Friday, February 29, 2008

Terminological inexactitude (and where it will get you)

UPDATE... 01 March 08, 00.54

'Vilnai used the word “shoah” (meaning disaster), which Reuters mistranslated as “Holocaust,” which is “HaShoah” in Hebrew. It is like confusing a “white house” with “The White House.”'
It seems I (and the BBC) were wrong about the remarks made by the Israel Deputy Defense minister. I imagine that the mistranslation was mischievous rather than accidental. My apologies to Mr Vilnai.

According to the London Metro newspaper (I know, I know) Jon Snow is deeply upset by the media in Britain doing a deal with the government to keep Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan secret. He reportedly called it censorship. It reports him saying "One wonders [very arch] whether viewers, readers and listeners will ever want to trust media bosses again". Generally speaking, when we talk about censorship, we are talking about information kept from the public because it would be embarrassing for the government were it to be known. But this was not embarrassing information- it was information which if known to our devious and murderous enemies may have brought about the deaths of a number of our soldiers and perhaps Prince Harry as well. Censorship is censorship, and secrecy is secrecy. The left, which loves to conflate one idea into another, therefore annihilating at least one of those ideas is trying to do it again.

We now come to our second example of Terminological Inexactitude. 'The [Israeli]deputy defence minister said the stepped-up rocket fire would trigger what he called a "bigger holocaust" in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7270650.stm

Good one. Many bloggers, including me, constantly harangue people for misusing and overusing the word holocaust. Indeed, every military engagement people don't like is likely to be called a holocaust, and any tribe-vs-tribe warfare gets the same label. The word holocaust is also used interchangeably with ethnic cleansing, mainly by lefties of course. But for the Israeli deputy defense minister to use the word holocaust so shoddily, and in a way likely to be of tremendous utility to Israels many enemies, is unforgivable. I presume this mans career is over. It should be. Just think- all the years Israel has spent carefully trying to avoid civilian casualties even with the most extreme provocation, and in spite of the fact that its enemies TRY to cause maximum civilian casualties, have now been tarnished by these careless words. Israels enemies constantly lie to persuade people round the world that it is waging a merciless and inhuman war on the innocent, loveable people of the West Bank and Gaza. Their job just became much easier. Hell, if the Israelis themselves are going to call their precise and carefully managed stikes against Hamas in Gaza a "holocaust", why shouldn't its enemies?

Terminological inexactitude is bad for all of us. It helps to persuade stupid people of wrong things, often (as in the case of the communists/socialists) intentionally. The latter believe that there is no truth, only perception, and if you can achieve your ends by changing the perceptions of millions of gullible people, why not? In a democracy where communism and fascism are seen for what they truly are, though, terminological inexactitude hurts the body politic. It means that the electorate will vote quite often on a false prospectus.

We can't afford that as a nation. Our flirtation with Communism in the late 40's and fifties already almost destroyed the country, and the terrible decade of the sixties where the traditional views of Englishmen were destroyed almost completely and replaced by arrant nonsense have brought our nation to its knees. No wonder our brightest and best are leaving the country in droves. When a whole nation is wedded to childish, stupid and self-hating ideas, it can't stand long in a pitiless and harsh world. And it won't really deserve to.

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