Diacritiques

/ˌser.ənˈdɪp.ɪ.ti/ is definitely taking the risk of becoming, quite unintentionally, something like a Language Log commentary column. It is a little humiliating to admit that I can’t seem to be able to keep up with the Language Log linguists, and today I probably ought to have retired to the bed with a cup of hot milk, a handful of aspirin and a good murder mystery to nurse my inflamed airways. But this is impossible; I just can’t. The inexhaustible Mark Lieberman has opened not just a can of worms, but the entire contents of a worm farm. The topics at issue are the notion of “core Europe” (“Kerneuropa“), apparently embraced by Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas, the proper locus on the European left-right political spectrum of this notion on the one hand and of the two philosophers on the other hand, the relationship between “intellectuals” and “conservatives” — opposed? identical? occasionally collaborating? — and finally, the general meaning of the terms of European politics and intellectual debate and how they (don’t) jibe with those an American intellectual would employ.  read the post »

After last month’s dismal elections, the EU parliament’s (newly renamed) Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality is getting a new member from Britain, UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom. The Guardian tells us a little more about this champion of women’s rights. In his own words:

I want to deal with women’s issues because I just don’t think they clean behind the fridge enough. […]

I am going to promote men’s rights. […]

I am here to represent Yorkshire women, who always have dinner on the table when you get home. […]

No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age. […] I know, because I am a businessman.

The use of you in the third quotation is particularly interesting.

Paul Foot called UKIP “[the Tory party’s] new lunatic and xenophobic fringe”. (I’m not the first blogger to say this, but nevermind: I don’t always agree with Paul Foot, but I much enjoyed reading his Guardian columns and will miss him. He died four days ago, aged 66.) They got 16% of the vote in the UK and 12 seats, but already had to suspend one prospective MEP, who is accused of housing benefit fraud.

Mrs Bloom, the Guardian reports, “is better-known than he is — or at least she was until last night — as one of the country’s leading horse physiotherapists […].” I guess she delegates the cleaning behind the fridge to a maid. Mr Bloom already used the fact that his wife is “half-Polish” to head off accusations of xenophobia directed at his party. Careful, Mr Bloom, greater nationalists than you have been in a similar situation, and it hasn’t changed the course of history.

Here is Steve Bell’s (the Guardian cartoonist’s) account of Mr Kerry’s choice for a potential future vice president. It might be slightly frustrating for politically active US citizens who are deeply involved with the differences between the candidates, insofar as they are at all interested in what Europeans think. But face it, right now anybody who beats Mr Bush will do for many people here. Unfortunately, in the media I have seen, knowledge of the candidates trails far behind the perceived importance of the election. I can’t imagine another reason for the Guardian to get away with drivel like “a charismatic mill worker’s son who embodies southern charm”. There is lots of time to develop an opinion about those politicians once they are elected.