Lost language

It burns be up these days to hear a divorced mother or father identifying themselves as "single parents". It absolutely enrages me to conflate illegal immigration with immigration. I am sure as this blog continues I'll recall more examples from daily life that properly demonstrate that language is losing it's meaning.

Single parenthood. When someone is a divorced parent and they are seeking a new paramour or even a soul mate do they identify themselves as single, implying that they were never actually married? No, not only would it be deceptive, but to imply that a divorced person had never been married would conceal their relative experience with the opposite sex. Why then do divorced parents identify themselves as single parent when there is a perfectly descriptive term that works well. Divorced parent. I am convinced that of the divorced parents that I know, it is a matter of merely not examining the issue, it's really not that important in the grand scheme of things and it's easy to let something small slide.

When as a culture small things slide they change into large things. Single parents, as opposed to divorced parents have the worst track record around for raising children to grow up as functioning members of society. Divorced parents fare a little better, there are usually a role models of the opposite sex somewhere in the picture, to give at least an idea to the developing child of what qualities might be desirable or undesirable in a potential mate.

Equating immigration with illegal immigration is simply dishonest, and it gets people upset and angry over nothing. Democrats, journalists and pollsters will leave off the descriptor "illegal" and throw the entire issue, news story or poll out of the realm of useful or reasonable by the omission.

That one word changes the idea of "coming to a new country to build a better life" into "breaking the law and entering the new country AS A CRIMINAL to build a better life" No rational person has a problem with immigrants who enter this country legally. Who wouldn't welcome someone who follows the rules and wants to work hard for a better life. Criminals, however, are a vastly different issue.

Losing the use of even small descriptions and passing these statements on into the collective cultural consciousness without a fight is akin to yielding before the cultural war before the fight even truly begins. The battle for the culture is really the battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation of Americans. And if we lose the language we lose the ability to explain what is being lost.