From the Land of Cowboys to You; or, The Modern Buckaroo’s Guide to the World
Language is a dynamic tool–it shapes us as much as we shape it. I will weep if I go into the whole “torture” vs. “harsh interrogation tactic” brouhaha (just call a spade a spade–we did torture, and we shouldn’t) so I will instead shine my small but powerful flashlight on words we no longer choose [...]
The New York Times isn’t above reaching for hyperbolic language like a grocery store rag. I couldn’t help discovering–OK everything even remotely related to the West gets shot to my e-mail like a .44 caliber bullet so I can read these things greedily as if they were pulp novels, of which I have over three [...]
Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance. –General Philip Sheridan
Buffalo skulls, mid-1870s, waiting to be ground into fertilizer
Here’s a more recent quote:
“I am especially concerned,” [Governor Palin] said in a written statement in August 2007, when [...]
MAVERICK. Ask not how many times you can say a word, but why you need to say the word so many times in the first place.
“Maverick.” Thou shalt not repeat a word in the hopes that it sticks.
“Maverick” took on a pop culture tone in the 1950s with James Garner’s hat-pushed back, insouciant gambler. The [...]
Shoot from the Hip, copyright es 2008, based on Italian movie poster for A Fistful of Dollars
Everyone’s jumping on the presidential and vice presidential candidates: too cool, too hot-tempered, too much woman, too little man. And like a phantom, the Mythic Cowboy rides through before fading away into the mists of the collective unconscious.
Thomas Friedman, [...]