Free Republic

The reinvention of vocabulary can often be more effective than any social protest movement. Malarial swamps can become healthy “wetlands.” Fetid “dumps” are often rebranded as green “landfills.” Global warming was once a worry about too much heat. It implied that man-made carbon emissions had so warmed the planet that life as we knew it would soon be imperiled without radical changes in consumer lifestyles. Yet in the last 30 years, record cold spells, inordinate snow levels and devastating rains have been common. How to square that circle? Substitute “climate change” for global warming. Presto! Any radical change in weather...

When California's attorney general counters the president’s State of the Union address with the Democrats' Spanish language rebuttal Tuesday, it won’t be the first time Xavier Becerra has taken swings at Donald Trump's policies. In fact, according to the Democrats, Becerra has filed more than 100 legal actions - 45 of them lawsuits - against the Trump administration. Becerra's response will be delivered through Spanish language media outlets live Tuesday night, while Stacey Abrams, who ran unsuccessfully for Georgia governor, will deliver the Democratic response in English. This will be the first time the Spanish-language Democratic response has been delivered...

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE THE PHILOSOPHY OF AMBIGUITY, AS WELL AS THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF ENGLISH: 1. ONE TEQUILA, TWO TEQUILA, THREE TEQUILA...... FLOOR. 2. ATHEISM IS A NON-PROPHET ORGANIZATION. 3. IF MAN EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS AND APES, WHY DO WE STILL HAVE MONKEYS AND APES? 4. THE MAIN REASON THAT SANTA IS SO JOLLY IS BECAUSE HE KNOWS WHERE ALL THE BAD GIRLS LIVE. 5. I WENT TO A BOOKSTORE AND ASKED THE SALESWOMAN, "WHERE'S THE SELF- HELP SECTION?" SHE SAID IF SHE TOLD ME, IT WOULD DEFEAT THE PURPOSE. 6. WHAT IF THERE WERE NO HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS? 7. IF...

Remember "Global Warming?" Well, after a few years of usage ending in a lot of mockery when it didn't appear to happen due to a "pause," that phrase was quickly replaced by liberals by the more general "Climate Change." However, don't get too used to that term since it will soon be ditched to be replaced by a less "partisan" term in order to sell the public on what was initially called "Global Warming." In fact, not only will there soon be a new term for "Climate Change" but a whole slew of new terminology as a PR effort to...

“They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot. Once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive, you were ‘piss poor.’ But worse than that were the really poor folks who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot. They ‘didn’t have a pot to piss in’ and were considered the lowest of the low.” “Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were...

DURHAM, N.C. -- The director of graduate studies for a Duke School of Medicine program asked to step down after screenshots of an email encouraging Chinese students to speak English surfaced on social media. The screenshots of an email sent by Dr. Megan Neely surfaced on social media Saturday. In the email, Neely mentions faculty members picking out a small group of first-year students who they observed speaking Chinese in the student study area. She wrote the faculty members wanted to write down the names so they could remember them if they were to ever interview for an internship or...

Corporal Ronil Singh is dead, apparently murdered by a gangmember who was here illegally, and who stayed here illegally despite having been busted twice for DUIs. Thank you for ensuring that happened, Democrats. And thank you too, Fredocons, for so ably doing the bidding of your corporate donor cronies who desperately want to keep the foreigner spigot open. Liberals need pliable, reliable replacement voters to buy off with your tax money, and the captains of industry want a pool of eager serfs. The illegals themselves just want to get out of the crummy countries whose policies Democrats expect they are...

Three years ago, BBC Culture ran its first major critics’ poll, to find the 100 greatest American films. Two further polls looked for the best films of the 21st Century and the greatest comedies ever made – and those also ended up with films from the US in the top spot. This year, we felt it was time to direct the spotlight away from Hollywood and celebrate the best cinema from around the world. We asked critics to vote for their favourite movies made primarily in a language other than English. The result is BBC Culture’s 100 greatest foreign-language films....

The NY Times breathlessly fired off another misleading headline the other day: 8-Year-Old Migrant Child From Guatemala Dies in U.S. Custody An 8-year-old boy from Guatemala died in United States custody early Christmas Day, the second death of a child in detention at the southwest border in less than three weeks, raising questions about the ability of federal agents running the crowded migrant border facilities to care for those who fall ill. In "United State custody." When a perpetrator is shot at the scene of a crime and expires either at the scene or in the hospital, it is not...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday used a terror attack at a famous Christmas market in a small, scenic town in France on Tuesday night to once again argue for more funding for U.S. border security - despite no evidence of links between terror attacks in the U.S. and illegal immigration over the southern border. His call came a day after he threatened to shut down the government if he doesn't get $5 billion for a border wall. "Another very bad terror attack in France," Trump tweeted. "We are going to strengthen our borders even more. Chuck and Nancy must give...

Some (not all) vegans, convinced of their moral superiority in eschewing the flesh of animals, would like to see our language change so as to change or eliminate common English-language expressions like "bring home the bacon" that refer to the eating of meat.

Over the past week, we've heard the media pitching one particular narrative nonstop: the story that President Donald Trump's rhetoric has resulted in increased violence. We heard it in the aftermath of a spate of attempted bombing attacks against Democratic targets by a Floridian nut job, and we heard it in the aftermath of a shooting attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue by an outspokenly anti-Trump white supremacist. Is there truth to the charge? To determine whether there is, we've first got to consider the question more broadly: When is speech related to violence? It's obvious that speech is often related...

Do twins ever realize that one of them is unplanned? What if my dog only brings back my ball because he thinks I like throwing it? If poison expires, is it more poisonous or is it no longer poisonous? Which letter is silent in the word "Scent," the S or the C? Why is the letter W, in English, called double U? Shouldn't it be called double V? Maybe oxygen is slowly killing you and It just takes75-100 years to fully work. Every time you clean something, you just make something else dirty The word "swims" upsidedown is still "swims"....

Left-wing academic Noam Chomsky says President Trump is not a “nationalist" because Trump doesn't care enough about his own nation, regardless of Trump's controversial embrace of the term this week. Chomsky told the Washington Examiner the term is used in "all sorts of ways." But while the term has been used to describe world leaders such as Adolf Hitler, the linguist and social analyst said he's less concerned about that connotation and more irked by the falsity of Trump's claim. “I do object to the term for different reasons," he said. "A nationalist is someone who is concerned for the...

1. ARBITRAITOR A cook that leaves Arby’s to work at McDonald’s 2. BERNADETTE The act of torching a mortgage. 3. BURGLARIZE What a crook sees through 4. AVOIDABLE What a bullfighter tries to do 5. EYEDROPPER Clumsy ophthalmologist 6. CONTROL A short, ugly inmate. 7. COUNTERFEITER Workers who put together kitchen cabinets 8. ECLIPSE What an English barber does for a living. 9. LEFT BANK What the bank robbers did when their bag was full of money. 10. HEROES What a man in a boat does 11. PARASITES What you see from the Eiffel Tower 12. PARADOX Two physicians 13....

A French member of parliament has proposed that mockery of accents be outlawed, after an irate politician derided a journalist’s southwestern pronunciation before asking if anyone had a question in “understandable French”. Laetitia Avia of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party said she was proposing a bill that would classify such mockery with other forms of prohibited discrimination such as on grounds of sex or race.

<p>A design lead at Google has slammed Republicans in an angry Twitter rant over the nomination of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh.</p> <p>“You are finished, @GOP. You polished the final nail for your own coffins. F--K. YOU. ALL. TO. HELL,” wrote Dave Hogue Saturday, in the now-deleted tweet.</p>

The King Sejong Institute Foundation — part of the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism — operates 174 language centers in 57 countries. IRVINE, Calif. — The South Korean government has chosen a Southern California language program to become part of its global initiative to advance the Korean language. The King Sejong Institute Foundation — which is part of the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism — operates 174 language centers in 57 countries as a way to encourage non-native speakers to learn Korean. This year, it named 16 new sites, including the Korean American Center...

Ron Darling may be in hot water after a boneheaded comment during the TBS broadcast of Game 2 of the American League Division Series Saturday night. With Masahiro Tanaka on the mound in the fourth inning, Darling referenced the right-hander losing his command and used a racial slur. “Chink in the armor for Tanaka here,” Darling said. “It’s the first inning he has lost a little of his control.” Darling did not appear to realize that he had used the slur in reference to Tanaka, who is Asian.

A sociolinguist from Stanford University claims the way African-Americans speak leads to discrimination across the board — in the court system, interactions with police, education, and employment. Professor John Rickford says “Black Vernacular English” is viewed as less “trustworthy, intelligent and well-educated” than so-called standard “white” English, and that “dismantling this construction is part of the fight for racial justice.”