Friday, July 01, 2005

 

Words Mean Things!

Among the many things I realized far too late in life that I would have been good at, I should have been an English teacher. I appreciate language, especially when it is used well. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often in this country anymore...

Case in point: This morning I watched yet another news story involving what the reporter referred to as an "undocumented immigrant"... Now, I have said in the past that political correctness will eventually mean the end of our civilization, but it is now evident that that the end of our language is already at hand.

"Undocumented immigrant"?!? I accept that the correct term, "illegal alien", does have a negative sound to it...it is supposed to sound negative! They are aliens in the fact that they are not citizens here, and they are illegal in that they arrived by other than legal means! But, since our society is currently all about protecting anyone from feeling badly, the media and the PC wags dropped the term "illegal" long ago in favor of the less-offensive term "undocumented". Fine.

But now we are to refer to illegal border crossers as "immigrants"?!?!? Isn't that a slap in the face of all of our ancestors who went through the legal process of immigration?

[English lesson: the illegal aliens to which we are referring should actually be referred to as "emigres" which is the correct term for a person who has left his country of origin, rather than "immigrants" which refers to entering a country other than your own in order to set up permanent residence. Granted, that is the intention of the emigres, but "immigration" also is a legal term describing the legal and bureaucratic process of setting up legal residence in the new country.]

But I must get back to my original statement: Words Mean Things. The term "undocumented immigrant" should lead one's mind to the conclusion that this is an "immigrant" (the legal definition) who, for some reason, does not "yet" have his or her documentation. Or ever perhaps may have lost their documentation...like a driver who can't find his vehicle registration in his glove box when asked to surrender it to a police officer.

Let's carry that particular analogy a little further: Imagine that your car is stolen. When your car is finally stopped and the officer asks the thief to prove that he is the legal owner, how would you feel if the person who stole your car was referred to as the "undocumented owner"?

(Aha! you're thinking here that I am being hyperbolic when I should say "undocumented driver"--but no! "undocumented driver" would refer to the thief not having a driver's license--Not a registration, which is the proof of ownership! Gotcha!)

The point here is that the thief doesn't OWN THE RIGHT to be called the owner of your car, regardless of his lack of documentation--just like the illegal alien doesn't OWN THE RIGHT to be called in immigrant, regardless of his lack of documentation.

CALL THINGS WHAT THEY ARE!!! This is not a situation of "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is"...

posted by huggy 8:41 AM