When Words Have No Meaning

(Meaning Has No Words)

Imagine if you were unable to read the written word or understand the spoken word--in any known language.

Understand? No, you don’t quite yet…

Imagine that you could see the physical gestures made by those around you, that you could hear the sounds produced by their mouths, but that you couldn’t intelligently comprehend what was being said.

Sort of a life long game of “Charades”—I guess.

The prospect of not understanding physical and verbal communication would be very limiting when doing things like conducting personal relationships or business transactions.

Under these circumstances, you might understand why cavemen are typically depicted wielding a big wooden club and dragging “their” women around by the hair. A cave man’s language apparently consisted of a bunch of grunts and shrugs. John Kerry’s “Verbal nuances” would be lost on a real life pre-historic Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble.

Any way, hang in there with me for a minute and let me develop this concept.

When learning to read, you learn to look at the constants and vowels and phonetically “sound out” the words. You put words together to form sentences. You go from “See Dick run” to “See Jane clean Spot’s pee off of Dick’s carpet” in the matter of a few months.

By the twelfth year, you learn to read “See Jane bash Dick in the head with the empty beer bottle because he watched MTV all morning rather than cleaning the house while she was away attending her Saturday real estate class.”

As you progress in your education, you expand your vocabulary by learning to correctly spell more difficult words, understand their meaning, and connect them to other words in increasingly complex sentence structures.

Some words, as we all know, have more than one meaning. The more letters and syllables a word has, the more complex the word’s meaning as a general rule. People say that I like to throw around too many of them “thousand dollar” words like “feckless” and “obtuse” and so on in my day to day conversations.

I SAY THAT HAVING A LARGE VOCABULARY IS NOT MY PROBLEM—IT’S YOURS!
(If you really want an example of a master of million dollar words see Buckley, William F.)

What is a problem for me these days is how left and right wing politicians and the liberal media have taken to conveniently changing the conventional meaning of common words in an effort to skew the US (and even the world) population’s perception of the hard realities of the times we live in. Right somehow means left, up is actually down, bad is really good, and blaa is happy?

Case in point--the public gnashing of teeth over President Bush’s proposed “Budget Cuts” contained in the new Federal budget. The problem is the government’s concept of Baseline Budgeting. What a total dumptruck load of crappola this concept is.

Let’s look at the dictionary meaning of the hated words—"Budget Cut"

First, there is the word ”Budget” (from the Merriam Webster Dictionary):

1 chiefly dialect : a usually leather pouch, wallet, or pack; also : its contents
2 : STOCK, SUPPLY
3 : a quantity (as of energy or water) involved in, available for, or assignable to a particular situation; also : an account of gains and losses of such a quantity
4 a : a statement of the financial position of an administration for a definite period of time based on estimates of expenditures during the period and proposals for financing them b : a plan for the coordination of resources and expenditures c : the amount of money that is available for, required for, or assigned to a particular purpose.


The second word is “Cut”:

1 a : to penetrate with or as if with an edged instrument b : to hurt the feelings of c : to strike sharply with a cutting effect d : to strike (a ball) with a glancing blow that imparts a reverse spin e : to experience the growth of (a tooth) through the gum
2 a : TRIM, PARE b : to shorten by omissions c : DISSOLVE, DILUTE, ADULTERATE d : to reduce in amount
3 a : MOW, REAP b (1) : to divide into parts with an edged tool (2) : FELL, HEW c (1) : to separate or discharge from an organization : DETACH (2) : to single out and isolate d : to change the direction of sharply e : to go or pass around or about
4 a : to divide into segments b : INTERSECT, CROSS c : BREAK, INTERRUPT d (1) : to divide (a deck of cards) into two portions (2) : to draw (a card) from the deck e : to divide into shares : SPLIT
5 a : to make by or as if by cutting: as (1) : CARVE (2) : to shape by grinding (3) : ENGRAVE (4) : to shear or hollow out b : to record sounds (as speech or music) on c : to type on a stencil
6 a : STOP, CEASE b : to refuse to recognize (an acquaintance) : OSTRACIZE c : to absent oneself from (as a class) d : to stop (a motor) by opening a switch e : to stop the filming of (a motion-picture scene)
7 a : to engage in (a frolicsome or mischievous action) b : to give the appearance or impression of
8 : to be able to manage or handle -- usually used in negative constructions intransitive senses1 a : to function as or as if as an edged tool b : to undergo incision or severance c : to perform the operation of dividing, severing, incising, or intersecting d : to make a stroke with a whip, sword, or other weapon e : to wound feelings or sensibilities f : to cause constriction or chafing g : to be of effect, influence, or significance 2 a (1) : to divide a pack of cards especially in order to decide the deal or settle a bet (2) : to draw a card from the pack b : to divide spoils : SPLIT3 a : to proceed obliquely from a straight course b : to move swiftly c : to describe an oblique or diagonal line d : to change sharply in direction : SWERVE e : to make an abrupt transition from one sound or image to another in motion pictures, radio, or television4 : to stop photographing motion pictures- cut a deal : to negotiate an agreement-
cut both ways : to have both favorable and unfavorable results or implications-
cut corners : to perform some action in the quickest, easiest, or cheapest way-
cut ice : to be of importance -- usually used in negative constructions-
cut it : to cut the mustard-
cut the mustard : to achieve the standard of performance necessary for success

I think that you would agree that the word “budget” has a very straight forward meaning. The meaning of the word “cut” takes significantly more space, but essentially, no matter what the context, if you endure a “cut” you have less than you started out with.

Are you with me so far?

So, in light of these two definitions, when it comes to talking about a “budget cut,” what would you expect the “budget cut” process to involve?

On a personal basis, a “Budget Cut,” would mean having less money this week than I had last week. Less money this month than I had last month. I hate it, but I have less money to spend this year than I had to spend last year. Right?

Not so with the politicians which exist at the Federal and State levels of Government of the United States of America. A “budget cut,” to the politicians, means having a lesser INCREASE in the amount of money you will have available to spend next year than you had to spend this year.

SAY WHAT???

In other words, if last year you got a pay raise and as a result you had an extra $5,000 of take home cash to spend in 2004, but your boss just announced that this year you were only getting a $4,000 take home raise, as a government employee you would run home to your Mama and your wife and your dog and your bird and yell at the top of your lungs:

“OUR COMPANY IS HAVING A BUDGET CUT!”

You will still have $4,000 more cash to waste at Blockbuster Video and to spend on Quarter Pounder's with Cheese in 2005 than you had in 2004, but the HOMELESS are more HOMELESS and the POOR are more POOR and the FARMERS can do less FARMING and everything is GOING TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET because the government is REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF THE INCREASED SPENDING.

THEY’RE HAVING BUDGET CUTS!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Well in the words of Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, “I might be going to hell in a basket, but at least I’m enjoying the ride…”

This is so stupid…Are you?