Twistians

The Oxford English Dictionary has 20 volumes and over 300,000 entries.  According to Max Davidson in the Canadian National Post, a committee looks at thousands of possibilities and approves new entries four times a year.

Fiona McPherson, a Senior Editor at Oxford, notes "words have to pass a few basic tests before they can be deemed to have entered the language.  They have to have been around a reasonable amount of time and be in common use."

Recent rejects include:

Blogish  A variety of English that uses a large number of initialisms (think texting).

Earworm  A catchy tune that gets stuck in your head.

Fumb  Your big toe.

Nonversation  A pointless chat.

Here's one they didn't review:

Twistian  (twis'chen) n.  1.  One who manipulates Christianity to justify un-Christian personal, political or cultural biases.  2.  A person or publication that reports stories about twistians (see 1.) without challenging the veracity of their claims.  3.  A person or publication that selectively reports information putting Christianity in a poor light while downplaying other aspects of a story that would provide a balanced account.

Last week's aborted Quran burning is loaded with twistianity.  Pastor Terry Jones is virulently anti-Islamic, which is his right.  But it's not right to use his church as a platform to throw gasoline on a cultural fire.  Loving your enemies and practicing the Golden Rule are elemental Christian ideals ignored by Mr. Jones.  The National Baptist Convention's Julius Scruggs, the Vatican and most other Christians condemned his event, but he didn't call it off until he received world-wide coverage and got interviewed on the Today Show.

Jones could have burned the books as a private citizen, but that wouldn't have gotten as much attention.  Instead, he exploited a faith of peace by inflaming passions, endangering soldiers and enabling the media to present a jaundiced view of Christians.  He touched a nerve in people who've been absorbing Islamic taunts for years but failed to convey a cogent message while he and the Christian faith were pilloried.

Columnist Mona Charen observed, "(Jones) became news because he fulfilled a need for the press.  They had to have another side to the ground zero mosque story.  Why?  Because members of the press are total suckers for "both sidesism."  There is nothing they like better in a news story than to present two conflicting views and to announce that "both sides" are guilty of provocation, mistrust, violence or bad faith."

Charen notes, "A significant minority of Muslims is on a hair trigger for violence and murder.  Everyone knows this."  The media's effort to cast a misguided book burner as emblematic of a Christian faith that's the equally culpable "other side" of a conflict with Islam is truly twisted.

It was a perfect storm:  a twistian preacher and an even more twistian media.

"Twistian" isn't in the dictionary since I just made it up.  But it should be:  there are plenty of twistians out there, especially professional ones in the press.

To Comment
If "Post a Comment" box appears below, (1) write comment in box, (2) in "Comment as" select Name/URL and enter first name OR select "Anonymous, (3) click "Continue, (4) click "Post Comment"

If "Post a Comment" box isn't shown, click on "Comments," scroll down and complete above steps.

Be a Fan