How to understand America in terms of its popular/film culture?
"Put the two men’s records, their reputations, even their respective books, side by side, and it’s hard to imagine two more polar opposites than Trump and Comey: They are as antipodean as the untethered, sybaritic Al Capone and the square, diligent G-man Eliot Ness in Brian De Palma’s 1987 movie 'The Untouchables'; or the vengeful outlaw Frank Miller and Gary Cooper’s stoic, duty-driven marshal Will Kane in Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 classic 'High Noon.'”
In “A Higher Loyalty,” the former F.B.I. director doesn’t mince words in describing his interactions with President Trump: “This president is unethical, and untethered to truth.”
That Americans call bacon “ham” and ham “bacon” is enough to make the more chauvinistic sort of Brit turn the color of those foodstuffs. Henry Hitchings reviews “The Prodigal Tongue” by Lynne Murphy.
image from article
Who said that America and Britain are two countries separated by a common language? Credit usually goes to George Bernard Shaw, but the line is sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde or Winston Churchill. No Briton or American will struggle to produce pungent examples of this linguistic division, and while there are differences in grammar, spelling and pronunciation, it is the variations in vocabulary that most exercise pundits and pedants.
An American arriving in Britain for the first time is likely to be puzzled that “getting pissed” is a twice-weekly recreation, and even a seasoned visitor might be nonplussed by the following: “Feeling peckish, I put on my trainers and a khaki jumper and left my flat, only to find that some tosser had parked his lorry right across the pavement.” There is even a curious subspecies of Brit who conveys the wish to be woken after a night’s sleep with the words: “Will you knock me up in the morning?”
Lynne Murphy is an American-born professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex on Britain’s south coast. She has had plenty of exposure to the discrepancies between the language of her birthplace and that of her adopted home, and since 2006 has written a blog exploring them. In “The Prodigal Tongue” she draws on extensive research to sink some of the myths kept afloat by this trans-Atlantic love-hate relationship, and she carefully investigates its psychology.
Ms. Murphy begins by noticing how much British commentary on American usage eschews expertise in favor of vitriol. Never mind that American usage tends to be more consistent than its British counterpart—its spellings a little leaner, its grammar a bit less leaky. No, what matters is that Americans call bacon “ham” and ham “bacon,” the mere thought of which is enough to make the more chauvinistic sort of Brit turn the color of those foodstuffs and declare, “Were it not for us, you’d all be speaking French!”
PHOTO: WSJ
THE PRODIGAL TONGUE
By Lynne Murphy Penguin, 360 pages, $17
Such porcine bluster can seem, in Ms. Murphy’s phrase, “pathologically unhinged,” and she has a name for it: “Amerilexicosis.” Even when the critique is intended to be humorous, it comes across as snooty. Thus the assessment of the parody royal Twitter account @Queen_UK: “There is no such thing as American English. There is English. And there are mistakes.” Respectable British publications are happy to carry stories about the so-called curse of Americanisms, labeling them “ugly” or “vile.” The irony, of course, is that many of the words impugned in this way, such as “oftentimes” and “soccer,” originated in Britain. As “The Prodigal Tongue” repeatedly makes clear, there is a special kind of British purist who aches with nostalgia for a linguistic Eden that never existed.
The practice of disparaging American English satisfies two British enthusiasms—for complaining and for “being right.” I enclose “being right” in queasy quotation marks because the enthusiasm isn’t so much a matter of putting forward cogent arguments as a delight in marshaling disdain and indignation at a volume sufficient to cow all adversaries. Underlying this impulse, however, is a dark suspicion that Ms. Murphy identifies—that American English is “an invasive species that will choke and supplant the native wordlife.”
In reality, specimens move in both directions, as Ms. Murphy notes. British items such as “kerfuffle,” “sell-by date” and “queue” are finding their way into the American vocabulary. She makes the case for further adoptions, such as “bumf” (tedious printed material of the kind that clogs one’s mailbox) and “plonk” (cheap but serviceable wine). Yet if there’s a British stereotype of American English as twangy and slangy, there’s a corresponding American stereotype of British English as quaint and feather-brained. When James Corden, who grew up in Buckinghamshire, started hosting “The Late Late Show” on CBS, he was apparently encouraged to use words such as “willy” and “squiffy” in order to sound more charmingly archaic.
“The Prodigal Tongue” is acute about the more subtle differences between America and Britain, not least in perspectives on class and race. For instance, Americans refer to “the middle class” five times as often as Britons do, and Britons refer five times as often to “the middle classes”—one of many small but telling signs of Brits’ addiction to precisely placing one another socially. Another intriguing detail: Americans add “please” to requests only half as frequently as Brits do, because in American English this use of “please” is a marker of urgency—suggesting bossiness or desperation, not solicitude.
Yet the book’s chief pleasure is a simple one: Instead of sending the language to school, it savors a great many words and phrases that are staples on one side of the pond and unfamiliar on the other. Ms. Murphy has an amusing facility for zapping tired language myths, and she peppers her lively chapters with snippets from latter-day Bernard Shaws —such as Homer Simpson, with his deathless line: “English? Who needs that? I’m never going to England!” But the most striking feature of her writing is a fascination with the quirks of usage. She succeeds in her ambition to increase “our enjoyment of our common language and our pride in it,” and her essential argument is that the plurality of English, a result of the riotous drama of history, is something to extol: “What if instead of tutting, we marveled?”
Mr. Hitchings is the author of “Sorry! The English and Their Manners” and “The Language Wars: A History of Proper English.”
An old order ended in 2016. To help the new one take shape requires an ability to see things whole.
Excerpt:
What might an artist see as the major need and priority for America right now? Keep this country together. Keep it up and operating and give it a sense of peace with itself. The crisis is our increasing disunity, and the thinning of a shared sense of the national dream. ...
A thought which just struck me the other day, but one that was actually explored by far more thoughtful persons than I, as I discovered after a quick internet search ...
which states (p. 29): "Skin Deep: What is race, exactly? Science tells us there is no genetic or scientific basis for it. Instead, it's largely a made-up label, used to define and separate us."
The U.S. Census Bureau must adhere to the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards on race and ethnicity which guide the Census Bureau in classifying written responses to the race question:
White – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.
Black or African American – A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.
American Indian or Alaska Native – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.
Asian – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
The 1997 OMB standards permit the reporting of more than one race. An individual’s response to the race question is based upon self-identification.
An individual’s response to the race question is based upon self-identification. The Census Bureau does not tell individuals which boxes to mark or what heritage to write in. For the first time in Census 2000, individuals were presented with the option to self-identify with more than one race and this continued with the 2010 Census. People who identify with more than one race may choose to provide multiple races in response to the race question. For example, if a respondent identifies as "Asian" and "White," they may respond to the question on race by checking the appropriate boxes that describe their racial identities and/or writing in these identities on the spaces provided.
What is Race?
The data on race were derived from answers to the question on race that was asked of individuals in the United States. The Census Bureau collects racial data in accordance with guidelines provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and these data are based on self-identification.
The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include racial and national origin or sociocultural groups. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as “American Indian” and “White.” People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.
OMB requires five minimum categories: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.
Reasons for Collecting Information on Race
Information on race is required for many Federal programs and is critical in making policy decisions, particularly for civil rights. States use these data to meet legislative redistricting principles. Race data also are used to promote equal employment opportunities and to assess racial disparities in health and environmental risks.
Race and Ethnicity Research
The Census Bureau has a long history of conducting research to improve questions and data on race and ethnicity. Since the 1970s, the Census Bureau has conducted content tests to research and improve the design and function of different questions, including questions on race and ethnicity.
For the latest information on Race and Ethnicity Research visit:
ZUCKERBERG'S GREAT REFORMS MUST'VE STARTED
Fb is now assiduously seeking to correct its version of my past (or maybe that's deciduously, since it involves paper), asking repeatedly -- every time I've come online over the last 48 hrs -- "What was your position at Freelance Translator & Editor?"
The correct answer is, of course, "Supine, almost exclusively: laptop on lap, big behind parked in recliner." What, did they think I was Hemingway or something, writing standing up? Ahaha...--
Hey, wait a minute!!!
The ideological split is mirrored in race, sex, age, education, location and religion.
By
William A. Galston
Millions of Americans yearn for a more civil and cooperative form of politics, but the Republican and Democratic parties are pulling us in the opposite direction. By every measure, the parties have drifted ideologically further apart than they were two decades ago, and there is no reason to think the trend will be reversed anytime soon.
A March report from the Pew Research Center illustrates the magnitude of the partisan sorting that has taken place. In 2017, 68% of Republican voters described themselves as “conservative,” compared with 58% in 2000. Over the same period, the share of Democratic voters calling themselves “liberal” has grown from 28% to 46%. Self-described moderates, meanwhile, dropped from 44% of Democrats to 37%.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Demographic gaps between the parties have widened in tandem.In 1997 whites made up 83% of the electorate—92% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats. Over the subsequent 20 years, the Democratic Party diversified more rapidly than the GOP. Now the white share of the electorate stands at 69%—83% of Republicans and only 59% of Democrats. Racially and ethnically, in other words, the Republican base looks more like the country did two decades ago, while Democrats foreshadow what the country will be two decades from now. Neither party represents the U.S. as it is today.
Demography and geography are linked. In the suburbs, the parties have remained roughly balanced since the turn of the century. By contrast, Democrats’ advantage in urban counties has shot up from 18 to 31 points, while Republicans have gone from a tie with Democrats in rural areas to a 16-point lead today.
Differences between the sexes have sharpened as well. Men have leaned Republican since at least 1994, though the margin has narrowed to 4 points. By contrast, Democrats’ advantage among women has soared from 6 to 19 points. Across racial and ethnic groups, women are more likely than men to identify with the Democratic Party—by 9 points among whites and 8 among blacks and Hispanics.
Age matters, too. In 1994 Americans born before the end of World War II were about evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Today, Republicans enjoy a significant edge in this cohort. Among baby boomers and Generation X, meanwhile, Democrats have erased the modest leads Republicans once enjoyed.
Millennial voters, those born between 1981 and 1996, started off pro-Democratic and became steadily more so as the entire cohort reached voting age. In 2004, 53% leaned Democratic, compared with 38% Republican. That 15-point gap has widened to 27 points. This shift has been driven by young women. The party leanings of millennial men have not changed significantly, but the Democrats’ advantage among millennial women has jumped from 18 points in 2004 to 47 today. These numbers are consistent with reports in recent years of high levels of progressive activism among young women.
At the same time, educated voters have grown more culturally liberal, while less-educated voters have moved to the right. After trailing Democrats for decades among voters with no more than a high school diploma—the so-called working class—Republicans now lead. Among white voters in this group, Republicans have accumulated a 23-point edge, after being roughly tied between 1994 and 2008.
By contrast, party identification among voters with a bachelor’s degree has been turned on its head. In 1994 Republicans led Democrats in this group by 54% to 39%. Now, Democrats lead Republicans by an identical 54% to 39%. Similarly, while the parties were roughly tied in 1994 among voters with postgraduate education, today Democrats trounce Republicans 63% to 31%. As the share of Americans with college degrees increases, this trend could place Republicans at a mounting disadvantage. In the meantime, the clash between educated and less-educated groups may continue to fuel the rise of populism.
Religion, too, may sharpen the divide. In 1994, white evangelical Protestants gave a 30-point edge to Republicans, which has now grown to 59 points. Religiously unaffiliated voters, who have tripled to nearly a quarter of the electorate since 1997, constitute a third of all Democrats, compared with 13% of Republicans.
Our politics would be more likely to produce constructive solutions if the variegated groups that form American society were in constant dialogue under the same partisan tents. But that doesn’t seem likely to happen. When parties are this divided along lines of race, sex, religion and class, compromise between their moderate wings is the only viable path to progress.
A Princeton PhD, was a U.S. diplomat for over 20 years, mostly in Central/Eastern Europe, and was promoted to the Senior Foreign Service in 1997. After leaving the State Department in 2003 to express strong reservations about the planned U.S. invasion of Iraq, he shared ideas with Georgetown University students on the tension between propaganda and public diplomacy. He has given talks on "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United" to participants in the "Open World" program. Among Brown’s many articles is his latest piece, “Janus-Faced Public Diplomacy: Creel and Lippmann During the Great War,” now online. He is the compiler (with S. Grant) of The Russian Empire and the USSR: A Guide to Manuscripts and Archival Materials in the United States (also online). In the past century, he served as an editor/translator of a joint U.S.-Soviet publication of archival materials, The United States and Russia: The Beginning of Relations,1765-1815. His approach to "scholarly" aspirations is poetically summarized by Goethe: "Gray, my friend, is every theory, but green is the tree of life."
