Crazy and Stupid

     For the uninitiated, "WORDLE" is an online game in which you try and guess a 5-letter word using your keyboard. Once you use a letter, whether it works or not, it's done. It's fun, makes you think, and can be mildly addicting. In a similar vein, "PRATTLE" does the exact same thing except it restricts the possible solutions to words appearing in the collected works of William Shakespeare, including the plays, poems, and sonnets. Being a fan of the Bard, I love this game. On the other hand, it reinforces my feelings of intellectual inadequacy!

    Now, here's the kicker. PRATTLE doesn't use every word that appears in the Shakespeare-verse. For instance, Shakespeare used the word 'slave' in various contexts. But if you happen to type the word 'slave' in the 5-boxes, you get the following pop-up; "Shakespeare did use this word, but we decided not to. Please guess a new word to keep playing." Are you kidding me? This is the world we live in now? Roy Thomas, the former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and a fan of PRATTLE lamented this "mind-boggling bit of virtue-signaling. This is the worst kind of pandering, the more so by a company supposedly devoted to major English-language literature." 

    As I said above, slave appears more than a few times in the plays. It's used figuratively, as in Romeo and Juliet ("let mischance be slave to patience"); in other places, like The Merchant of Venice, it is used literally ("What judgement shall I dread, doing no wrong? You have among you many a purchased slave, which, like your asses and your dogs and mules, you use in abject and in slavish parts because you bought them.").

    Let's get this out of the way right now (as if it even needs to be said). Slavery is a heinous, evil crime against man. It has engulfed innocent millions since the dawn of civilization and continues to do so today. As a state of being, slave is deeply offensive. But (and there's always a 'but'), is the word in and of itself so deeply offensive to unclouded and intelligent minds as to be utterly unsayable when used figuratively or when discussing actual history? And the corollary to that is, "Are people of a certain ilk the snowflakes that someone like me actually thinks they are?"

    Well, the attempt to cleanse the English language of all problematic words, if not ideas, seems to be accelerating. I give you, Stanford University. It seems the IT department at Stanford recently published a list of words and phrases that they deem offensive. This list includes the words "stupid" and "crazy." No, I am not making this up. C'mon...how STUPID is this? Really? This is CRAZY! I'll go even one further..."Dear Stanford University IT Department: You're a bunch of IDIOTS!" You are such a juvenile, Peter. Yes, I know. But it made me feel better. 

    And lastly, the state of Michigan's Health and Human Services Department sent a memo to its employees a couple of weeks ago asking them to phase out any use of the term field work because of its "implication for descendants of enslaved Black and Brown individuals." There are times when the mind loses its capacity for outrage. Has it not occurred to these CRAZY and STUPID people that the term "field work" is not a term exclusive to the experience of slavery? Free people work in fields, too.

    George Orwell foresaw all of this; the desire to control language and make words mean anything they damn well please. Orwell's novels Animal Farm and 1984 are the blueprints for what can happen when the totalitarian impulse is in power. It is the overriding impulse of today's Progressive/Woke ideology. The desire to bend and distort words and ideas to their will to the point where anything can mean anything. They then ostracize or silence anyone who does not conform. Freedom of speech is not high on the agenda of these intellectual troglodytes. 

    On a personal note: A long time ago and in another lifetime when the whole political correctness thing was beginning, I wrote a piece for a publication using the word niggardly. Yes, I did it deliberately, and yes, I was trying to push people's buttons. And most importantly, I used the word properly. So even when you were younger, you were a pain in the ass! Yes, Sancho. Go figure. And just so we're clear, the word niggardly, according to any dictionary you prefer to cite, is either used as an adjective meaning "reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly," and/or "meanly or ungenerously small or scanty". It can also be used as an adverb meaning "in a stingy, miserly, or tight-fisted manner." That's it. No other meanings. Needless to say, all hell broke loose! And you know why all hell broke loose? Because people of a certain ilk made up their own definitions, and were too lazy or stupid (or both) to look up a word they weren't quite sure as to what the definitions were. In a subsequent piece, after getting phone calls, etc., about what an ass-hole, Nazi, racist (especially racist) human being I was...including from people who should have known better...I wrote in big, bold type the definitions.  Trust me, there weren't many apologies.

    We're living in a time of slippery slopes. Whether it's some people attempting intellectual Twister, trying to justify the sedition, yes sedition, on our national's Capitol last January and the person who incited it; or those that think every minority shooting by law enforcement is occasion for rioting, looting, and destruction. And while those are two scary slopes, I think the scariest slope of all is the slow deterioration of freedom of speech and yes, even of thought. It's CRAZY and STUPID...

    But back to PRATTLE; Mr. Thomas said in the same interview that he's unlikely to continue playing it unless PRATTLE revisits the policy. I think I'll join him. 

write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com