The swift boating of the English language

Jewish World Review ^ | Nov. 23, 2007 | Dave Weinbaum

[rhema]

You're a swiftboater, I'm a swiftboater, everybody's a swiftboater. The all encompassing phrase for any political zapping; real, potential, or imagined, has been funneled into one label, swiftboating. No longer used much as a noun, this verb has become overused to the point of triteness and acceptance as appropriate English.

Language is the child of overused slang

Ain't that the low-down!?

For the record a review of who and what actual swift boaters stood for is in order.

They took umbrage when fellow swiftie, Senator Kerry, decided he was going to run for president as a gung ho war hero. Kerry based this premise on his four month tour in Vietnam as a junior Lieutenant. You remember his response as the presidential nominee at the 2004 Democratic Convention, "John Kerry, reporting for duty", while saluting the cheering throngs.

Quoting from their website www.swiftvets.com/, "Swift Vets and POWS for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam."

They wrote "Unfit for Command" to truly depict that history. Many think it cost Senator Kerry the presidential election.

Of course the real reason Kerry lost was his incompetence at politically handling the accurate accusations of the Swifties.

Ex-Senator Democrat Bob Kerrey of Nebraska advised John Kerry to fess up to mistakes as a young and zealous man and apologize to the veterans he had so blithely libeled. If Kerry had fessed up, we'd be calling him Mr. President and dealing with his reelection. His honor wasn't besmirched as much as his dishonor was revealed.

[Dilbert San Diego]

This is an example too of terminology being over used and the meaning change too. Bill Clinton calls any criticism of Hillary swift boating. Bill Clinton calls any questioning of Hillary’s statements swift boating. Even if someone simply doesn’t understand what Hillary says, and wants clarification of where she stands, he calls that swift boating. So the terminology can start to lose its meaning if it is used to describe situations beyond the original meaning.

[2ndDivisionVet]

“Swiftboating” also known as “vicious truthing” or relaying negative facts.

[Leisler]

It depends upon what ‘it’ is. Remember?

Lefties always want to control language. Language is a tool and is not to be in control of the masses. Only an elite will talk to each other, in their own special language. For example, the Catholic Church and it’s long term use of dead Latin, and not allowing peons to read the Bible.

[Past Your Eyes]

"This is an example too of terminology being over used and the meaning change"

Oh. Sort of like "neocon".

[headsonpikes]

RE: JF’nK

“His honor wasn’t besmirched as much as his dishonor was revealed.”

Good line!

[Past Your Eyes]

"I went to a silent auction, but a mime got all the good stuff."
ROFLMAO! Sounds like a Steven Wright one-liner.

[xtinct]

swiftboating ... this verb has become overused to the point of triteness..."

Yes overused by the Clintons, John Kerry and others thus making anything the complain about --> trite and irritating.

[nyyankeefan]

Yes overused by the Clintons, John Kerry and others thus making anything the complain about —> trite and irritating.

how about...getting a lewinsky....another clintonism injected into the american lexicon!!!

[Dr. Sivana]

For example, the Catholic Church and it’s long term use of dead Latin, and not allowing peons to read the Bible.

That was an ignorant statement. In medieval times, if you could read, you could read Latin. Latin was not a "dead" language. Even after the Protestant revolt, secular writers like Descartes wrote his works in Latin after he wrote in French so that more people could read it (and French was a pretty common language). Latin is superior to other romance languages in precision. The Latin language was not dead, but the word meanings were fixed. English has changed so much since the KJV that a merely literate person would get the wrong idea from the usage of words like "prevent," (cf. OED) which has changed to mean its opposite over the years. Many of the vulgar translations into local languages contained egregious errors. The monks of the Catholic church preserved the Bible, as Catholic monks and scribes made the copies in extant Greek and Hebrew, and the Latin.

The reason the Bibles were chained in the churches was because they were hand-copied and therefore priceless. Mass duplication before the printing press was impossible.

This is one heck of a thread to make offensive and inaccurate comparisons. We Catholics on FR avoid doing the same because we are going to have to work together on a common cause. There are better times and places to discuss these things.

You would best avoid making these sorts of statements, which are repeated even more frequently by the secular liberals, on this site, especially on these types of topics where it is completely unnecessary.

[Leisler]

That was an example, of a people at a place and time. Since we are talking about human and institutional behavior, then logically someone, and some institution would have to maligned. I could of talked about the Borgia's, and any of the first twenty or so Popes.

When able, the Catholic church set itself up as an organ of mass control, and like the Soviet Communist Party, it was all for the good. The fashions of the church, and in the party, wax and wane like any institutional power structure. Your experience might differ. Past experience is no guarantee of future experience. Check your warranty. Seek legal council in case of fraud.

[Dr. Sivana]

You did not refute my statement, because you couldn't. 1. Latin was not a "dead" language in the Middle Ages. 2. The Church did not keep the Bible in Latin to keep it from regular people. At that time, if you could read, you could read Latin. 3. The Church was singularly responsible (as an earthly agent, since ultimately God is responsible) for the preservation of the Bible because there were no printing presses, and it was a VERY time consuming task to make good copies. 4. You picked your example, and it was ignorant. While individual popes and bishops, being men, certainly were not impeccable, simply stating that the Catholic Church "set itself up as an organ of mass control, and like the Soviet Communist Party, it was all for the good." To compare the Church, which ceded plenty of temporal powers to kings and princes, with the Godless Soviet Union is babble. You then make a blanket statement about "institutional power structures," which would make the analogy apply to everything from the Chinese Communist Party to the U.S.'s own Constitution, to Habitat for Humanity and the Boy Scouts.

I could of talked about the Borgia's, and any of the first twenty or so Popes.

They were mostly martyred by the Roman Empire up until Liberius in about the 4th Century. While they were trying to stomp out heresy (especially Arianism and Gnosticism), they could hardly be compared to the Soviet Empire or the modern leftist apparatus.

If you want to talk about someone seizing absolute control, a man like Henry VIII who wanted to be head of both Church AND State would be a more likely example.

[blues-train]

Interesting how meanings change. Swiftboating should (if defined by the original scenario) mean “sinking someone with the truth”, but Bill Clinton uses it with the implication that the sinking is done with lies...which would be better described as “Borking”. By using “swiftboating” Bill Clinton hopes to both deflect the attacks on his missus and defame the original swiftboat group.

[RipSawyer]

The English language is being trivialized by people who have never been taught its proper usage in school and that includes most recent university graduates! All one need do is read some of the letters written by soldiers both Union and Confederate to see what has been lost. I constantly shake my head in amazement at those who don’t know the difference between their, there and they’re for instance. If you see something written which is not totally riddled with errors the writer is usually over forty years old. The worst part is that most don’t seem to care. Even some of the posts on Free Republic are so carelessly thrown together that I don’t even attempt to decipher what the writer meant to say, if anything. It is no wonder that we elect people who swear to uphold the Constitution and then immediately set about destroying the Constitution. What else can you expect when language no longer has any meaning?

[AndyTheBear]

John Kerry is the one who slandered his fellow soldiers, not the other way round. I am completely disgusted by these self serving revisions of history the left keeps pushing.

[Leisler]

"...Latin was not a "dead" language ..."

Ah, yeah. That was implied it was in use, that the elite were, in fact using it, albeit a percent of a percent of the population.

" The Church did not keep the Bible in Latin to keep it from regular people. At that time, if you could read, you could read Latin."

I doubt that. I suspect the vast majority of all the European people that could read, only a minority could read Latin.

" The Church was singularly responsible (as an earthly agent, since ultimately God is responsible) for the preservation of the Bible because there were no printing presses, and it was a VERY time consuming task to make good copies. "

People had plenty of time. There wasn't much to do, except onerous and time eating ceremonies, taxes to the church and slave away at ornate and useless temple buildings. Keep the peasants busy type stuff. Matter of fact, to copy it wouldn't even be required to be able to read Latin.

"..compare the Church, which ceded plenty of temporal powers to kings and princes, with the Godless Soviet Union is babble. You then make a blanket statement about "institutional power structures," which would make the analogy apply to everything from the Chinese Communist Party to the U.S.'s own Constitution, to Habitat for Humanity and the Boy Scouts. "

Correct. And if babble, what are you responding for? Don't you know enough not to argue with street people or the Internet equivalent?

"If you want to talk about someone seizing absolute control, a man like Henry VIII who wanted to be head of both Church AND State would be a more likely example."

I agree. Variation on theme.

[BlackElk]

Leisler: Whatever you may fantasize, it was not required that you target the Roman Catholic Church with your spigot of bigotry in order to respond to a thread about "swift boating" (which is in reality the targeting of phonies like Traitor John Kerry with the truth that refutes his steady stream of lies. In the same spirit of refutation, the following:

Whatever you may imagine, Latin was the language of the educated and literate minority of medieval Europe. What on earth leads you to imagine either that there was a literate majority of the general European populace in those days or that a majority of the much more limited number of literate people would be at all likely to be illiterate in Latin???

Instead of having scads of free time, the population of medieval Europe was busy at an agriculture of personal survival (no tractors, no plows of a modern sort, no variety of fertilizers, no crop rotation to speak of, and, as the partially admired Dr. Crichton might inform you, very little of the scientific achievements that modern farmers take for granted, etc.), stitching for survival their own clothing since the New York garment district and capitalism were yet to come, gathering fuel wood and peat to keep the home fires burning against the dread of winter for personal survival and food cooking for survival and to bring out the best in what food was available (OPEC and Islamofascist extortion being yet to come).... Well, even you get the picture although you may not admit it.

From the picture on your home page, you may be imagining that medieval peasants lived a life of relative leisure just because that may be the state of the modern peasantry, but it was not so. At least your dog looks like an admirable pooch.

Mrs. Elk, the Latin teacher, sends her greetings to you: Saepe ignorami stultitia credunt.

I would observe that: e pluribus unum; and vox populi, vox Dei; and unitate, finitima libertati carissime! and extra ecclesiam nulla salus and cave Graecis dona ferens and semper fideles! Dr. Sivana or others may wish to add a few from his, her and/or their own repertoire(s).

There are those who seem to believe that God sent the reformation to spread the Bible and that Gutenberg and his printing press arose as a result, rather than that Gutenberg invented movable type and the printing press and a proliferation of bibles ensued (Catholic and otherwise).

Although I am Catholic, I have always had a preference for the King James Version as rendered by the scholars working at the behest of the actual King James because the translation seems to convey the majesty of the "voice" of God. It is a work of art as well as of faith. Any doctrinal differences between the KJV and the Douay Rheims are, of course, resolved in favor of the authoritative Douay Rheims but KJV is a magnificent achievement of men dedicated to their work. Either translation is likely to inspire men to other works of art such as ornate buildings dedicated to the worship of the One True God, but you knew that!

Thanks for playing anyhow!

[Tax-chick]

I just gave James a piece of bread with butter and told him it was “proto-toast.” Now Pat’s explaining it to him - with many, many words, rather like yourself - but I expect James to knock Pat down once he’s done chewing.

My point is that, if one is going to use dead languages, one needs to be Bigger.

[SoftballMominVA]

Although I do not claim to be a scholar of history, I do believe that the Bible was written in Latin, partly because it was the language of the Church, and partly because of the side effect of keeping it away from the common folk. If the Bible could not be read by the commoners, then human interpretations and possible errors could not be protested. It took a scholar-monk to stand up to the church and the erroneous practices being flouted by the papacy and clerical hierarchy.

It was not until the 1500's when the first Bible was translated in a common language by Martin Luther (although he translated from the Greek, not Latin.) I think it is telling that it took so long for someone to grasp the importance of placing God's words into the hands of the people so that an intercessor was no longer needed for one's spiritual journey.

[RightWhale]

the terminology can start to lose its meaning if it is used to describe situations beyond the original meaning.

Not at all. It acquires new meanings and becomes more powerful. Eventually it will aquire all meanings and all conversation will consist of just that one word.