One Perhaps Funny Joke and Two Seriously Not So Funny Anecdotes

1. My Fair Lady: The Voluptuous Escargot!

A few weeks ago I made a silly joke about the escargot. I said it was something I wouldn’t drive or put in my mouth. My lack of palette for that delicacy could be in the minority.

So-called Judge01Shortly after I wrote that, by sheer accident, I read a beautiful epigram by Sandra Boynton. She’s an artist and a poet, among other talents. The lyrics are about a snail’s loving feelings for another:

Oh, inch by inches
Doth my love grow
I feign would call thee, my escargot!

Exotic, romantic … way to go, escargot!

2. English 101: New Meanings to Old Words

When you are famous, powerful and creative, you can talk funny, make up new words and phrases – and they will stick. At least for a while, until they lose their newsworthiness.

a. Alternate Facts. A few days ago, Kellyanne Conway, the senior advisor to Donald Trump, said Sean Spicer, the press secretary of the White House was fed “alternate facts.” She was not being humorous. She meant that there were really more than one set of “facts” that the White House could pick and choose from. This new coinage caught the attention of the press — and the lexicographers at Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The latter released a statement So-called Judge02to the public that they did not have that term in their dictionary. As far as they were concerned, “alternate” did not mean “true.” Therefore “alternate facts” were not facts.

b. So-Called Judge. In a series of tweets attacking the country’s judiciary system, Trump said Americans should blame people like U.S. District Judge James Robart and the court system if anything happened. That cryptic and ominous message was received by many as a childish, knee-jerk response to Judge Robart, a registered Republican, who made a decision to temporarily stop Trump’s executive order banning immigrants and refugees from certain Muslim countries. In Trump’s Twitter, he called Robart a “so-called judge” who wrote a
ridiculous opinion.

You’ve learned your English well, So-Called President!

PS. Although I thought about the term “so-called president,” after Trump’s neologism of “so-called judge,” and I suspect more than a few people had the same “epiphany” too. As a matter of fact, movie maker Michael Moore beat me to it and published it in his own tweet.

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