Monday, July 26, 2010

Like Precious Little Snowflakes

Jeffrey Lord, a writer at the American Spectator has concluded that Shirley Sherrods lied about her father being lynched. Yes, her father was brutally beaten to death by a mob on the courthouse steps. But "lynching", we're told, requires a rope -- otherwise, it's just "a brutal and fatal beating," and an outright fabrication to say otherwise.

Needless to say, this doesn't track anybody's definition of "lynching", which generally refers to an extrajudicial execution by a mob (the Israeli commandos who claimed that the crew of the Mavi Marmara was preparing to lynch them were not referring to ropes). And consequently, it seems like virtually everybody is coming down on Lord -- from Matt Yglesias and Jeff Fecke to Radley Balko and Lord's own colleagues at The American Spectator.

But Paul Campos managed to nutpick a gem from a commenter trying, desparately, to defend Lord's statement:
Regardless of the dictionary’s definition, English is considered the most nuanced of languages because each word has a specific, unique meaning giving context and emotion to any written or spoken idea or statement. I don’t need a dictionary to instruct me on the accepted meaning of the word ‘lynching.’

That is so, so far from an accurate description of English that it nearly defies belief. Words in English rarely have just one specific meaning, and the idea that the word "lynching" tends to evoke a noose doesn't mean a extrajudicial mob killing isn't a lynching, any more than the classic image of a "picnic" occurring on a grassy field would mean someone is liar if their "picnic" occurred on a craggy mountain ledge.

8 comments:

joe said...

I always thought it was pretty ridiculous (and at least slightly offensive overblown rhetoric) to claim the Mavi Marmara fight could be called lynching. Regardless of who was in the wrong, it's at best a stretch, hop, and a leap to storm a ship with guns and call the people fighting you off "extrajudicial executioners."

But yeah, the presence or absence of rope is not dispositive.

Rebecca said...

That's, er, pretty much the opposite of what English is like, yes. That's basically what French is like.

PG said...

I sure hope Jeffrey Lord showed up when Clarence Thomas said he was undergoing a "high-tech lynching" to explain that this was impossible because there were no high-tech ropes involved.

joe said...

That's a good one, PG.

sonicfrog said...

... And yet, when we waterboard someone, it isn't torture!

Now, if it's done to one of our soldiers.....

sonicfrog said...

BTW, the saner elements within the right are just as apoplectic. Tim Maguire has called him out. His opening line?

Bad Lord - the new world record for DUMB has been set by Jeffrey Lord of The American Spectator

Even some writers at the AS are disavowing this.

Jack said...

Lol. I feel kind of bad for the guy. My father didn't know how to pronounce "sword" until college because he had only heard it in books. I bet Lord at some point in his life asked someone what "lynching" was and was told "its what it was called when white mobs used to hang black people in the south". Every person learns something much later than the rest of the world and this is Lord's lol.

But by all means ridicule away, lol.

Jack said...

Btw, Lord would be a much better "Ass Clown of the Week" than Jane Doe.