THE CANADIANS HAVE A WORD FOR IT
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Distressed by this gap in English vocabulary, Arthur Black, host of the Basic Black show on Canada’s CBC radio network, recently teamed up with this column to challenge his listeners to invent a gender-neutral term. They responded big time. Proposed terms included moo unit (“Can be sung to the tune of ‘Moon River,’ writes Catherine Ryle), moo, moovine, cudder camoo (for the existentialist crowd), dumal (Dumbest Ugly Mammal Afoot in the Land, “which might be confusing because it could apply to so many people we know,” writes Michael Nitsch), moocat, Bovis and Beefhead (inevitable, I suppose), cattluno, isobeef, cobul, enivob (bovine spelled backward), boeuf (popular in Quebec), moobovver, land whale (“Will add a degree of romance to an increasingly bland vocabulary. ‘He looked at a field of cattle’ can become ‘He gazed at the herd of land whales roaming majestically through the sea of grass,’” writes James Parker. Thank you, James), steakosaurus, mootle, bovone, medmuffmak (short for “meadow muffin maker”), and thousands–OK, dozens–more.
Not having a name, when relating a story,
(This requires Cecil’s non-Canadian readers to know that the Tories lost huge in the recent elections. But come on, you have to read the footnotes to understand Shakespeare too.)
Excuse me? Hitler ran for president of Germany in the elections of March 13 and April 10, 1932, losing to Hindenburg. On January 30, 1933, Hindenburg, not the Reichstag, appointed Hitler chancellor. I did err in saying Hitler had been elected, but the Nazi-led coalition did achieve a majority in the Reichstag and Hitler placed great stock in achieving power legally in a nominally democratic state. Thus my point that democracy is not necessarily proof against warmongerers.
