The New Orleans Saints pulled off their very first Super Bowl win yesterday. I am not a football fan but I can appreciate wanting something so bad and finally getting it. Go Saints!
The game itself has a very interesting beginning. Football can be traced back to A.D 43, to a game called harpastum. Harpastum was a very violent and bloody game. Players (sometimes hundreds) in a free-for-all would attempted to kick, butt, or throw an air filled bladder into their opponents goal. The goal was sometimes more than a mile away. Eventually, boundaries and rules were added and the game became known as fut balle. There were many attempts to ban the game. Needless to say that never happened and fut ball developed into rugby which then became the American football we know today.
What? Why are you looking at that picture like that? What’s wrong with being a little interspecific? The above picture is an artist’s creative vision of an interspecific animal. A dog and human to be exact. Personally looks more like a pig to me.
Interspecific, my fellow wordphiliacs, means being of two species.
Today’s word comes from the urban dictionary. The word pac-manning means to drive down the middle lane of a highway/street, over the painted white lines, resembling Pac Man eating pellets. Pretty cool huh?
Recently in a private meeting, Rahm Emanuel, the white house chief of staff said that the strategy of liberal democrats was “fucking retarded”. Rahm Emanuel is notorious for his in private potty mouth. But when he used the word retarded he created a mini-firestorm fueled mainly by politics. Sarah Palin, former candidate for the Vice Presidency and mother of a down syndrome infant, charged the attack on Emanuel. Emanuel apologized and I’m wondering why.
Just so we’re clear, no one got offended and the word “fucking” which by all standards is a ‘bad’ word. The offense came from the word ‘retarded’, which some felt was disrespectful to people with intellectual handicaps, of whom none were present.
How did a perfectly good word like retarded turn bad? It is a word that describes the mental development of person, animal, or idea. The word is not politically incorrect. In fact, the word retarded in this instance, correctly and precisely expressed Emanuel’s idea. But let’s for a second pretend that it is offensive. How is it possible to offend someone who is not present? It’s not.
Now, let’s talk about the word retard. The word retard is not an offensive word when pronounced (ra-tard). For example, you could say, I think being overly politically correct retards our ability to grow. The word retard is (according to the powers that be) an offensive and derogatory word when pronounced (ree-tard). You don’t really need it used in a sentence do you?
This post was not to encourage people to use potentially offensive words. This post was not political. This post was in defense of words, which I love. And since they can’t defend themselves, I will.
