Tonights special: apologist apoplexy du rjung

Scylla · May 17, 2006, 3:27am

There are some words that I like, and that I like to use. This though…

Does “one trick pony” make a fair description. May one suggest expanding the vocabularly? Is it strictly necessary to call people this one name so many many many times?

Is your record skipping, something broken, rjung?

may I suggest:

adherent
advocate
ally
angel
backbone
backer
benefactor
champion
co-worker
cohort
comforter
confederate
defender
devil’s advocate
disciple
endorser
espouser
exponent
expounder
fan
follower
friend
henchman
mainstay
maintainer
meal ticket
partisan
patron
patroness
pillar
preserver
prop
proponent
satellite
second
seconder
sponsor
stalwart
stay
subscriber
supporter
sustainer
upholder
well-wisher

I stole the list shamelessly from here: http://thesaurus.reference.com/

You may wish to visit.

Perhaps you should think about using some of these other words instead. Better yet, why don’t you give the incessant and obsessive and childish practice of having to call everybody who disagrees with you a name?

It’s time to both grow up and choose a new word of the day.

Colibri · May 17, 2006, 4:11am

So what, do you want an apology?

EddyTeddyFreddy · May 17, 2006, 4:12am

:: folds arms, taps foot, glares over rimless glasses ::

Don’t you have anything better to do with your time, young man?

samclem · May 17, 2006, 4:16am

Let me guess–you have access to the NSA phone record data program and this is what you came up with? Patterns, it’s all in the patterns.

Palooka · May 17, 2006, 4:21am

Like… isn’t “apologist” the term of what they’re doing and those other words aren’t. I mean, pitting a guy for using the term seems, you know, dumb.

EllisDee · May 17, 2006, 4:25am

Holy shit, you spent way too much time for something so petty and lame. But your long list of substitutes for the most part fail to convey the derogatory tone of “apologist”, so most of them are unsuitable. A quick pruning leaves me with:

And even those don’t quite get the essence right. I’d offer:

lapdog
lobbyist
PR machine
revisionist
spin doctor
sycophant

EllisDee · May 17, 2006, 4:30am

Also, I call bullshit on this. The last link is from June, 2005. That’s almost a full year ago. Remove all the links from older than a month ago before you start claiming this is all “recent” one-trick ponyism.

Malodorous · May 17, 2006, 4:56am

The OP said “more recent” which I took to mean that it didn’t go all the way back to the beginning of rjung’s membership (in 2000 apparently). I don’t think “recent” has a definate definition of “less then a month ago” as you seem to imply.

Other then that, I’m not even clear on what the OP is pitting. rjung uses the word apologist as a title for a certain group of people (notice in almost every case the word is immedietly preceded by the word “Bush”, or if not something similar like administartion or neoconservative), the same way people use the word Liberal or Consevative. No doubt Liberal and Conservative have a bunch of synonymns as well, but by sticking with the same word to refer to the same (admitedly rather vague) groups of people we make it more clear what we mean. Likewise rjung uses “Bush apologist” as a more or less proper noun to refer to what he precives as a group of people who mindlessly make excuses for the failings of the current administration.

You may disagree with him about the existance of such a group, but I’d say right or wrong what he’s doing is a pretty common and valid rhetorical technique and wouldn’t work if he kept using different synonymns for the group he is refering to.

Monstre · May 17, 2006, 4:58am

To pick a nit, Scylla didn’t actually claim it was “recent one-trick ponyism”, just that it was “one-trick ponyism” – and provided the more recent examples located by Search, as opposed to the oldest ones, appearing at the end of the search list. It does appear that at 9 of those links are since April 2006. And the rest show a consistent theme throughout the year.

YMMV, but it seemed to me that the actual point of the OP was less the specific word, and more this:

Otto · May 17, 2006, 5:05am

“Apologist” is easier to type than “simpering lying rat-bastard Administration hack suckjobs.”

Which is why I set up a macro.

Orbifold · May 17, 2006, 5:06am

Scylla’s ongoing attempts to act as a stalwart proponent of mature behaviour continue to be amusing.

askeptic · May 17, 2006, 5:21am

Boy Scylla, I thought your prose was sophmoric and pedantic, but your criticism is worse. Lame pitting.

Frank · May 17, 2006, 5:33am

This is at least the third time since I have been a member here that I have asked: since when is “apologist” derogatory? It is a perfectly good word, that serves a perfectly good purpose.

My pruning would leave:

advocate
champion
exponent
expounder
upholder

EllisDee · May 17, 2006, 6:18am

Hey, learned my something new for the day. I learned the word from context, as opposed to the formal definition. (Which apparently boils down to the idea of “systematic justification.”)

The problem is that “apologist” has too much “apology” in it. Similar to how “niggardly” may also be just as good a word, and yet fail to convey its meaning properly due to its construction. Also, if Scylla doesn’t find it derogatory, I am utterly baffled as to the point of this pitting.

I’m still not completely sold on “recent” applying to a year ago, but if one were to accuse Bush of something he’d been doing consistently since 2000, and cited everything in the past year as recent examples, that would make sense. In context it’s not as bad as I thought. It still annoys me to characterize message board posts from a year ago as “recent” behavior, but maybe that’s just me.

Giraffe · May 17, 2006, 6:36am

Look, anyone can come up with 56 examples of something. If you want to prove your case, we’re going to need something a little more substantive.

Like 60 examples. Maybe 65.

Malacandra · May 17, 2006, 8:03am

“Niggardly” used to be perfectly OK; I can’t understand why it’s been denigrated.

roger_thornhill · May 17, 2006, 8:48am

In don’t think it’s quite as black and white as you’re seeing it.

Malacandra · May 17, 2006, 10:50am

Sorry. Black mark to me.

Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus · May 17, 2006, 10:57am

This makes me sad.

MrDibble · May 17, 2006, 11:16am

I think it’s just the meaning misunderstanding that’s coloured folks’ perception of it.

Oh, and to the OP - the word “apologist” has a specific meaning, and as used by the pittee, there’s no problem with that. Would you prefer “Bushistas”?

Essentially, you’re (stupidly, IMO) pitting him for being repetitive in his word choice*, not for being a one-trick pony. The two are not the same thing.

*ironic, given my recent pitting-Lite of Lissa. But I apologised for that one. Let’s see if Scylla does the same…

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Tonights special: apologist apoplexy du rjung

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