15 Comments
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Secret Squirrel's avatar

Why is gender appropriation not proscribed?

Joel E. Lorentzen's avatar

Mr. Gage, your satire approaches the level of Joseph Heller’s artistry! If you are just now reading Catch 22, which I have probably read 20 times, I expect a successful apprenticeship, surpassing the master...

Regarding Orwell, your audience may appreciate my earlier novel Proles - a Novel about 2084.

Christopher Gage's avatar

You're too kind, sir.

I think we read Catch-22 in school... but, I was more interested in mischief than anything else. Lieutenant 'Scheisskopf' made me laugh. I'm enjoying it.

Ah. I think I might enjoy that too. Have you read Anthony Burgess' novella '1985'?

Joel E. Lorentzen's avatar

Have not, but I will now!

Christopher Gage's avatar

It's a series of essays, followed by a short 20-30k novella. Burgess cracks open an entirely new world. Great stuff.

Joel E. Lorentzen's avatar

Is it available on line in English? I find only the Spanish version on Amazon

Carl Nelson's avatar

I believe the powers that be are bedeviling the language until they can say authoritatively that "a word means whatever I say it means," and we'll grudgingly agree.

Christopher Gage's avatar

Yes. Doubleplusbad.

Casey Jones's avatar

An item in the cornucopia of delights proffered the Sourista is the word play and yet... "undulating morass" in a riff on word abuse? Rolls off the tongue nicely and elicits a quick if rather illicit giggle but a morass undulating? I would have thought morasses a rather more sedentary lot. And: Women can be dicks, but that neither implies nor denies the existence of a penis -- which would not be possible for a woman.

Christopher Gage's avatar

I like 'Sourista'. Cheers!

A morass as in 'a complicated or confused situation.' 'Undulate' as in 'moving in waves.'

Casey Jones's avatar

Really, sir! "An area of low-lying, soggy ground." But to keep the peace, I'll concede a secondary or tertiary meaning. Cheers backatcha!

Christopher Gage's avatar

Hahaha. Thank you.

I didn't know this, but the figurative definition came about in the mid-19th century: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morass

Peace assured, sir!