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Nouns to Verbs and Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, and their ilk

 As someone who taught writing*, I taught against nominalization. That's a fancy word for making verbs into nouns. For example: "The team conducted a study" rather than "The team studied" or "She made a payment on the bill," rather than "She paid (part of?) the bill." In the second case there might be a difference in meaning, so nominalization is not always verboten. (Sign of pretension, using foreign words unnecessarily.)

In the reverse, the recent tendency to turn nouns into verbs is also to be generally avoided (note use of passive voice), as in the wonderful word "impacted" when used for influence rather than wisdom teeth.**

One such even more recent example is "platformed" instead of "gave someone a platform" and it's counter, "de-platformed." Giving someone a platform is granting them airtime on a radio or TV show or space in a written format, and doing so on a regular basis. At least I think that is what it means. De-platforming is taking that opportunity away, which can be either by firing/dismissing the person for an offense or, I suppose, legal means. To de-platform another, one must have access to power or media channels. It's not the same as "cancel," but that one sort of escapes me. 

In the conservative media world right now, mostly those with direct or indirect connections to Israel, there is a lot of discussion about Tucker Carlson, Candice Owens, and Nick Fuentes. I recommend this video from Ben Shapiro's show yesterday for all the proof you need that these three people are vile lunatics whom no one should listen to or give two seconds of time reading. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaRJlL5mOF8&t=3s

I am not one who listens to Ben much, but I recommend this one because he explains the controversy and makes it very clear that the "right," or at least young people, are affected by these narcissists. For me, I have no understanding why anyone would listen to them at all. They profess to be Christians but have no comprehension of real Christian doctrine or ethics; they are not pro-American, only pro-white (even though Candice is at least partially Black); they hate Israel and Ukraine but love Russia, Stalin, Putin, and Iran; and most of all

THEY ARE CRAY-CRAY.  

In fact, Ben shows a lot of Fuentes clips, which I suggest you sample but do not get a full meal of.  He says Hitler was cool, Andrew Tate is cool, Zelensky is gay (?), women are whores who should not have the vote, and Charlie Kirk--well, he reserves some really bad stuff for him because Charlie repudiated Christian nationalism. 

Please, be aware of this.  I have left the Republican party because of Trump (who, like a broken clock, gets it right once in a while but is not a conservative.) I don't want to leave the conservative movement, such as it is, if this people are given a "platform."

*I do not refer to myself as an English professor because it was not my official title and I rarely taught for the English Department--I was more interested in Communication in oral and written forms; the English Departments of today tend to be more about literature and about interpreting literature in postmodern and deconstructionist ways, and I tend to be a New Criticism type where the text is everything. Plus, my English colleagues dismissed or ignored my fiction writing even when it was recognized. That might get me in trouble, but I am retired and not so fearful of what people say, thus this blog post. 

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