is all just old news!"
...translates to "The public knows this is a problem we haven't even come close to solving yet, even though we've had plenty of time to look into it, so we'll just declare it unimportant!" Example, "New Orleans is old news"
"Impeding free speech"
translates to "Not permitting right-wing political or religious propaganda to be prominently displayed in public buildings".
See also:
"Violating the spirit of the First Amendment"
... which translates to using the "free speech amendment" to allow such things as homosexual pornography, cuss words on the Sopranos, publishing books criticizing George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, or or or even The Los Angeles Times recently suggesting that Dick Cheney resign!, or the press' reporting of several state legislatures (so far Vermont, California, and Illinois) that have recently, or are planing to, call for the House of Representitives to prepare to look into Bush's impeachment.
"God created dinosaur bones, but not real dinosaurs!"
... Sorry, I just had to include this one after I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read it in print. A religious nut actually asserted that God created the bones, and then put them into the ground where we could find them, to test our faith because the actual animals never really existed!.
"I am praying for you!"
... Personally I'm disgusted every time George Bush utters this phrase. He prayed for the space shuttle astronauts safe return, he prayed for the miners in West Virginia, and he prayed constantly for the victims of the World Trade Center to be rescued along with the lives of the victims of the Pentagon. All he was doing was kissing the asses of the Political/Religious Right, and gave false and useless comfort to the victims' families who believed that his important presidential prayers would somehow be paid more attention to by God... which they weren't
"I do not believe in basing American Policy on poll numbers".
... Unless they agree with what George is saying at the moment.
"We are on the side of the political right!".
... Apparently they don't seem to realize that that means which side of the isle they sit on, and not that they're correct all the time.
23 - Baronius
Jet, that's a funny parody of how left-wingers perceive right-wingers, but it's a little heavy-handed. No one really thinks that Republicans are that bad.
24 - Jet in Columbus
It's all in your perception and whether you've been on the wrong side of a bible beating.
25 - bliffle
Ruvy, your assertions are argumentative and not definitive. In particular, Arguments from Authority are notoriously weak.