Non-Binary Pronoun They as Word Of The Year: Victory For LGBTQ Rights?

When the non-binary pronoun they became Merriam-Webster’s word of the year, does this spell victory for LGBTQ rights?

By: Ringo Bones

Back in December 2019, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary added a new definition of the word “they” – reflecting its use as a singular personal pronoun for non-binary people. Soon as the US based dictionary firm did this, searches for the new definition of “they” on their website went 31-percent higher in 2019 compared to 2018, prompting the firm to designate the non-binary pronoun they as 2019’s Word of the Year.

British pop star Sam Smith came out as a non-binary in March 2019 and in September 2019 confirmed on Instagram that their pronouns were “they / them”. Announcing their pronouns, Smith wrote: “I understand there will be many mistakes and misunderstanding, but all I ask is you please, please try. I hope you can see me like I see myself now.”

Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, told the Associated Press news agency that searches shot up when Oslo Grace was rising to prominence, when Sam Smith came out and when US congresswoman Pramila Jayapal spoke about her gender-nonconforming child while arguing for LGBTQ rights legalization in April 2019. The English language famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone and as a consequence, they have been used for this purpose – albeit in an ad hoc manner – for over 600 years.

Diplomatic Pornography: President Trump’s Guiding Principle In “Making America Great Again”?

A term first coined by Thomas Friedman on US President Donald J. Trump’s ill-advised Jerusalem embassy show, but has diplomatic pornography all along been the guiding principle behind Trump’s “Make America Great Again” plan?

By: Ringo Bones

The world’s top political and diplomatic analysts are probably bemused by Thomas Friedman’s description of US President Donald J. Trump’s Jerusalem embassy show as “diplomatic pornography” when Trump made serious appeasements and concessions with regards to moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem – as in the May 14, 2018 reclassification of the US consulate in Jerusalem as the US embassy in Jerusalem -  despite Jerusalem wasn’t recognized by everyone as the state of Israel’s capital because it is a disputed territory claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians.

It was Thomas Friedman who was the first to use the term “diplomatic pornography” after he tells it like it is during his guest spot on Fareed Zakaria GPS over the issue of Hamas, Israel and President Trump and his  Administration’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In hindsight, Donald J. Trump’s diplomatic pornography could be described as an ill-advised policy of making political and material concessions without making a corresponding leverage. President Trump could have negotiated for a landmark renewed Israel-Palestinian peace process that the Obama Administration had never achieved in exchange for going along with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s green light on allowing those countries who do so the ability to move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Back in the middle of May 2018, Thomas Friedman managed to capture the zeitgeist of this fiasco by stating that “The whole thing is a tragedy. It’s like two bald men fighting over a comb.” And “The embassy event was really just a Republican mid-term prep rally disguised as a diplomatic event…This was meant to fire up the far-right religious base of the Republican Party.”As someone made famous for his iconic business how-to book, The Art of the Deal, Friedman can’t hold back on his bemusement of this ill-advised policy by saying “Trump didn’t do the ‘Art of the Deal’, he did the art of the giveaway…Trump gave away the most valuable diplomatic real estate in the Middle East treasure-box of the United States and gave it away for free. Believe me, in Jerusalem they are laughing at him. In the Arab world they are laughing at him. They can’t believe what a sucker he was to take the bait and give this away for free when he could have used it for a leverage to truly advance the peace process.” Unfortunately, Trump’s “Jerusalem Embassy Diplomatic Pornography” maneuver can also be applied to his lackluster diplomacy on North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.

Covfefe: 2017’s Word of the Year?

Born out of U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s “cryptic” Tweet at the end of May 2017, could covfefe safely qualify as 2017’s “word of the year”?

By: Ringo Bones

At the time, the folks at Merriam-Webster had been sitting out on this Trump neologism but just after midnight in Washington, DC back in May 31, 2017, U.S. President Donald J. Trump Tweeted: “Despite of the constant negative press covfefe.” That was it, no name, just that word “covfefe” left hanging there. It has left many of Trump’s 31 million Twitter followers baffled and slightly concerned. But what does covfefe mean – most of my internet savvy friends theorized that Trump may have been confusing a CAPTCHA check as an actual word – as in a French derived English word perhaps?

Though the covfefe Tweet has not just made Trump “famous” enough to cause a temporary internet meltdown, the president’s Tweet had managed to take the heat off U.S. comedian Kathy Griffin, who had earlier been under fire for posting a video in which she held a replica of Trump’s severed bloody head. Well, at least it is way better than Trump dissing Muslims and Mexicans on Twitter.

Alternative Facts: Latest Entry In The American English Lexicon?

Despite the first two weeks of the Trump Administration is “trumping” the Reagan Administration when it comes to media manipulation, is the phrase “Alternative Facts” now forever part of the American English language lexicon?

By: Ringo Bones

Days immediately following U.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway’s interview in Meet the Press with Chuck Todd pertaining to the lack of attendance during Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States, sales of George Orwell’s magnum opus 1984 increased by almost 10,000-percent and this was on online book retailer Amazon alone. Was the dramatic sales increase a result of Kellyanne Conway’s use of the phrase “Alternative Facts”?   

“Alternative Facts” is a phrase used by U.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017 in which she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement about the attendance at Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Sean Spicer uttered a provable falsehood, Conway stated that Spicer was giving “alternative facts” – which Chuck Todd responded: “look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehood”. And thus the phrase “Alternative Facts” was immortalized in the American English lexicon.  

Post-Truth: More American Than British?

Even though the Oxford English Dictionary has awarded it the title of 2016’s International Word of the Year – is “post-truth” more apt in describing the ongoing political situation in America than in Britain?

By: Ringo Bones 

Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2016 is “Post-Truth” – which it describes as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. Even though the word has been around since last year, its usage has spiked by around 2,000-percent this year and usually pertaining to the subject of Brexit and the election of the soc-called American political outsider named Donald J. Trump into the White House during the 2016 US Presidential Elections. 

Even though the word’s connotations can scare the hell out of most individuals over 40 who have lived through the most harrowing events of recent history, worse still, to those afflicted with age-related macular degeneration, the word “post-truth” eerily resembles “Post-Trump” which could drive those endangered by the upcoming Trump presidency to shore up their own resolve. Some say this is scarier than the fact that Donald J. Trump is America’s first paedophile president.

Pervertiplanes: A Forgotten Argot Of Aeronautical Engineering?

Even though the term dates back to the Cold War era 1960s American aeronautical engineering boom, does anyone still use the term “pervertiplane” these days? 

By: Ringo Bones

Any group of specialists has its own private lexicon and aeronautical engineers are surely no exception. The word “pervertiplane” could be defined as a corruption of the term “convertiplane” – which is a contraction of the term “convertible aircraft” – pertaining to aircraft constructed in such a way that their lifting and propulsion systems may be converted to permit efficient operation either for vertical take-off and hovering or for high-speed forward flight. Such craft are now more commonly termed as VTOL or vertical take-off and landing aircraft. 

Convertiplanes – at least their experimental prototypes – began life back in the beginning of the 1960s. Examples of which are the X-19 broad-bladed tilting rotor turboprop VTOL plane, the X-22 tilting ducted fan VTOL plane, which is probably the great-granddaddy  of the V-22 Osprey that got fielded back in 2007 and some jet-engine high-performance experimental VTOL fighter planes like the British-built Hawker P1127 cascade vane-nozzle turbojet VTOL that later became the USMC’s Hawker Siddeley Harrier / Harrier Jump Jet and the then West German EWR VJ-101C tilting engine turbojet VTOL interceptor. 

Convertible aircraft are sometimes called “convertiplanes”; however, one prominent aeronautical engineer – legend has it that it was Igor Sikorsky – has suggested the name “pervertiplanes” because so many of the machines, in his view, combine the worst features of the helicopter and the fixed-wing aircraft. The necessary provision of such structurally difficult features as tilting wings, tilting rotors, cascade-vane assemblies and the like which may be subjected to high gas temperatures and periodically fluctuating air loads, all at minimum structural weight, leads to the development of very complicated mechanical devices that in turn leads to a high probability of mechanical failure. 

By far, the most serious problem with convertible aircraft lies in its characteristics following engine failure at low altitude. Unlike fixed-wing aircraft, which can fly as a glider following engine failure or the helicopter, which can descend at a safe – but rapid – rate with its rotor being spun by the flow of air past it (a process called autorotation), the convertible aircraft commonly lacks wings large enough to descend slowly as a glider, or a rotor large enough to permit a safe autorotation descent. Worse yet, if power failure occurs during transition, it may not be possible to achieve either type of descent and the vehicle will fall like a rock. Looks like a convertible aircraft or convertiplane’s reputation as a “pervertiplane” seems apt.  

Bieberitis: Latest Entry In The American English Language Lexicon?

Ever wondered if this relatively recent entry in the American English language lexicon is due to everyone almost fed up with the antics of one Justin Bieber? 

By: Ringo Bones 

If you are already fed up with the antics of a certain former teen pop sensation named Justin Bieber and his pitiful attempts to be perceived by anyone to be a hardcore African-American hip-hop star replete with street-cred, then, cheer up because a relatively recent entry in the American English lexicon could warm up your heart. Or at least it may restore some of the lost Karmic harmony in the cosmos. 

According to one definition in the Urban Dictionary, “bieberitis” is a malignant condition affecting the intelligence portion of the brains of affected individuals – particularly female. Symptoms are child molestation, partying to awful music and creating horrendous renditions of Justin Bieber’s songs at the top of one’s lungs. Believed to be caused by the prepubescent voice of one Justin Bieber in which prolonged exposure could cause irreparable damage to brain cells. 

According to ones with first-hand experience of the disorder, bieberitis can be temporarily relieved by male singers who can vocalize at a lower pitch than Mariah Carey. Some even suggested listening to classic Barry White songs as a form of therapy.