Severely Severe

Mitt Romney, trying hard to attract far right-wing voters, has garnered severe criticism in his use of language for having said he was a “severely conservative governor” of Massachusetts. Many learned people find fault with this use of the word severely (never mind the word conservative).

Calling Romney “self-destructive,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman archly maintained the most frequent meanings of severe are “disabled, depressed, ill, limited, and injured.” Another supercilious columnist said Romney spoke of conservatism “as though it were a disease.” (Hmm, maybe he's on to something.)

But Romney’s getting a bum rap, at least on this point.  Despite the fact that the phrase “severely conservative” does sound a bit peculiar, it actually makes perfect sense. Look at the dictionaries.

Webster's New International (2^nd edition) likes “serious in feeling or manner, sedate, grave, austere” as severe’s first definition.  Nothing odd about that for a conservative, is there?

Webster’s more up-to-date Collegiate Dictionary (11^th edition) gives the primary meaning as “strict in judgment, discipline, or government,” followed by “stringent,” “restrictive,” “scrupulously exacting,” “establishing exacting standards of accuracy and integrity in intellectual processes,” “sober,” and “restrained.” So far, so good.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first meaning as “rigorous in condemnation or punishment,” followed by “strict in matters of conduct,” “austere with oneself,” “shunning laxity or self-pleasure.”

Much further down the list in all the lexicons is the meaning that Romney’s critics would like to ascribe to his turn of phrase—“harsh, inflicting physical discomfort or pain, attended with a maximum of distress.”

Roget’s Thesaurus gives as synonyms for severe: “uncompromising, unyielding, obdurate, arbitrary, iron-handed, and arrogant.”

So admit it: Romney is  “severely” conservative (or at least he wants to be so regarded by the GOP base).  If you want to criticize him, I’ll give you a list of more substantive issues than his alleged misuse of that word.

Whether the Bard of Buffalo Bayou is severe or not depends on whether he gets up on the conservative or liberal side of his bed. You be the judge:

            Show me a man who is strong and severe,

            Obdurate, arrogant, grave, and austere,

            Show me a man who is stringent and rigorous,

            Vital and vigilant, virile and vigorous,

            Show me a man who is strict and restrictive,

            Sober, exact—and a little vindictive.

            Show me a man who is harsh and sedate,

            Looking unpleasant from something he ate,

            Show me that man, hard as rock, ossified—

            And I’ll bet he’ll be on the conservative side.

Economics for Cynics

If Ambrose Bierce were around today—and, in fact, he might be, although remarkably advanced in years—he could explain the causes of the world’s economic troubles in a trice.  In 1905 Bierce published The Cynic’s Word Book, which was reissued in 1911 as The Devil’s Dictionary. In it he showed a sharper understanding of economic matters than those professional economists today who win Nobel Prizes by disagreeing vehemently with each other.  Bierce’s definition of Economy: “Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow you cannot afford.”

He also understood that greed on Wall Street was the source of much tumult.  He defined that bastion of financiers as “a symbol of sin for every devil to rebuke.” 

The complexities of Finance he reduced to one sentence, calling it “the art or science of managing revenues or resources for the best advantage of the manager.”

For solutions, Bierce had little confidence in either political point of view.  As a card-carrying cynic, he defined a Conservative as “a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”

Journalist and short-story writer, Bierce was born in Ohio in 1842.  He was a newspaper editor and columnist in San Francisco, was later based in London, and then served as Washington correspondent for Cosmopolitan. In 1913 he went to Mexico, embedded himself as an observer in Pancho Villa’s army in Juárez, made it as far as Chihuahua, and has not yet been heard from since.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou, who cannot rival Bierce in either satirical skill or cynicism, try as he might—and he does—offers this modest clerihew in his memory:

     Ambrose Bierce,

     Though firm and fierce,

     Was easily annoyed by bureaucracy,

     Not to mention hypocrisy.

Good News! (Retranslated)

An outfit called the Conservative Bible Project plans a new Biblical translation to get rid of what it calls “socialistic terminology” that it believes permeates all English translations. According to the group’s statements, such language improperly encourages "social justice" among Christians. What is needed is emphasis on “free market parables.”

For example, it is pointed out, the conservative word volunteer is mentioned only once in the scandalously left-wing English Standard Version, yet the socialistic word comrade is used three times, laborer 13 times and fellow (as in fellow worker) 55 times! Moreover, words like peace and miracle need to be “updated.”

In a conservative translation, the “rich man” who will have as much trouble entering the Kingdom of God as a camel will have going through the eye of a needle becomes a “man who cares only for money”—thus removing the automatic stigma of being wealthy.

Another proposed re-rendering is to change “Blessed are the meek” in the Beatitudes to “Blessed are the God-fearing,” so as to avoid any hint of namby-pambyism.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou is skeptical about the project and left these lines in a clump of bulrushes:

The Gershwins said one may be liable
To read a few things in the Bible
That ain’t necessarily so.
But soon we’ll have a new translation,
Free of liberal degradation,
And Scripture will be comme il faut.

We needn’t turn the other cheek,
Or hand the earth off to the meek.
Social justice? That’s passé.
Feed the hungry? Clothe the naked?
Those ideas are so half-bakèd,
And, besides, they just don’t pay.

No more peace and no more miracle,
They’re fuzzy-minded and too lyrical,
Free market values are the goal.
All that stuff about baptism
Can’t compete with capitalism
To save the righteous, right-wing soul.