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Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Funny Word

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We have some funny words in our language. Well, it's more how they are used that makes them laughable. For example, as I watch TV last night, the latest election results kept interrupting otherwise good shows. Then one of the talking heads made the comment that voters had enfranchised a certain city with the right to take more of everyone's money for the construction of a statue of some hometown hero who died a couple of centuries ago.

I looked up en⋅fran⋅chise. One definition is "to endow a city, constituency, etc. with municipal or parliamentary rights." Ok, so far, so good. Part two of the definition is "to set free; liberate, as from slavery."

The last time I checked, slavery meant working hard only to surrender the fruits of your labor to someone else. So, a majority of the voters managed to enfranchise their government while disenfranchising the rest of their fellow citizens. Sadly, this happened in America. And to think we're worried about the Taliban taking our freedoms away...

1 comment:

Online Printing Company said...

Wow... I thought this was supposed to be a funny word. It just made me feel depressed. Oh well... life is a big irony anyway. :D