“Language is the only homeland”
— Czesław Miłosz (Nobel Laureate, 1980)
Aphrodite and Hermes (Messenger of the gods)
We could hasten agreement on technical solutions if partisans setting best practice standards could agree upon what we are talking about. Then again, the meaning of This or That can only be understood in context. All too frequently, when opposing partisans sense they are on the losing side of debate, they change the vocabulary or the fact set and we have to start all over again.
We gather our work on language standards over the past 30-odd years, starting with the definition of “Service Point” in the 1999 National Electrical Code and the 2002 National Electric Safety Code. In recent years, engineers have been challenged by finding common agreement on what a “microgrid” is. The dynamics of the struggle for competing stakeholders to agree on how to make educational settlements simpler, safer, lower-cost and longer-lasting is virtually identical to the struggle to agree on the meaning of modern English language in other domains.
The term “political correctness” was given currency when President George H.W. Bush explained the peril at the University of Michigan in 1992. Its peril has only expanded since.
Definition: “Developed versus Developing Country”
Electropedia: The World’s Online Electrotechnical Vocabulary
Noam Chomsky (University of Pennsylvania Doctoral Thesis): Transformational Analysis
Hilary Clinton Suddenly Speaks African American English Whilst Quoting the Bible
Bloomberg Originals: Hilary Clinton’s Accent Evolution
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“I shall always be a common ignorant girl, and in my station I have to be respectable.” — Eliza Doolittle, from Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw) |
Western Michigan University: My Fair Lady (Livecast from Lincoln Center)
DEI: Democrat President Joe Biden’s United States Supreme Court Appointment Does Not Know the Definition of “Woman”
African-American Vernacular English and education
“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance
when the need for illusion is deep.”
ASHRAE Terminology: A Comprehensive Glossary of Terms for the Built Environment
Jean Piaget:”The Language and Thought of the Child” (1926)
Today @landgeist shows us the second most taught foreign language in Secondary School across Europe. English is the number one. French still going strong. Eastern Europe studies German. Source: https://t.co/sU6xtA0X4S pic.twitter.com/X5pVUGyyWf
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) January 12, 2024
Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”
