Social
media is not really my thing. I do have a Twitter account and you can follow me
if you want, but I cannot imagine why you would. I very rarely post pictures, either, mostly
because I don’t own a smart phone and it would just take more steps than I
could really justify. My food is not
that photogenic.
Occasionally, though, I do use Facebook to link to
my blog or to share some inane commentary on some inane topic like the new Star
Wars movie. Also—and I’m a little embarrassed
to admit this—I did recently chime in on the whole “Christmas” debate we’ve
been having for the last half decade. I
could summarize it for you, but I think our best option is to just copy and
paste it and show it to you verbatim. After
all, I still have gifts to wrap.
“Calling a Christmas tree a holiday tree does not
offend me. I have a mortgage, two little
kids and a pregnant wife. I have actual real
life-type stuff to occupy my mental energy.
However, calling a Christmas tree a holiday tree does not make you sound
suave or progressive. It makes me think
that maybe you just kind of climbed off the spaceship and no one has really
filled you in on stuff.
A Christmas tree is a Christmas tree. It just is.
That’s its name. Calling a Christmas
tree a holiday tree so as to not offend people is kind of like saying we’re
going to start calling bulldogs ‘gruffy pups’ or something equally as dumb. ‘Oh, you know, in much of America, when
people hear the word “bull” they think of an animal that spends a good chunk of
its time making love with all the girl cows, and, well, we just don’t want to
offend anyone who might think that’s too weird, so let’s rename it something
less likely to make people think of cow sex.’
No. That’s dumb. A bull dog is a bull dog. That is the name it has.
You can call a Christmas tree whatever you
want. You can call it a magic glow bush
and I won’t lose sleep over it, but please don’t imagine you are making the
world a better place by basically wiping your armpit with the English language.
However, please feel free to wish me happy holidays. Do it.
That’s awesome. I will smile and
probably wish you something equally as cheerful back and we’ll both be better
off for the very reasonable and civil exchange we had as part of our
pluralistic society. Cool. But calling a Christmas tree a holiday
tree? I will just smirk and give you the
same look I give my kids when they try to convince me orange Skittles is a
fruit.”
Now, objectively, that is hilarious. If I was a humor writer I would totally put
that in a column. Much more importantly,
however, others thought it was kind of funny, too. I think it earned fifty or so “Likes.” It also garnered a pretty detailed, albeit
good-natured, comment from one of my wife’s cousins.
He is a math professor, and, thus, by default, an
arch nemesis.
As an important side note, people who teach the
humanities, like history and English, are in a constant and mostly pretend
struggle against those who teach the “hard” subjects, such as math and science.
Our rivalry very much parallels the grudge between super hero teams like the
Avengers and the X-Men. Officially we
are on the same side in a cosmic battle against ignorance. Unfortunately, we often end up using our
tremendous abilities to punch each other through skyscrapers in an effort to
boost ratings.
My wife’s cousin did not use his sinister math
powers in his Facebook commentary, however.
He instead used a deft combination of history and linguistic evolution,
which is kind of like injuring Captain America with his own shield: I should have seen it coming. (Yeah, I guess
I’m saying the humanities are the Avengers in this dumb analogy. Sorry if that offends.)
To summarize, he basically pointed out that calling
a Christmas tree a Christmas tree would have been almost sacrilegious a mere
300 years ago. After all, putting trees
in our home and decorating them is very much a holdover from a more pagan
era.
His point was well taken and very valid. Language absolutely does change, and we would
all probably be better off focusing more of our energy on things like our
relationships with real people we really know instead of getting worked up
about vast impersonal trends over which we have little control.
However, what still bugs me about the whole “holiday
tree” thing is not so much the semantics itself as the strategy. Political correctness attempts to change
language from the top down. Those with
influence basically use that influence to modify the language, fully aware that
through language we make meaning, and thus behavior.
I am a big proponent of civility, but modifying
language in this way is terribly insincere. In a democracy language should
change organically. It should change
from the bottom up, by its roots.
You know, like a Christmas frond or something.
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