The Easy Ones:
Heavy-Duty
From what I recall, the first business to be inundated with the term was the batteries biz. I'd guess it was somewhere in the early 70's that suddenly every single battery on the shelf was "Heavy-Duty".
Nowadays, it covers everything from ball point pens to diapers.
Discounted
While this is in the same category as 'Heavy-Duty', it went beyond meaningless with the proliferation of the Web. My DVD-ROM blew a gasket a few months ago. They were $65 at the local Office Depot, 'discounted' down to $55. I bought an exact replacement from some online geek site for nine bucks. I have some more dramatic examples here.
Natural
At least with 'heavy-duty' and 'discounted', no actual harm is being done. But to label a food 'natural', and then fill it with a bunch of crap that sneaks by FDA guidelines actually has the potential to hurt someone who's ultra-allergic to certain things and is taking the word 'natural' at face value. There have been lots of articles written over the years on the weird non-food fillers they put in our comestibles.
Medium Grade:
Unlimited
I've actually had three real-life experiences with this word over the past year.
1. I had moved to a different marina and my Verizon Wireless Internet stopped working. I was now behind the local cell tower, which, as it turns out, are very directional. I tried the latest Verizon Wireless unit, then a Sprint unit, and no go.
So I started searching around for companies that specialized in rural setups and came up with a company called Broadband Blue:
Unlimited, that is, until I decided that my videos ran better from a different site than the one they were on and went to move them. I was somewhere around the 20-gig mark when I got an email from the company informing me that Sprint (whose service it was using) had informed them that if I didn't cool it with all the bandwidth, they'd close my account. When I mentioned the "unlimited usage" on their web site, I was told this was Sprint, not them, and thus it was out of their hands. So I guess they apparently forgot to tell Sprint they'd be opening up, quote, unlimited, unquote, accounts.
2. Still having some video streaming problems, it appeared from some tests that it might be the web hosting company. Since it doesn't cost much to fire up a 1-month hosting account, I looked around and found Apollo Hosting:
I got the site up and running, but before uploading some 30-odd gigs of video (still reeling from my experience with Broadband Blue, I was going to upload them via a friend's computer), I thought I'd give them a quick call, just to let them know that it was a one-time thing. I was told in no uncertain terms that if I went past the 15-gig mark of server storage space, my account would be suspended. When I mentioned the "unlimited" on the web site, I was told that it meant 'unlimited' for the average user, and that over 15 gigs was above average.
"Oh," I said, and closed the account.
3. I have tow insurance for my boat so if it gets disabled while out at sea, I get a free tow back home. The tow guys charge about $225/hr, so an $800 to $1,200 towing fee isn't unusual, which tends to make the $150/yr TowBoat US fee a real deal if & when you need them. I've used them three times in six years, so I'd say I'm ahead of the game.
I needed them about a year ago when I moved to this marina. I'd hit some rocks and the rudders were off the boat awaiting repair.
I knew there wouldn't be any problem because, after all, TowBoat US has...
When I called them to set up a tow date, I was informed that my boat had a pre-existing condition, which they knew about since they'd towed me home when I hit the rocks, and they only covered immediate problems.
At one point, not long after, a good friend down in Key West, about 60 miles away, wanted me to move down there and hang out in his marina. Since the boat was still without rudders, I figured I'd have to pull a bit of chicanery, like having a neighbor tow me out to sea, then give TowBoat US a frantic call saying my hydraulics had gone out and I needed a tow back home to my dear, beloved Key West. I did a little more digging on their web site.
That's when I found out that the second actual meaning of unlimited is 25 miles of towing, max.
Somebody really ought to sue all three companies for fraudulent advertising.
Heat
The old expression, It's not the heat, it's the humidity, is one of the truest in the book. No greater example could be found than the scorching August day I flew from Las Vegas to Florida.
Las Vegas in the summer can easily reach 110 degrees. With the ultra-low humidity, though, it feels like it's in the low 90's. Hot, but not swelteringly so. That's what it was the day I left.
When I arrived in Orlando, it was a beautifully pleasant day in the mid-80's. The humidity was so thick and oppressive I felt like I was swimming underwater. My clothes were soaked with sweat within minutes.
So, yes, while 'heat' does play a part in the scientific world, in the human world it's really the humidity you're feeling more than anything, given a rough temperature zone.
And, interestingly, the reverse is also true. It was down in the chilly mid-50's here in the Keys last December but actually felt rather pleasant out, simply because the humidity was extra high.
Weight
Along similar lines, when it comes to moving big objects around, weight versus density is the question of the moment. Here's an example that illustrates the two.
When I moved aboard the boat, I bought a new fridge and a garbage compactor. Both weighed about 100 pounds. The refrigerator was in a great big box which I manhandled onto the boat fairly easily, simply because it 'walked' around quite nicely because the weight was distributed over a fairly large area so it rocked back and forth without much effort.
The much-smaller garbage compactor box was a bitch. Because it was so dense and heavy, it didn't 'walk' worth a damn, so it really did need to be muscled aboard.
Like heat and humidity, while 'weight' still has meaning at the Post Office, in the human world the density of an object can play an even greater role than its weight.
Summing up the two, using 'heat' or 'weight' without context is relatively meaningless.
Renewable
As in, renewable resources, as in wind and solar power.
Say, here's a question for ya:
What part of wind or solar power is renewed?
The solar beams that hit the panel and the wind that drives the blades are expended every bit as much as a block of coal is. Nothing is redone or reused or renewed. They apparently want it to mean "there's more where that came from", but that's also true with coal, water and natural gas. They'd like to add "for free!" at the end, but if 'free' really made that much of a difference, the outputted energy would be much cheaper than 'non-free' energy sources. Since it's just the opposite, the 'free' part of the equation is meaningless.
What the word really means is simply "It's not one of those bad fossil fuels". But, by that definition, hydroelectric power, natural gas and nuclear power are also 'renewables'. But, gosh, I don't see any of the renewables crowd pushing any of that stuff.
This word isn't just meaningless, it's bullshit.
Incontrovertible
I'm including this odd word on the side simply because it popped up the other day when I posted an article on the wonders of modern video wizardry:
On the subject, I hereby move we strike the word incontrovertible from the language.
At this very moment, someone out there is doctoring a video to make an innocent man look guilty of murder. This video, the prosecuting attorney will tell the jury, is incontrovertible proof of the defendant's guilt. You will watch the accused kill the innocent victim with (slamming fist on jury box) your own two eyes!
It's a word whose time has come and gone.
Indeed.
The Toughies:
Racism
On my Google Earth Project site is a video tour of the various swastika-shaped buildings on earth. There are only six of them, not surprisingly.
The page for the tour is here. Notice all the verbiage that precedes the actual tour acting as the proscribed and requisite pre-apology so necessary because a swastika is involved.
We'll let the author of the 'More Info' link on the swastika page explain it:
It should be noted to avoid any chance of confusion: I am not affiliated with any sort of neo-aryan organization, and I vehemently decry racism. In fact, my family is of mixed-race as well. I’m displaying this pic as an interesting news item related to online maps, and do not wish to offend anyone at all.
Of course, there's only little problem with this scenario.
Jews aren't a 'race', so the word racism doesn't apply.
If you absolutely demand to place a label on them, try global tribe, or religious enclave, or even social construct, but Jews aren't any more of a 'race' than Muslims or Catholics or Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists are.
At least, that's how the word 'race' has been viewed for the past 10,000 years.
As you may — or may not — have been taught in school, there are only three actual races in the world, Negroid, Caucasian and Asian. A pitch was made in the 70's to have American Indian be decreed its own race, but DNA later proved they were descended from Asians who had crossed the Bering Strait back back in the dawn of time when the two continents were more connected.
Today, the word 'racism' is almost meaningless. It first jumped the shark when Reconquista — the return of the southwest part of the U.S. to its original owner, Mexico — arrived about eight years ago and anyone decrying the plan was immediately branded a racist. Because, unknown to anthropologists throughout the world, there were now four races of human beings. But at least it kind of made sense, in that Mexicans have a slightly browner skin tone than your average WASP.
But that was just the warm-up.
Because, in case you haven't heard, Irish people are also a race.
So are the Scottish.
And, as it turns out, those Scots are terribly racist!
Scottish Church Helped Foment Anti-Irish Racism
How To Be A Racist In Scotland And Get Away With It
The Irish Government's Failure To Acknowledge Anti-Irish Racism In Scotland
How Racist Is Scotland?
Anti-Irish Catholic Racism And Bigotry Remains Scotland's Shame
A Google search for "ireland scotland racism" yields over seven million hits on the subject, including — not surprisingly — scads of articles on all that horrible anti-Scottish racism that those racist Irish people exhibit!
Of course, one problem with turning 'nationalities' into 'races' is that it begs the question, what if your mom is 100% Irish and your dad is 100% Scottish? What's that make you?
I guess you get to pick from one of the three 'm' words; mutt, mongrel or mulatto.
Which raises the question, how many people in Ireland and Scotland are actually 100% pure Irish or Scottish? In the melting pot the world has become over the past century, would it surprise anyone if the answer was "19%"?
As I'm putting the finishing touches on this article...
1. Bird Dog posts a link to The Politics of Dolls:
Last week, Mattel came under a barrage of criticism for its new Mexican Barbie. Clad in a fiesta dress and carrying a pink passport and a Chihuahua, the doll is being called insensitive or even racist by critics in the media and the academy.
2. I re-watch the fun movie (language warning in effect) 'Smokin' Aces II':
And what's truly sobering about that clip is that the screenwriter, producer, director, and the scads of people who read the script never thought about it twice. By today's standards, calling a person of Italian descent a vile, derogatory word like 'Guinea' is obviously racist.
She’s part of a Dolls of the World collection, each with her own “shortcuts”: The Australian doll wears khakis and comes with a Koala bear; the Indian Barbie has a monkey.
If this is racism, the term has lost all meaning.
Y'know, I was just pointing that out to these folks!
Smarter
There is no such thing as someone being "smarter" than someone else without qualification.
If you want to say you're smarter than me when it comes to international finance, nuclear physics or how to weave a waterproof basket out of swamp grass, that's fair game. But for every single way you can point out how you're smarter than me — or pretty much anyone — I can turn right around and prove how much smarter I am than you.
What would you suggest the average bitrate be for a quality MPEG-2 video render?
Should you give a horse a treat when it does a trick right?
If it wasn't Magellan, then who first sailed around the world?
Did Jimi Hendrix write an early, uncredited Neal Young song?
Or, to dip into my Doc's Secrets site:
What's a sure-fire way to get into the Guinness Book of World Records?
How can you contact every single actual congressperson at once?
How can you double your pot yield?
Did you learn about keeping your pituitary gland active during your mid to late 30's before it was too late?
Know where any iridium strikes are?
You take my point? I could go on for days. So could the next person. You might be more educated and experienced and have a sixth sense like mechanical intuition and a flair for art and be a maestro on the piano and can lecture on the intricacies of nuclear physics, but as soon as you point to that guy next to you and think, "I'm smarter than him", he's going to turn around and ask you if you how to weave a waterproof basket out of swamp grass.
He'll then proceed to ask you another twenty-five questions like the above, all of them testing your inventiveness on various ways of saying "Sorry, don't have a clue."
Without any qualifying perspective, the word "smarter" is generally meaningless.
The Truth
I'm not sure there are any.
The sky is blue?
Well, no, actually the sky is clear. It's the water vapor that's blue.
The earth is round?
Well, no, actually it's ovate, wider at the equator. It's just generally round.
The sun is going to rise tomorrow?
Well, let's just say the odds have it. Just because some wild-haired geek named Einstein said nothing can move faster than the speed of light doesn't actually make it true throughout the entire vastness of the universe. A mini black hole traveling at light speed times light speed might pop into our solar system this afternoon and gobble Mr. Sun right up.
The sun will rise tomorrow isn't a truth, it's just a fairly certain prediction.
The sun is going to die in 4.5 billion years?
Well, except for the fact that at the 4.1-billion mark, a gigantic young sun-in-the-making gaseous mass collided with it and gave it another 15 billion years. And then, at the 14.2-billion year mark, another gaseous mass came along and did the same thing, ad infinitum. Sure, the odds are astronomical, but, in an infinite universe, it has to happen somewhere. Why not here?
Death and taxes?
Taxes is an easy one. It simply depends on where you live. Go move to a deserted tropical island and you won't have any taxes at all, promise.
Death? Sure, except that ten minutes ago it was announced that a major breakthrough in cryogenics had been achieved and they can now freeze your body safely until they figure out how to electronically transfer your brain into a new body.
But suddenly, to our horror, the person standing next to us is shot seventeen times in a horrific drive-by shooting. You turn to me, point at the bullet-riddled figure on the ground and say,
"He's dead."
Oh, you mean by today's standards? How about the semi-near future? Did you see Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'The 6th Day'? Like the cryogenics scenario, it's certainly not improbable that one day we'll be able to electronically suck a brain right out of a skull and store it on a disc, ready for reposting into a new brain in an identical cloned body.
Why not?
Human cloning, like abortion and gayness just a few decades ago, is considered unethical at this point, but ethos and cultures inevitably change over time.
And that's the truth.
