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As you may have heard, Stanford “University” embarrassed itself this week by issuing a list of 160 words or phrases that you shouldn’t use because they are not sufficiently “inclusive” or sensitive, including even “trigger warning,” because, Stanford helpfully explained, “The phrase can cause stress about what’s to follow. Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person.” And although “American” is among the terms Stanford disapproves (which prompted Steve to break precedent and quaff Maker’s Mark instead of Scotch whisky, because damnit), strangely the phrase “Merry Christmas” does not appear on the list of “Harmful Language.” Must be an oversight, or perhaps Stanford’s geniuses are among those ignoramuses who deny that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
You could hardly ask for a more entertaining Christmas gift than Stanford’s list. We thought to make the list a drinking game for this episode, in which we take a shot every time each of us used one of the terms from the list, but we quickly realized that we’d all be passed out within five minutes. Of the 160 terms or phrases on the Stanford list, your 3WHH bartenders managed to use 108, (several of them multiple times), which we expect will get us banned from campus henceforth.
This politically incorrect vocabulary came in handy for reviewing the insanity of the omnibus budget bill and Mitch McConnell’s role in its passage, and the release at last of the J-6 Committee report, which, at 800 pages, is going to require a lot of whisky and milk and cookies in the morn to get through.
Cheers, and merry Christmas. We’ll be back with one more episode before New Year’s next weekend, and we’ll aim to use the remaining 52 words from the Stanford list that we overlooked this week. To invoke John McClain, “Welcome to the party, pal!”
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So much fun! Really appreciate this festive episode right before Christmas! . . . The worst part, to me, of Stanford’s sophomoric dictionary-i-tis is how much it reveals the inability of supposedly intelligent grownups to grasp the fact that discretion is often the better part of valor.
Just when you thought their list of words were ridiculous it gets worse, they ‘hate fun’.
I’ll just leave this Grumpy Economist blog post here:
https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2022/12/stanford-hates-fun.html
Bravo Lucretia! She must have memorized the list ahead of time.
I cannot believe how much fun this podcast was – and to hear that @johnyoo is being persuaded by the argument for Natural Right was another great present to receive this holiday season! Woot!
I’m only partway through, having been busy and then my listening was interrupted by the Zoom live podcast, but I must pause to point out
“Balls to the Wall”
is a great phrase meaning “go all out” or “full throttle,” but it does not refer to male anatomy. The origins of the phrase lie in multi-engine aviation. The throttle controls for airplane engines are levers that are pushed forward to increase power and pulled aft to decrease power. There are typically round knobs – balls – at the top of each lever. “Balls to the wall” means to push the throttle lever knobs as far forward as they will go, all the way forward to the bulkhead -to the wall, if you will.
“Tar baby” – I don’t have time to get into a discussion of the implication that Mitch McConnell might be a problem that is too complicated and sticky even to try and solve, therefore is best left alone.
They don’t care about the origin or even the actual meaning of a phrase. They care about whether it triggers (oop, can’t say that) someone, regardless of how ignorant they are or pretend to be.
They only care if the origin furthers their cause, if the original meaning isn’t there, just make one up!
I’m well aware of this, and I wanted everyone to know of another example where “they” might misuse their awesome powers of cancelation.
I was working in Washington, DC in 1999 when an aide to then-mayor Anthony Williams advised his staff to be niggardly (meaning stingy) in their use of the meager funds in one specific program that he and his staff managed. Offendment naturally ensued, and it was brought to the Mayor’s attention, who – after being informed of the likely Scandihoovian origins of the word and that those origins had nothing to do with skin color, fired the aide. He soon thereafter rehired the aide, though in a different capacity as I recall.
William and Mary calls its teams Tribe. I assume it used to call them Indians but changed it due to complaints. The Wokesters will get you eventually.
Just got to listen to this one on my commute home yesterday. Lucretia was in superb form. Should provide her a list to work against often. I really have only one question, who is it really that is offended by any of these words? Aside from their having some level of unearned influence are these people of substance enough for consideration?
Substance isn’t important though, remember? They are operating in a reality where power is more influential. Despite complaining non stop about power structures…
It would be fun to construct a fake soviet Russian town with informers everywhere. Drop these Stanford types in it for a week and see what they think of political correctness after that. Political correctness was a term originating from inside Russia I believe, could be wrong.