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July 19, 2012
"Certain key words live in a state of existential diminishment."
Consider the word “Gentleman.” It was not so long ago that it named a critical moral-social-cultural aspiration.What happened to the phenomenon it named? Or think of the word “respectable.” It too has become what the philosopher David Stove called a “smile word,” that is, a word that names a forgotten or neglected or out-of-fashion social virtue that we might remember but no longer publicly practice. -- Future tense, XI: The lessons of culture
Posted by gerardvanderleun at July 19, 2012 7:19 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
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Newscast last week referred to an admitted street prostitute, charged with stabbing a john, as "The lady..."
The lady?
Posted by: GaGator at July 19, 2012 2:26 PM
It is we who are diminished, not the word.
Posted by: Fat Man at July 19, 2012 7:38 PM