Darn those Homonyms

“Heal” and “heel” are heterographs, words that have the same pronunciation but are spelled and defined differently. (Homonyms are spelled and pronounced the same but have different definitions, e.g. “tire,” to become fatigued, and “tire,” car wheel.) Word classifications like that are far more important than you might realize. Here are two definitions:

1. like: enjoy
2. like: similar to

These are not the same. They’re not even really two definitions for the same word. In fact, they are two different words! They’re homophones, words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different definitions. They represent two entirely distinct concepts in the mind. For all they’re related to each other, they might as well be “like” and “glarble.”

Now, here are two more definitions:

1. man: a male human being
2. man: all human beings

Same thing. Yet leftists conflate the two and then complain that the second word is sexist because it’s really the same as the first word which is about males. They’d be just as correct to argue that the first word is universal because it’s really the same as the second word which is about all humans. Both arguments are incorrect.

That the left is unable to make these distinctions is a function of the fall of education in this country.* (I remember learning about homophones in about fourth grade. I doubt different classes of words are taught at all any more.) Another critical error the left makes is to look at one thing and assume that all similar things are exactly, precisely alike. I know people who don’t see Michael Piz, individual human being but merely Michael Piz, white male. Or, rather, a white male with the insignificant distinction of having a different name than all the other white males. They see me as interchangeable with every other white male. Therefore I must be racist, sexist, privileged, and all other characteristics they’ve assigned to the “white male.” (None of that is even remotely true for me.)

They’re both unable to generalize from examples and unable to distinguish between individual cases of a general class. That leaves them only able to deal with concrete instances of everything. Every rock is something entirely new because they can’t conceive of the general concept “rock,” and every white male is exactly the same as every other white male – there’s no general class “white male,” only identical instances of … whatever they think a “white male” is.

In other words, they’re incapable of thinking. When you’re incapable of thinking, all that’s left to you is your immediate reaction to a constant flood of inexplicable things and events as you stumble through life, utterly terrified. You have nothing but immediate, uninformed emotion to deal with the world. Thence rioters, who know no other way to act than as unknowing toddlers who happen to know how to set fires.
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* Read Richard Mitchell’s periodical that ran monthly from 1979 to 1992, called The Underground Grammarian. It explains in perfect detail exactly how education has failed and what the effects of that were at the time and you can determine by extrapolation what those effects have become by today. The whole collection is a long read but it’s the best thing you can possibly read if you want to understand how we got here. Seriously, read it.