Calling Cards of Morons

[velo army]

Tbf I use Orwellian a lot and I have (unfortunately as it was fucking grim) read 1984, and a couple of his other books. So I'm ok to use it.

However, I use "Kafkaesque" far too often for a man who hasn't read three fucking words of a Kafka novel .

[DiegoDiego]

I don't see the problem with using Orwellian or Kafkaesque or Quixotic without having read the books. The dictionary definitions do a fine enough job.

I wonder how many folk alive who've used the word serendipity have actually read
The Three Princes of Serendip.

[Sergeant Wilson]

27 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

I don't see the problem with using Orwellian or Kafkaesque or Quixotic without having read the books. The dictionary definitions do a fine enough job.

I wonder how many folk alive who've used the word serendipity have actually read
The Three Princes of Serendip.
 

I use Vizesque.

[velo army]

43 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

I don't see the problem with using Orwellian or Kafkaesque or Quixotic without having read the books. The dictionary definitions do a fine enough job.

I wonder how many folk alive who've used the word serendipity have actually read
The Three Princes of Serendip.
 

Aye in all seriousness you're right. It's gatekeeping to attach qualifications to using words. Reading the books is no guarantee that the words will be used correctly and vice versa.

See also "snowflakes" (Fight Club).

My wee geeky favourite is "blood is thicker than water" which is from a 13th century German poem (Reinhard Fuchs) and meant the complete opposite of its modern usage.

[Aim Here]

35 minutes ago, velo army said:

Aye in all seriousness you're right. It's gatekeeping to attach qualifications to using words. Reading the books is no guarantee that the words will be used correctly and vice versa.

The trouble, in the case of Orwell, is that it's easy for a lot of modern readers to miss his actual views in his two most read works. People have been so blasted by pro-capitalist propaganda that many of them have almost never been exposed to socialist views as spoken by actual socialists and often don't spot it in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, where it's there but not the main focus of the work. They then blithely enlist Orwell as being against collectivism or pro-capitalist or whatever other bollocks they believe in.

There should be a ban on anyone under the age of fifty reading 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and 'Animal Farm' until after the reader has read at least two of Orwell's major pieces of nonfiction.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Aim Here

[Miguel Sanchez]

I might start using "Orwellian" in the context of Wigan Pier, or Homage to Catalonia.

[coprolite]

2 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

The trouble, in the case of Orwell, is that it's easy for a lot of modern readers to miss his actual views in his two most read works. People have been so blasted by pro-capitalist propaganda that many of them have almost never been exposed socialist views as spoken by actual socialists and often don't spot it in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, where it's there but not the main focus of the work. They then blithely enlist Orwell as being against collectivism or pro-capitalist or whatever other bollocks they believe in.

There should be a ban on anyone under the age of fifty reading 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and 'Animal Farm' until after the reader has read at least two of Orwell's major pieces of nonfiction.

I particularly like his essay on drinking tea. Absolute scorn for the use of teabags or taking milk. 

Big caveat on some of his non-fiction: it has a lot of fiction in it. 

 

[velo army]

2 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

The trouble, in the case of Orwell, is that it's easy for a lot of modern readers to miss his actual views in his two most read works. People have been so blasted by pro-capitalist propaganda that many of them have almost never been exposed socialist views as spoken by actual socialists and often don't spot it in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, where it's there but not the main focus of the work. They then blithely enlist Orwell as being against collectivism or pro-capitalist or whatever other bollocks they believe in.

There should be a ban on anyone under the age of fifty reading 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and 'Animal Farm' until after the reader has read at least two of Orwell's major pieces of nonfiction.

But the thing is when people use the term "Orwellian" it doesn't have anything to do with the man or his views. It refers to the dystopia he created in 1984. You don't need to have read "Down and Out" or "Fighting in Spain" to apply the term correctly.

I've only heard it used in the context of authoritarianism, surveillance and goodthink/goodspeak, which is aligned with its accepted meaning.

 

 

[DiegoDiego]

I might start using "Orwellian" in the context of Wigan Pier, or Homage to Catalonia.

Parts of modern Scotland are quite Orwellian (Down and Out...).

[Miguel Sanchez]

Just now, DiegoDiego said:

7 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

I might start using "Orwellian" in the context of Wigan Pier, or Homage to Catalonia.

Parts of modern Scotland are quite Orwellian (Down and Out...).

It's been a while since I've read them but the part of Wigan Pier that sticks with me is people in their 20s being glad when their teeth fell out because it saved the cost/pain of looking after them. 

4 minutes ago, velo army said:

But the thing is when people use the term "Orwellian" it doesn't have anything to do with the man or his views. It refers to the dystopia he created in 1984. You don't need to have read "Down and Out" or "Fighting in Spain" to apply the term correctly.

I've only heard it used in the context of authoritarianism, surveillance and goodthink/goodspeak, which is aligned with its accepted meaning.

Just because everyone does it doesn't make it okay. "Dickensian" works as an adjective because pretty much all of his writing featured poverty or classist interactions. Orwell's writing and life was much more varied.

[Moomintroll]

7 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

I might start using "Orwellian" in the context of Wigan Pier, or Homage to Catalonia.

The Road to Wigan Pier is a magnificent Novel, the amount of people who go there expecting it to be on the Fylde or Sandgrounder Coast equally so.

[coprolite]

Just now, Miguel Sanchez said:

It's been a while since I've read them but the part of Wigan Pier that sticks with me is people in their 20s being glad when their teeth fell out because it saved the cost/pain of looking after them. 

Just because everyone does it doesn't make it okay. "Dickensian" works as an adjective because pretty much all of his writing featured poverty or classist interactions. Orwell's writing and life was much more varied.

Everyone doing it does make it ok. 

That's how language evolves. 

It doesn't mean literally "like George Orwell" any more. 

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

If having to read the tome that you are quoting from is a marker, anyone using the phrase 'of biblical proportions' is OFW

[velo army]

35 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Everyone doing it does make it ok. 

That's how language evolves. 

It doesn't mean literally "like George Orwell" any more. 

I'm not sure it ever did tbh. I've only ever heard it in relation to 1984..

First sentence is spot on, unfortunately. This isn't morality. Language is democratic and if a word is most commonly used in a particular way then the meaning of that word adjusts accordingly. 

 

 

[BFTD]

This Orwell chat is reminding me of how Martin Luther King Jr has become one of the heroes of the right in America. Any time anything to do with racism comes up, they love to quote one very specific line from his most famous speech, completely ignoring the rest of it, the fact that he later went on to say that his dream hadn't become reality, and that he was a big ol' socialist whose views on race were impossible to separate from his belief in redistribution and reparations.

That's the point when they normally start going on about him shagging white women. Wonder why that never seems to come up with Orwell. I guess he was a VL.

[DiegoDiego]

If having to read the tome that you are quoting from is a marker, anyone using the phrase 'of biblical proportions' is OFW

I know you're not being entirely serious, but I don't think it's a bad idea to read the bible, even if just from a "know your enemy" perspective. No other book has had as much of an effect on Scottish society.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

Just now, DiegoDiego said:

23 minutes ago, Zen Archer (Raconteur) said:

If having to read the tome that you are quoting from is a marker, anyone using the phrase 'of biblical proportions' is OFW

I know you're not being entirely serious, but I don't think it's a bad idea to read the bible, even if just from a "know your enemy" perspective. No other book has had as much of an effect on Scottish society.

I like the bit where Mott the Hoople pop up.

 

[BFTD]

6 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

I know you're not being entirely serious, but I don't think it's a bad idea to read the bible, even if just from a "know your enemy" perspective. No other book has had as much of an effect on Scottish society.

I think we may have misunderstood the bit about Sodom and Gomorrah.

[Bairnardo]

I think we may have misunderstood the bit about Sodom and Gomorrah.

Well worth a watch btw. Best mafia series ever.

[greendot]

Calling cards of high brow intellects for the past couple pages