Tag Archives: English usage

Toxik TikTok

by in English usage, In Terms Of, LGBTQ+ Community Issues, Politics, Quotations and tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Libs of TikTok is shaping our entire political conversation about the rights of LGBTQ people to participate in society,” [Ari] Drennen said. “It feels like they’re single-handedly taking us back a decade in terms of the public discourse around LGBTQ rights. It’s been like nothing we’ve ever really seen.” — “Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine”, The Washington Post, 19iv22.

Elsewhere other-accessible

• Ex-Term-In-Ate! — interrogating issues around “in terms of”…
• All posts interrogating issues around “in terms of”…

Core War…

by in English usage, In Terms Of, Language, Literature and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In terms of my core ambitions for 2022, I hope to continue the fight against such things as the reprehensible and repulsive phrase “in terms of”, the pretentious and throbbingly urgent adjective “core”, and the cheap trick of trailing dots… I know that I won’t win and that the Hive-Mind will continue to buzz deafeningly at core venues like The Guardian, The London Review of Books and The Shropshire Advertiser, but so what? In the core words of Samuel in terms of Johnson:

[I]t remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language. — Samuel Johnson, Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

Elsewhere Other-Accessible

• Ex-term-in-ate! — core interrogation of why “in terms of” is so despicable, deplorable and downright disgusting…
• Don’t Do Dot — core interrogation of why “…” is so despicable, deplorable and downright disgusting dot dot dot

Post-Performative Post-Scriptum

How should the first line of this incendiary intervention begin? I suggest: “In terms of my core ambitions for 2022…” → “Among my main ambitions…”

The Grates of Roth

by in English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Music and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Van Halen’s Diamond Dave fails to sparkle:

In terms of music, it’s all Brit. It’s Freddie, Bowie and the guy in Zeppelin. Theatrically, you’re looking at Spider-Man, with a little Groucho thrown in. […] Pushing boundaries in terms of what [Van Halen] wore was never an ambition of ours, but it always seemed to be where we would end up. — David Lee Roth: ‘My advice for aspiring artists? Breathable fabrics’, The Guardian, 25vi2019.

Note that he said “Theatrically…” rather than “In terms of theater…” So he should’ve said “Musically, it’s all Brit.” Rather than using the ugly and pretentious “In terms of music…”

• Hal Bent for Leather — Rob Halford talks like a Guardianista too

Terminal Transgressivity

by in Art, English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Transgression... and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“If this work is about hell,” he says, “it’s not only about hell in terms of content. It’s also about hell in terms of its hellishness in terms of production.” — maximally maverick artist Jake Chapman describes how he and his brother Dinos made the transgressive sculpture Hell (2000), as quoted in Simon Garfield’s In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate the World (2018)

Elsewhere Other-Accessible

• Ex-term-in-nate! — incendiarily interrogating issues around “in terms of”…
• All O.o.t.Ü.-F. posts interrogating issues around “in terms of”…

Peri-Performative Post-Scriptum…

Yes, this was an über-ideal quote for posting on the 23rd in terms of the month… But I was so taken with it that I couldn’t delay any longer. And anyway: it is the 23rd of the months in base 11. (I.e., 2111 = 2 * 11 + 1 = 22 + 1 = 23.)

Perfect Performative Pairing

by in English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Salt and celery, cheese and chocolate, yams and yoghurt — some things just taste better together. But that’s true of much more than foods and flavors. As a keyly committed core component of the anti-racist community, I’m proud and passionate to report that it’s also true of ideology and “in terms of”:

Unsurprisingly for a 200-year-old institution, the Guardian has not always got it right in terms of race coverage. — From slavery to BLM: the ups and downs of 200 years of Guardian race reporting, The Guardian, 6v21

For me, anti-racism just wouldn’t be the maximally moral movement that it is without a steady seasoning of “in terms of”. They’re a perfect performative pairing in an atrabiliously imperfect world.

Elsewhere other-engageable…

• Ex-term-in-nate! — interrogating issues around “in terms of”
• All O.o.t.Ü.-F. posts interrogating issues around “in terms of”…

Strength thru Joyce!

by in English usage, In Terms Of, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Language and tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Here is a Clarificatory Conspectus for Core Comprehension of Key Counter-Culture:

(open in new window for larger version)

Please note the inclusion of James Joyce (1882-1941). You will see that he is at one remove from the Heart of Darkness represented by the despicable, deplorable and downright disgusting phrase “in terms of”. That is, I put Joyce in the clarificatory conspectus because he is popular among the abusers of “in terms of”, not because I think he would have abused “in terms of” himself. Although I can’t stand Joyce’s writing and think it has had a very bad influence on English literature, I also think he wrote too well and was too aesthetically and linguistically sensitive to use “in terms of” in the degraded fashion of his countless modern admirers and imitators.

Please note, however, that being at one or more removes from the Heart of Darkness is not exculpatory for any other inclusees in terms of the Clarificatory Conspectus (Marty Amis, Sal Rushdie, the LRB, etc).

Elsewhere other-accessible:

• Ex-term-in-ate! — core interrogation of why “in terms of” is so despicable, deplorable and downright disgusting…
• Titus Graun — core interrogation of key deployers of “in terms of”……
• Don’t Do Dot — core interrogation of why “…” is so despicable, deplorable and downright disgusting dot dot dot

Termed Out Nice Again

by in English usage, French, In Terms Of, Linguistics and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In 2013, I made a key discovery that disturbed and distressed core members of the non-conformist maverick community on a global basis dot dot dot… In America (or so it appeared) a key lexical marker of non-conformist maverickness was rapidly declining in terms of core usage, thusly:

At the same time, the non-conformist maverick community in Britain had maintained their core commitment to this key lexical marker of etc, thusly:

I expressed my puzzlement at the decline of “in terms of” in America. I couldn’t see a linguistic explanation and should (I now realize) have expressed doubts about the reliability of the data. Yes, in 2020 I’m very happy to report to members of the non-conformist maverick community that they need be disturbed and distressed no longer. The term has turned and it seems Google’s nGram wasn’t working properly at that time-period. Key statistics for core usage of “in terms of” are now in core accordance with key expectations, thusly:

“in terms of” (American English)

(open in new tab for larger image)

“in terms of” (British English)

Sadly, however, non-conformist mavericks in French- and Spanish-speaking countries seem to have stopped being non-conformist:

“en termes de” (French)

“en términos de” (Spanish)

Peri-Performative Post-Scriptum

The title of this incendiary intervention radically referencizes a key catchphrase of core comedian George Formby (1904-61), viz, “turned out nice again”. Formby’s home-county of Lancashire (England) was — and remains — a core hotbed of non-conformist maverickness dot dot dot

• Core discussion around “in terms of”…

Kim Pickings

by in English usage, Guardianistas, Politics and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As a keyly committed core component of the anti-racist community, I’ve always been a passionate admirer of Kimberlé Crenshaw, the Black legal genius who conceived the corely committed key concept of intersectionality, the pro-feminist, anti-racist ideo-matrix whereby multiply impactive factors of oppression around race, gender and class are recognized to overlap in terms of toxic impact on corely vulnerable communities of color, gender, and class…

So, imagine my excitement when I saw that the Guardian was engaging core issues around Ms Crenshaw in a keynote article itself passionately penned by a Journalist of Color:

Kimberlé Crenshaw: the woman who revolutionised feminism – and landed at the heart of the culture wars, by Aamna Mohdin

From police brutality to sexual harassment, the lawyer fights to ensure black women’s experiences are not ignored. So why are her ideas being denounced? — The Guardian, 12xi20

“Why indeed?” I interrogated to myself as I began to read. But imagine my horror when I came across this passage in terms of the core article:

Crenshaw’s early academic work, meanwhile, was also an important building block in the development of critical race theory, which revolutionised the understanding of race in the US’s legal system and is taught in law schools across the country. — Kimberlé Crenshaw…

What is it coming to when the Guardian uses everyday English to engage issues around the keyly vital work of a Black legal genius? Huh? The Guardian should of course have put it like this:

Crenshaw’s early academic work, meanwhile, was also a core building block in terms of the development of critical race theory, which revolutionised the understanding of race in the US’s legal system and is taught in law schools across the country.

And “core foundational keystone in terms of the gestational development…” would have been even better…

Elsewhere other-engageable:

• Ex-term-in-nate! — incendiarily interrogating issues around “in terms of” dot dot dot

X-terminator!

by in English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“In terms of those ideas, there’s been specific policies that are intersecting in terms of racist and sexist policies that have targeted and harmed black women. The same thing with black men, in terms of them being a racial group that have been affected by racist ideas and policies. […] So, in terms of assessing other people, we should allow for people to essentially make racist mistakes.” — Ibram X Kendi, The most extreme racists say, ‘I’m the least racist person anywhere in the world’, The Guardian, 30viii2019

Elsewhere other-accessible:

• Ex-term-in-nate! — incendiarily interrogating issues around “in terms of” dot dot dot
• All O.o.t.Ü.-F. posts interrogating issues around “in terms of”…

The Psyve Mind Speaks

by in Über-Transgression..., English usage, In Terms Of, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Music, Quotations and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“H.P. Lovecraft were really underrated in terms of the sixties bands from the West Coast.” — Psychic Hi-Fi: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s Favourite Albums, The Quietus, 23i2014.

Previously pre-posted:

• He Say, He Sigh, He Sow #23 — an earlier engagement by Genesis P. Orridge in terms of issues around “in terms of” (dot dot dot)
• Ex-term-in-ate!