Actually my tag reads, "canem" not "carmen". But tell it to the Romans :-)
Posted on 11/07/2012 5:56:13 AM PST by SJackson
Here’s one usage of the term gentleman: The gentleman helped the fallen lady to her feet. Here’s another, one we might hear from a newscaster or a police spokesman: Tonight we report on the arrest of two gentlemen who raped, sodomized and murdered an 80-year-old woman.
During earlier times, to be called a gentleman meant one was honest, brave, courteous and loyal. Today “gentleman” is used interchangeably in reference to decent people and the scum of the earth.
Much of today’s language usage demonstrates a desire to be nonjudgmental. People used to shack up; now they cohabit or are living partners. Few young women of yesteryear would have felt comfortable to publicly declare they slept around. Unmarried women used to give birth to a bastard; later, this was upgraded to an illegitimate birth or a nonmarital birth. In many instances, unwed mothers proudly hold baby showers celebrating their illegitimate offspring, and the man, if known, who sired the baby is referred to as “my baby’s daddy” or sometimes as “my baby daddy.”
Homosexual marriages, which are not a basic human survival trait, were unheard of; today, in some jurisdictions, homosexual marriages have legal sanction. To be judgmental about modern codes of conduct is to risk being labeled a prude, racist, sexist or a homophobe. People ignore the fact that to accept another’s right to engage in certain peaceable, voluntary behavior doesn’t require moral acceptance or sanction.
Another measure of social deviancy is reflected by the excuses and apologies that are made for failures and how we make mascots out of social misfits, such as criminals and bums. The intellectual elite tell us that it’s poverty or racism that produces criminals, as opposed to a moral defect. We call bums homeless people. That suggests a moral equivalency between people who have lost their homes in a fire or natural disaster and people who choose to be social parasites; therefore, neither group is to be blamed for its respective condition. People who are very productive members of our society, such as the rich, are often held up to ridicule and scorn.
Think back to former President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and the nation’s response that “it was just about sex.” Therefore, it was no big thing for the president and his men to become involved in witness tampering, perjury, obstruction of justice and a White House-organized attack on Kenneth Starr, an officer of the court.
Most Americans thought removal from office was too harsh for Clinton’s lawlessness.
That kind of lawlessness helped establish a precedent for lawless acts by President Barack Obama. His most recent was an executive order that suspended legal liability for young people who are brought to our country illegally by their parents. He also repealed the legal requirement that welfare recipients must work, by simply redefining “work” to include other things, such as going to classes on weight control. Then there are waivers from Obamacare for favored allies — waivers that offend the principle of equality before the law.
Whether the president’s actions were good or bad ideas or not is irrelevant. What’s relevant is whether we want to establish a precedent whereby a president, who has no constitutional authority to repeal parts of congressional legislation, can grant special favors and rule by presidential decree like Third World tyrants.
I don’t hold President Obama completely responsible for his unconstitutional actions. It’s the American people who are to blame, for it is we who have lost our morality and our love, knowledge and respect for our Constitution, laying the foundation for Washington tyranny. It is all part and parcel of “defining deviancy down,” which is the term former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined in 1993 to describe how we’ve switched from moral absolutes to situational morality and from strict constitutional interpretation to the Constitution’s being a “living document.” Constitutional principles that do not allow one American to live at the expense of another American are to be held in contempt. Today’s Americans have betrayed the values that made us a great nation, and that does not bode well for future generations.
Sorry, honey. President Obungle is responsible for all of his actions.
We’re Halfway There ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXsmGSnq3lE&feature=fvwrel
It’s Never Too Late ... Three Days Grace ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qOvNgEsZ9s&feature=related
True, but generally only from around 1800 to 1960.
Prior to that "gentleman" meant a man of the upper classes, a member of the "gentry." It gradually acquired the meaning Mr. Williams refers to based on the notion that this was the way a "true gentleman" would behave, and that one who didn't wasn't really a gentleman regardless of his birth. In Shakespeare, for instance, characters of noble birth behave in the most appalling manner without anybody claiming they aren't acting like a gentleman.
Since 1960 the term has been generally used in ridicule, not surprisingly since the very notion that being honest, brave, courteous and loyal" has itself been subjected to ridicule.
A good bit of the demand for "political correctness" and rules against sexual harassment has arisen because of the loss of belief in the ideal of being a gentleman.
A true gentleman would never have sexually harassed a subordinate, for instance. I've often wondered whether the ideal of "being a gentleman" was more effective at restraining men's natural inclinations along these lines than today's laws and regulations.
Where is the dignity of an office that depends on an impeached perjurer as a character reference? I know of not one objection to his smarmy little joke, not one.
It also demonstrates the coarse vulgarity that so easily spews out of foul mouths.
Whoopie! A political commercial with dirty mouthed seniors! How cutting edge, how mature, pressing the envelope and so frank! Give me a sick bag!
The talking heads were amused, tee hee hee.
Calls to mind Obama’s use of the word “folks” ... as in, we’re going to “get the folks” who killed our Ambassador and others in Benghazi. Folks? Who in their right mind would refer to the terrorists who struck the consulate as “folks?” WHO I ASK YOU?
Same thing with obama.
I believe that it actually merely referred to a man who owned property.
Thus there was no contradiction between calling someone a ‘gentleman’ and a cad. Like “decimated’ the word has been abused and corrupted until it has no meaning.
gentle
early 13c., from O.Fr. gentil “high-born, noble,” from L. gentilis “of the same family or clan,” from gens (gen. gentis) “race, clan,” from root of gignere “beget” (see kin), from PIE base *gen- “produce.” Sense of “gracious, kind” (now obsolete) first recorded late 13c.; that of “mild, tender” is 1550s. Older sense remains in gentleman “well-born man” (late 13c.). Gentleman’s agreement is first attested 1929.
Thus gentleman originally meant a nobleman, with the necessary degree of being “well-born” needed to qualify working its way down the social scale over the centuries.
For a long time only those who didn’t “need to work” were included.
“Decimated” still has some meaning. It’s not something you want to happen to your side. :)
Shouldn’t your tag begin “Qui” not “Que”? [translation: He who loves me, let him love even my song].
What is the source for this quote and why?
It’s from St. Bernard Of Clairvaux’s Sermo Primus. The “Qui v. Que” aspect doesn’t reflect, improper Latin so much as it does the co-mingling of Latin w/ medieval French. It’s generally translated as, “Who loves me will love my dog also.”
I have heard with my own ears: “The gentleman then entered the schoolyard and opened fire...”
“canis” not “carmen” — :)
“amet” is subjunctive not future (amabit). So if not jussive/hortatory, then characteristic.
I am not familiar with eccessiastical Latin but Republic and early Empire periods.
Thanks.
Actually my tag reads, "canem" not "carmen". But tell it to the Romans :-)
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