Saturday 22 January 2022

Oddities Of English

"The Trouble Twisters," VII.

The Ikranankans:

"...suspected everyone not an in-law of being an outlaw..." (p. 152)

 Well, yes. "In" and "out" are opposites. As soon as we start thinking about language, we go off topic. A foreign woman working in England told her work-mates, "You think I know f- - - - nothing but I tell you I know f- - - - - all!"

The British government made a law that trade union membership would lapse unless renewed after three years. Where I worked, we went into every workplace with union application forms and asked every employee, "Are you in the union? If not, join. If yes, re-sign." The result was an increase in union membership. I think that that law was done away with although I have retired since. In any case, the interesting linguistic point was that not to re-sign was effectively to resign. What a language!

19 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I am not crazy about unions. Many of them, in the US, are either notoriously corrupt or dominated by hard line leftists whose ideas I, to put it mildly, strongly disagree with. So I regard many existing unions COLDLY. Too many are no longer "honest greedy" as Old Nick might put it.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Sure. I am for workers' self-organization and self-activity but not for union bureaucracies which treat their members with contempt.

My points were: interesting linguistic contrast between "re-sign" and "resign"; irony that a law intended to weaken unions resulted in a successful recruitment campaign.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Whoever drafted that law was not as precise as he should have been. And I have only contempt for many unions.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I think that, without workers' defensive organizations, we would have much worse working conditions.

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

What form do you think that the law should have taken?

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Indeed, was any law necessary?

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm in favor of laws forbidding unions from bullying or pressuring anyone to join them. I'm in favor of laws forbidding unions from forcibly collecting "union dues" from people who don't want to join them.

Unions may have been necessary a hundred years ago, to correct real weaknesses and abuses. But many have become corrupt and stagnant, resistant to needed changes. Such as the infamous teachers unions or the longshoremen unions whose incompetence is doing so much to worsen our supply chain chaos. I have only FURY for them!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Obviously no one should bully anyone but a law to make union membership lapse had nothing to do with preventing bullying.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Yes, that is true.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Unions can't succeed without a high degree of discipline among their membership; hence their tendency to resort to social pressure, threats and force, particularly in times of stress.

Because individual workers may (and often do) have different priorities.

It's difficult for a union to operate as an effective bargaining organization without either legal coercion, or extra-legal means of disciplining its members and other workers.

A purely voluntaristic trade union rarely succeeds.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Correct. And that's why I feel resent to so many unions. The causes which made unions understandable a century and more ago simply don't exist now.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

I have appreciated support and representation from a union despite my problems with it as an organization.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Which does not solve the problems due to many unions being corrupt, bullying, stagnant, resistant to needed changes, etc.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But the whole of society is like that. I do not think that either the unions or one single political party should be singled out for special condemnation.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I do, when unions and the Democrats are so often in the WRONG.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

We can state, if we want, that other people are WRONG but we still have to engage with what they say. I think that there is something WRONG with a social system that divides into irreconcilable antagonisms instead of advancing through constructive disagreements. Maybe we will build something better or maybe we will sink like Atlantis.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Your comments here puzzles me. You seem to think strife, contention, chaos, to be somehow astonishing. I am not in the least surprised, because I expect human beings to be quarrelsome, competitive, power and status seeking. And we are going to see such things in ALL social systems.

A big part of the problem is that the LEFT, in the US, is not in the least interested in "constructive disagreements." Simply put, hard line leftists here want total power, so they can remold and "transform" America. And that is of course stirring up fierce opposition.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Not astonishing, appalling. Society can be better than this. The US left and right are two poles. They cannot be separated.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Appalling, but not surprising. Strife, contention, desire for power, etc., are simply facts of life. Problems to be managed, not solved.

Ad astra! Sean