The so-called liberal media has adopted yet another bit of phraseology mandated by the religious right, and Dong Resin doesn't like it one bit.
Unborn child, right. Merely "killing a fetus" lacks the heinousness, see, the media's gotta dress up the language a little, so we can know just where to feel our outrage. Killing a fetus? Who gives a fuck? That's like getting a boil lanced. Fetus? Ew. "Fetus" isn't a sympathetic word, makes you think of that room full of those deformed Sigourney Weaver clones that didn't go so hot in Alien Resurrection. They wanted to die. Shit, Michael Moore kills nine fetuses a day. Michael Moore eats fetuses like they're brine shrimp. "Unborn child?" It's got "child" right in there, see, so now it's people, just like Jessica Simpson is.
Beyond whether or not this is an attempt to wrestle the language into a more anti-abortion place, which, by the way, it obviously is, "unborn child" is fucking stupid English. Unborn child. They're renaming something not based on what it is, but based on what it's destined to become. It's not a red light, it's ungreen. Dave isn't a philosophy major, Dave is unhomeless. Trump is unbald. Britney is undivorced. Also, it causes conflict with the 'un' words that already existed before this piss. With The New English, when they say an altar boy is unmolested, does the church have to start pretending that they're going to fire the guy or not? It's confusing.
Looking past the perversion of the mother tongue, "unborn" is a fucking creepy term as well. Unborn. Great. "You must shoot the unborn in the head with a silver bullet, or they'll just keep crawling up your leg, the bastards! Not really alive, not really born. THE UNBORN."
Now if you'll excuse me, this discussion just makes me want to go get unsober.
TrackBackWell, I guess the line is pretty thin. Which nightmare would you rather have:
1. Undead rising from graves coming to eat you alive, as in Night of the Living Dead, or
2. Unborn rising from, er, wherever unborn rise from, coming to eat you in a Valley of the Dolls fashion?
Yes, I'm in a strange mood. I was up with the baby from 1 to 5 this morning.
Posted by: John Johnson at December 22, 2004 11:15 AMI kind of like the way un- words (must...resist...unwords joke) suggest something was that way but isn't anymore, like the thing that is un-whatever has been liberated from some ignominous state.
I'm unstraight!
My sister is unmarried!
My government is unsane!
Er, wait...
Posted by: Robust McManlyPants at December 22, 2004 02:54 PMMr. McManly Pants raises an interesting point. English, being the screwy language that it is, is amazingly in-, un-, non-consistent. "Un" usually indicates reversal: untied, unscrewed, etc. But it can also indicate some absence of condition: unmarried, untried, undocumented. Then again, there are other prefixes that do that too: immature, nonstandard (or not, as in the potentially deadly misunderstanding of "inflammable" and "imflammable)." To end this nonconsistency, I'd like to see "non" used: nonmarried, nondocumented, and, yes, nonconceived and nonborn. As for flammable, inflammable, and imflammable, I humbly suggest: blows up real good.
Posted by: Miss Authoritiva at December 27, 2004 05:39 PMPlease, call me Robust.
I definitely and wholeheartedly endorse "nonborn" as the new lingo for fetuses (feti?). I would absolutely support your suggestion.
I also endorse stuff that blows up real good.
Posted by: Robust McManlyPants at December 27, 2004 06:34 PM