politically sensitive labels

[Duane Campbell]

On Wed, 10 Mar 2004 14:14:40 -0500 Laurence Horn

> larry horn, knee-jerk liberal

Isn't that redundant from a Yale professor? But since you are out of the
closet, maybe you can help with a related subject.

I've been talking recently with some of my pick-up drivin;, coon
shootin', Old Milwaukee drinkin' friends the unique language that
liberals use. We are working on a list of words that are peculiar to
liberals. This is primarily a time saving effort. When you hear one of
these words, you can immediately identify the speaker as a liberal and
move on to more important things without needing to listen further.  A
partial list would be: marginalize, arrogant, the ever popular big
business, facilitator, disenfranchise, empowering, greedy, victimize.

Seriously, though these are all mainstream words, they seem to be
primarily in the liberal lexicon. And perhaps it's like the Southerner
who thinks Yankees have an accent, I can't think of a comperable list for
conservative speakers.

Incidentally, although "liberal" is used as an epithet in some circles --
OK, in my circles -- "progressive" which is to the left of "liberal"
doesn't seem to carry the same emotional clout. Even "Marxist" lands more
gently on the ear.

D

I am Duane Campbell and I approve this message