I never thought I'd be sitting to write about the perils of
getting involved in a “Lexicological War” with someone, especially when the war
is not mine. It is Obama's war according to Charles Krauthammer who wrote “Obama's
Lexological War” and had the article published on August 9, 2013 in National
Review Online under the subtitle: “Behind euphemisms, the administration hides
its incoherent policy on the war on terror.”
Krauthammer is old enough to remember the Vietnam War when
the term “Pentagonspeak” made its debut and became the sensation of the time
for a long time. No one called it a lexicological war at the time but then
again, Krauthammer was a diehard Liberal, not the Neocon that he is today. But
having turned coat, he believes he can now say anything that will help him make
the point he is belaboring. And this is why, contrary to the truth, he writes
that this is: “The world's first lexicological war. Parry and thrust with
linguistic tricks, deliberate misnomers, and never more transparent euphemisms.
Next: armor-piercing onomatopoeias and amphibious synecdoches.”
So you ask: What's his problem now? And the answer is this:
“State Department spokeswoman explained that the hasty evacuation of our
embassy in Yemen
was not an evacuation but 'a reduction in staff.'” Fair enough I thought,
because this falls in the realm of perception – one woman's reduction being
another man's evacuation. But what jolted me is what Krauthammer went on to
say, which is the following: “This proves a problem because the Yemeni
government had already announced (and denounced) the 'evacuation' – the word
normal folks use for the panicky ordering of people onto planes headed out of
country.”
Well, well, well, I thought to myself; that is a mouthful.
But is it a mouth full of words or a mouth full of BS? A legitimate question
because now, according to Krauthammer, the Yemeni government is full of folks
who are normal whereas the American State Department is full of folks who are
abnormal. But does that include Jen Psaki, the woman he calls blameless State
department spokeswoman?
In any case, having had many close encounters with Jewish
translation of texts from a different language to English – especially from the
Arabic, I tried to find out what word the Yemeni government could have used to
“denounce” the American decision. I did not find the official text but found
reference to it, where one of two possible Arabic words must have been used.
They were: “khle-ow” or “eigla-e.” Please, find someone who speaks Arabic to
pronounce them for you.
I cannot tell you at this moment how I would have translated
the Yemeni text if it were assigned to me. Trying to be as accurate as I can, I
could have relied on my memory or could have picked up the dictionary to see
what options it gives for translating those words into English. Before going
any further, I must pause here to tell you what sort of problems translators
usually encounter.
Take for example the word “go” in English. If I had it in
Arabic and looked it up in the dictionary for options, I would have found many;
each of which expressing something very different from the other. Look what
goes with the word “go” and imagine who laughable the translation can be if the
wrong option is used. Here are some but not all of the possibilities: Go about,
go after, go against, go along, go around, go at, go beyond, go by, go down, go
for, go in for, go into, go off, go on, go out, go over, go through, go to, go
together, go under, go up, go with, have a go at, let go, let oneself go, no
go, on the go. Do you get the point now?
Not to bore you to death, I shall now give you only a few of
the options that the dictionary gives for the above mentioned Arabic words:
For khle-ow, it gives: to be empty, free, devoid, lack,
want, to be vacant, alone, seclude, isolate, withdraw, retire, to deliberate in
court, to forsake, to pass by, elapse, to be bygone, abstain, refrain, leave
alone, relinquish, forgo.
For eigla-e, it gives: pull out, move out, go away, depart,
leave, quit, evacuate, dispel, remove, dislodge, reveal oneself, to appear,
come to light, find expression, the outcome of the matter, to regard, look at.
Feel dizzy by now? I don't blame you. But imagine how much
impertinence of the Jewish sort of chutzpah it would take for someone to go
beyond brushing all that aside or hide behind it to make a point like this:
“Thus continues the administration's penchant for wordplay, the bending of
language to fit a political need.”
This said, he now builds on it to moralize. “First, truth is
a virtue. Second, if you keep lying, the American people may question whether
anything you say is not another lie. Third, leading a country requires not just
honesty but clarity.” Ah, there it is. This is what he is leading up to. It is
“clarity” that famous Jewish moral clarity of the ambiguous – or is it that
famous ambiguity of moral clarity? Who cares anyway? The main thing is that
Krauthammer gives you an example of it. Here it goes, speaking of President
Obama, he says this: “He cited the threat of 'violent extremism' … the word
'extremism' is meaningless. It has no content. The extreme of what?”
So far, the presentation is logical in the sense that he
means to say there is nothing here. You may or may not agree with it but it is
logical. Oh yes? Is that what you think? Look what comes right after that: “In
this war, an extreme devotion to the supremacy of the radically fundamentalist
vision of Islam and its murderous quest for dominion over all others.” This is
another example of a Jew who could not resist the temptation of trying to have
it both ways. There is nothing here, he says, but at the same time there is a
frightening vision of Islam.
Well, let me tell you what is frightening, Charles my
friend, it is this Jewish brand of moral clarity and its murderous quest for
world conquest riding a confused Pax Americana.