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Performative again
Performative again
Arts & Letters Daily recently linked to a short commentary on the word performative. The commentary is crotchety and overwrought, with talk of corruption and senseless violence and infestations of body lice. I’m not linking. It so happens that I wrote what seems to me a far clearer, more helpful, and less wrought commentary on performative back in March. That commentary I’ll link to.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
Performative again
Performative
Performative
In speech-act terms, a performative is a statement that does something. In current everyday use, performative describes a statement that pretends to do something, that is merely a performance, that substitutes for doing anything of substance.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
Performative
Stalling vs. declining to act
Stalling vs. declining to act
Curious phrasing in the Illinois news segment dropped into NPR’s Morning Edition this morning: Senate Democrats are seeking to stall any nomination to the Supreme Court. But: In 2016, Senate Republicans declined to act on Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland. The verbs caught my ear.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
Stalling vs. declining to act
“Us”
“Us”
Donald Trump*, in advance of signing his “deal” with China, acknowledging audience members Sheldon and Miriam Adelson: “They’re tremendous supporters of us and the Republican Party.” Us = me, not the country. It’s the presidential plural again.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
“Us”
“DEMENTED WORDS”
“DEMENTED WORDS”
I look forward to the day when we are no longer a country that will stand for Donald Trump’s demented words of violence and death. Also his demented words of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and vilification of all who oppose him.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
“DEMENTED WORDS”
Meddling
Meddling
A column in The Washington Post says, “Stop calling it ‘meddling.’” I’m there. Or was there and am there. I wrote about this word in February 2018.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
Meddling
Words from politics
Words from politics
This week from Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day , words from politics: malfeasance, nepotism, emolument, collusion, impeach. Yep. They all fit.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
Words from politics
On hope
On hope
Imagine a chair or dean, after a meeting has ended, asking for a private word with a faculty member who suspects plagiarism in the work of some favored student: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Biff go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
On hope
Something phishy
Something phishy
About e-mail, expletive infixation, and my deep and unerasable misgivings about voting for Hillary Clinton.
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
Something phishy
Off the rails
Off the rails
“Former president Clinton has been on the road since January, going around the country railing for his wife.”
·mleddy.blogspot.com·
Off the rails