The cruellest media event of the year?
Surely it has to be The Gruen planet juxtaposing a slap-up, slick, whiz bang Silver Lion winning advertisement for The Guardian, with a feeble, low rent, lame, stupid, frankly pathetic advertisement for Fairfax.
On an objective level - oh okay on a simple-minded subjective level - and on that evidence alone, Fairfax is doomed.
It's impossible to imagine why anyone commissioned the advertisement, or then allowed it to be completed, or worse let it out of the booby hatch so it could be aired. (You can catch up with it here so long as the show iss in catch up mode).
As a bonus, we were treated for an advertisement for The Australian, before all the action began to take place on the right hand side of the stage. (Yes, the pond steals jokes shamelessly).
At a time when nattering negativity fills the air, the SMH advertisement featured a lot of dull looking people assuring the world that they said "no" to pretty much everything. It was as slick as heavily chewed chewing gum lying on the footpath in the noonday sun.
As a result, the pond says "no" to this man:
As a bonus, it was great fun to watch Russell Howcroft writhe on the spit as he attempted to defend the indefensible, and imagine a future for hard copy papers. It was almost touching. Almost ...
Sadly the Hamster lads that followed were a little out of form - is there a fair chance that following the media closely will send them as mad as the pond? - and all the pond can offer is a strategy. Follow Ten, watch the Bolter, and target that New Zealander. New Zealanders are intrinsically comical at all times, and as a bonus, Paul Henry - at all times - is intrinsically appalling. He could become an icon for these troubled times ...
Meanwhile, after a devastating experience many years ago at the Tamworth show, it's common knowledge that the pond hates toffee apples and fairy floss ...
Hate? What, you mean the word doesn't have to refer to a pathological condition or state of mind? You mean language and words can be flexible and nuanced?
Not in the world of the National Party, where the shift to daylight saving has already drawn attention to the danger of fading curtains and the peeling of paint.
Yep, there was good old Barners getting agitated about allegedly new meanings and layers and bevels for the notion of "misogyny". It was "wonderfully convenient" that the Macquarie Dictionary had attempted to revise the definition, while Senator Fiona Nash - where do they get these eccentrics from? - delivered this dismal polemic:
“It would seem more logical for the Prime Minister to refine her vocabulary than for the Macquarie Dictionary to keep changing its definitions every time a politician mangles the English language.” (Nationals mock Gillard redefinition of mysogyny, an epic fail in terms of a header which mangles what actually happened).
It will probably come as a shock to Barners and Nash to learn that in 1973 homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Oh sure, some shrinks with a grudge tried to keep it going by introducing "ego-dystonic homosexuality", but it gradually became accepted that the word "homosexuality" no longer stood for intrinsic psychological disturbance or maladjustment. (more here).
The point is that words change their meaning by usage and over time, something that's well understood by anyone who's tried to make sense of Shakespeare or Chaucer, or any ye olde English text, and it takes a particular form of cretinism not to understand it. (note: here cretinism is used as a cheerful form of abuse, and is not a specific reference to a congenital deficiency of thyroid secretion. And between the dwarfism and physical deformity that might sometime involve, and a question of idiocy and mental retardation, in this case the pond is evoking the concept of rustic Barners idiocy).
You have to admire the Macquarie Dictionary for getting in on the action. These days there are a dozen dictionaries online jostling for attention, and the Macquarie no longer has the clout it did in the old days (no matter what Russell Howcroft might think about the power of dead trees).
A few days ago the pond pointed out that one dictionary gave as examples of hatred of women - under the "misogyny" label - a hatred of women for always chattering, or astonishment that women could preach or write columns, badly, in the way a dog might stand on its Johnsonian hind legs.
These are not pathological definitions of hatred, more toffee apple intolerance.
This is bleeding obvious, in an almost pitiful way (note: there is no attempt here to evoke pity for Barners or Nash), but the bleeding obvious alway seems obscure for squawking geese like Barners and Nash.
Anyhoo, today Sue Butler maintains the argument by explaining the difference between strict pathological definitions and popular usage in There's more than one way to define a catcall.
In it she reveals that the Oxford English dictionary changed its definition back in 2002, to catch up with popular usage. So much for Nash imagining that it was a recent dictionary conspiracy to justify Gillard's use of the word.
Where do they find these squawking geese? The point is that words should be treasured by politicians - rhetoric and verbal argument are their stock and trade - so what does it gain a politician to be revealed by their words and their understanding of words to be as thick as a brick? Back to Humpty Dumpty 101 for Joyce and Nash ...
Poor Ms Butler seems startled to have been caught up in the flak:
I seem to have unwittingly invited everyone to the afterparty at the dictionary – the hubbub of voices arguing for and against the new definition is tremendous. None of this debate is relevant to the dictionary which attempts, by using hard evidence, to remain an impartial record of the English language as it lives and breathes in the Australian English language community.
Let it be noted that these days the Australian English language community has, in a trice, access to various other English language communities, and let it be noted that in these communities, a nuanced understanding of "misogyny" as a word was under way long ago.
Wisely Gillard and Abbott stood well clear, and for awhile we can expect Abbott to be a bit ginger about it all, because whatever happens to Gillard, he will carry this particular pink scar for the rest of his political career. Gillard suddenly moved into the realm of Paul Keating zingers, a most unexpected but pleasurable elevation.
Anyhow, by this point, it will become clear that the pond has engaged in a lengthy filibuster. Note: this is not a reference to specific actions permitted in United States' legislative bodies, but to a more general notion of obstructionist tactics and yammering on at length, for the purpose of delaying any meaningful action.
By golly, it must be tortured and complicated in the world of Barners and Nash. Not just to use a word but to have to provide a clarifying definition every step of the way.
That said, the pond's filibuster is in reference to the recent outpourings of Greg Sheridan. In what we might call a classic series of obfuscations by The Australian, Sheridan has recently been leading the cheerleading for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, hailing them as clear winners and with momentum and the wind at their back, or up their bum.
After the first debate was called for Romney, all on his own Sheridan decided Ryan was a winner too.
So what to do today, when on the evidence and by the call of the ringside judges, Obama had a narrow points win in the second outing?
Why fudge it of course, and here the pond is not referring to classic creamy fudge, but to sordid verbal fudge of the Sheridan kind:
No link, you can find it yourself if you like.
The pond is always concerned for the mental health of stray readers. Imagine what might happen if someone clicked on a link to idiocy and cheerleading dressed up as political commentary. Is it catching? Who knows, but it should be guarded against.
It's like listening to a cheerleader explain how Manly and Collingwood were certainties for this year's premiership.
But at least we know the answer to this old advertisement:
Actually Greg Sheridan beats the shit out of any chance of becoming a well informed Australian. As do the rest of the mob at the lizard Oz. Oh it's a long way from the days of Adrian Milford Deamer ...
Got a thought, a clue, why this is happening? Take a look at fearless leader chairman Rupert's tweets, which get stranger by the day, here:
Uh huh. That'd be the scumbag celebrities who've been giving News Ltd and the chairman such a hard time after being hacked.
Nope, seems not.
Mad as a March hare.
Note: the pond in no way implies that all hares are mad, or that hares are only mad in March. This is October, and Chairman Rupert is twittering like a totally mad twit ...
What's worse, DP, being hated, or being lied to, or being cut as a non-communicant untermensch in the most disdainful manner by Sophie's nostrils?
ReplyDeleteIn the New Order, of course, all will know their places, just have to hang on a few months more ...
As the father of a four and half year old, I have learnt that you need to pick your battles. So Barners and Nash you win. Abbott is not a misogynist.
ReplyDeleteSo what word do they think we should use to describe his prejudice against women? As there doesn't seem to be much argument about that. Most of the argument is about the word used to describe this trait of his...
And in terms of nuance of words, Billy Connelly (who I often find tedious) has a whole routine on the use of cunt. In Scotland, it can be used in lots of non offensive and even endearing ways. For example curiosity - as in: who is that cunt with the Pope? The only times he finds it offensively used is when Americans add it to a sentence.