Troubled times tend to be absorbed by osmosis, resist though you may. “The Democrats are committed to advancing the LGBT agenda and forcing the rest of America to accept, support and pay for it.” (National Organization for Marriage).Įven someone viscerally against the Orwellian abuse of language has to be careful the practice doesn't rub off. An imaginary coordinated directive that dictates the otherwise ordinary, independent actions of members of a despised group, often used to characterize gay people attempting to lives their lives. All usage examples are taken from actual emails or tweets sent to me:Īgenda: n. So here I present my 2019 political lexicon, a highly abbreviated but I hope still comprehensive list.

Words whose definitions have become deformed, by those whose entire lives are an ongoing assault on factuality and meaning. Gee, ya think? Why focus on a single word? I believe it would be more useful in our struggle to get through 2019 to understand changes in common words. Oxford Dictionaries chose “toxic” as its 2018 word of the year. This month dictionary companies have been trotting out their “Word of the Year,” but those really are not helpful, divided between faddish terms that will never gain popularity - Cambridge Dictionary chose “nomophobia,” the fear of losing your phone - or endorsements of the obvious. They yell in a language all their own, one that often needs translation. The biggest recommendation that can be made for 2018 is the lead-pipe certainty that 2019 will be worse, as the dogs of justice close in on an ever-more isolated Donald Trump while his adult minders flee and his defrauded base, lost in their own private dreamworld, howl outrage.

While the year was fine for me, personally - anyone who climbs to the top of a Mayan pyramid in Central America, hikes the Appalachian Trail in Virginia and sees both sons graduate from college in a single year isn’t in any position to complain - it does hurt to see our once great nation rolling in the mud of humiliation day after day. Anyone sorry to see 2018 go? A show of hands.

The dredge report tom bayles