Thinking About Chicago

2016 Olympics

2007-07-24T09:25:00.000-05:00

Should the City of Chicago host the 2016 Olympics? Will it benefit or hurt the city's economy? How will it impact the South Side? Remember when Mayor Harold Washington killed the 1992 World's Fair proposal? Is this the same thing? A great deal for developers, but little for Chicago's residents except more traffic and security issues? I am interested in your comments.

If we hold the Olympics will there be any park benches to sit on? (see earlier posting "Dis and Dat")

Daniel Cassidy's New Book on The Irish Impact on American English

2007-07-23T11:02:00.000-05:00

Thanks to historian Ellen Skerret in response to my posting "Dis and Dat" we have a look at the Irish impact on American English.

IRISH NEWS July 18, 2007 Wednesday

Gee Whiz Daddy-o! Irish slang is baloney

Margaret Canning

It is a conundrum that has long confused scholars - why the Irish
language seems to have had little influence on English as spoken in
America.

Millions of Irish emigrated to America but English as Americans now
speak it appears devoid of Irish references - despite the reputation
of the Irish for verbal creativity.

And with other ethnic groups leaving an indelible mark on English -
from the chutzpah of Yiddish spoken by Jews to the zeitgeist of German
immigrants, the lack of an Irish verbal footprint is regarded as an
anomaly.

Now, in good news for Gaelgoiri everywhere, a new book credits the
Irish language for influencing spoken English - and slang most of all.

In How the Irish Invented Slang: the Secret Language of the Crossroads,
Irish American academic Daniel Cassidy demonstrates that the influence
of Irish emigrants on American existence went beyond pubs and politics.

Mr Cassidy, who has an interest in all things Irish and founded an
Irish studies course at the New College of California, nonetheless
balked at taking up the language himself.

That changed when a student, who died at 37, bequeathed him a
battered, dog-eared Irish dictionary.

Mr Cassidy contemplating binning the book but instead, decided to
absorb a word or two of Irish very night.

A Eureka moment came not long afterwards: "Was it possible that some
of the slang words and phrases that I learned as a kid in New York in
the 1940s and 1950s - like 'in dutch' (duais, pron. dush, trouble);
'snazz' (snas, polish, gloss, lustre) and 'dude' (dudach, dud, pron
dood, a foolish-looking person, a dolt) - were derived from the Irish
language?" he writes.

"Americans speak Irish every day, but they do not dig (tuig,
understand, comprehend) it.

"The words and phrases of Ireland are as woven into the clamour (glam
mor, great howl, shout and roar) and racket (raic ard, loud melee) of
American life as the hot jazz (teas, pron j'as, cd'as, heat, passion,
excitement) of New Orleans."

Mr Cassidy hopes to waft the winds of change in studies of English -
but reminds readers that academics have long harboured a snobbish
attitude to Irish.

HL Mencken, author of The American Language, said the Irish had
contributed very few words to Americans.

"Perhaps speakeasy, shillelah and smithereens exhaust the list,"
Mencken wrote.

Instead, Mr Cassidy, who is taking part in the Feile an Phobail in
west Belfast next month, reasserts the Irishness of artistic figures
like playwright Eugene O'Neill and the Brooklyn Irish actress and
writer Mae West.

Mr Cassidy points out that West used the word "babe", meaning a
physically attractive woman, in 1926 - and that the Irish word 'bab'
meant a baby, woman or a term of affection.

And baloney, meaning nonsense - a word synonymous with America if ever
there was one - is derived from the Irish beal onna, meaning foolish
talk.

If you ever need to tell a nosey parker to "mind your own bee's wax",
you could be referencing the Irish saying beasmhaireacht, meaning
morality and manners, Mr Cassidy contends.

So the idea that the Irish have contributed zilch (word meaning
nothing or zero, origin unknown) to American English could be beal
onna, after all.

- Mr Cassidy takes part in Scribes at the Rock at the Rock Bar on
Falls Road, on August 9 at 4pm.

WORDS WITH GAELIC ROOTS

Some American English slang words with Mr Cassidy's version of their
Irish root below:

Buck: a strong and spirited young man
boc: a wag, a playboy

Caca: euphemism for excrement
Cac/caca - excrement, filth, probably derived from the Latin caco

Cantankerous: grumpy, awkward
Ceanndanacht arsa - old obstinacy, aged wilfulness.

Cold turkey: cut off an addiction abruptly
Coilleoireach, coillteoireachta - cutting off, expurgation

Daddy-o - affectionate term for trendy male
Daideo - grandfather

Freaky: strange or unsettling
Fraochaidhe: fierce, fuerious, passionate

Gee Whiz: exclamation
Dia Uas: Great God!

Geezer: fellow
Gaomshar, gaosach: a wise person

Hick: a rural person
Aitheach: a peasant

Racket: organised crime
Ragaireachd: violence, extortion

Razzmatazz: showing off, extravagance
Roiseadh mortas: high spirits and exultation.

Urban Population Growth

2007-07-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

The United Nations Population Fund has recently released a new report on urban population growth.State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth The report predicts that more than 50% of the world's population will live in towns or cities by 2008 with 5 billion such residents by 2030. Africa and Asia will grow rthe fastest. See especially the short film on Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) embedded on this site.

Bossism by Alton Miller

2007-07-19T12:17:00.000-05:00

Bossism is an epistemological approach to politics, business management, religion, family and other personal relations, rooted in the fallacy that for any problem there is one and only one perfect solution, among various imperfect options; and that the job of a "boss" is to discover that solution and implement it. (Check out this link for more traditional definitions of bossism).

Thus the concept centers on the definition of "problem," and is epistemological in the sense that it depends on how we agree to recognize a "problem."

Bossism is an idealistic approach – in the same sense that George H.W. Bush is an "idealist." The opposing realistic approach says that social problems must always be defined dynamically, through a process that engages everyone who might be affected by the "solution." In this realistic approach, therefore, there is never an ideal "best" solution, but rather a range of alternatives that come into focus only through interaction of all those affected. Sorry to sound so wooden, but precision is important here as will be elaborated later.

Bossism can be reflected in a personal attitude, and held up as a patriotic virtue: one thinks of Davy Crockett's maxim, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." But Bossism ultimately generates pyramidal organizational systems through which a boss considers alternative proposals, determines the one true solution, and directs the implementation of necessary measures through his minions (the masculine pronoun is used advisedly).

In the best case, a "good" boss will surround himself with counselors, as well as minions . . . sources of good advice as well as facilitators and implementers. A "good" boss will convince himself that by heeding good advice he is doing what he was hired or elected to do, and will be satisfied that he exemplifies the ultimate in efficiency and productive management.

This idealistic position is in opposition to the realistic political, managerial, and personal style that works to foster and focus the responses of all those who are affected, and to thereby (re)define the problem from multiple perspectives, providing for perhaps multiple solutions to the (re)defined problems that are identified through this process.

Bossism is at the root of all principled authoritarian, corporatist, paternalistic, male chauvinist, fascistic systems.

A convincing case for Bossism can be made by advocates of a strong executive, who deplore the dithering of parliaments and extol the advantages of decisive leadership, especially in emergencies. When Hitler and Stalin ridiculed do-nothing parliaments and promoted the “Führer prinzip” or “dictatorship of the proletariat” (a transparent rhetorical fiction), they were embraced by many who would inevitably be oppressed by their regimes, men and women who grew up in a 19th Century world dominated by monarchs and the grand narrative of monarchy – not only in politics: after all, a "man's home" was his castle, and their object of worship was King of Kings and Lord of Lords – and who were distrustful of democracy.

Many voters today will prefer a mayor who promises to "run this city like a business," and will deplore politics and politicians for the same reasons (if not the same conscious rationale) that Hitler's enthusiasts shared his disdain for politics. And many employees shy away from organized labor in the workplace, preferring that their workday be ruled by a monarch than that they have to "play politics" within a union in which some of their peers are to be privileged by the system.

The practical problem of Bossism is that the boss, having arrived at a course of action, but not having cultivated the consent of those affected, must enforce his decisions more or less ruthlessly. There is an advantage in effective public relations – what Walter Lippmann called "manufactured consent" – to palliate a testy public. But most day-to-day decisions must necessarily be carried out by minions. These second-level lackeys, who may wear impressive uniforms and carry themselves with a swagger, are completely in the thrall of their boss, without whom they would be out of a job – just another pompous boor, or club-footed misfit. Below the level of commissioner, whose mission it is to implement the will of the boss, is typically another layer of petty bosses, necessary to carry out the instructions of the level above. These men, too, are often chosen for their loyalty, and are often unsuited for other employment.

Typically, fear is a necessary motivating force, and Bossism thus lends itself to systematized terror.