Glossary
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.
Margaret Thatcher
Years ago, I knew a man whose business was selling tools from his truck emblazoned with, “Every man needs a good tool.” I’m no mechanic, so I had no need for his wares. Instead, my toolbox is full of words.
Words are the tools we use to communicate with each other. We certainly use body language as well as tone and inflection of voice to convey nuanced meaning. Telling your spouse good morning with a smile and a lilting voice is different from the same words uttered with a scowl and a snarl.
I like words, but I doubt my English teachers would have thought so. Long ago, one was asked if she thought I’d ever amount to anything. She replied with a terse, “No.” I aver she was wrong.
My formal education was in the sciences, including a dozen post high school courses in chemistry. In my medical career, chemistry was important, but less so than communication and writing skills.
My informal education is ongoing, and along the way, I acquired a love of words. Factoid alert – the word for self-taught education is autodidacticism, utilized by Abraham Lincoln and many others. This is not a word in many toolboxes, including my own!
You may find it strange, but sometimes words just pop into my mind from I don’t know where. Undoubtedly, I’ve heard a word somewhere, and then something triggers my memory. Perhaps it’s because I have more time for reflection in retirement.
But why did the word mountebank pop into my mind the other day? I think I first heard the word years ago in a Saturday Night Live skit, where the Sean Connery character called faux “Alex Trebek” (Will Ferrell) a mountebank, which is a flamboyant charlatan.
In my new avocation as a novelist and columnist, I have become a stickler for definitions. If we can’t agree on the meaning of a word or appropriate use of the word, how can we exchange ideas?
Mr. Webster defines glossary as “a collection of words or terms in a specialized domain with their meanings.” Examples might be the artistic words akimbo and contrapposto. Akimbo is standing with hands on the hips like your mother preparing to scold you. Contrapposto is demonstrated by Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of David, where one leg is engaged and weight-bearing and the other is not, imparting a relaxed pose.
There are more words in English than in any other language. An estimate is a million, but the actual number is variable as words come and go in our lexicon (vocabulary). Mountebank is considered old-fashioned, whereas kiss cam is now a 2025 “Word of the Year.”
English borrows words from many languages. We’ve even appropriated the French term mot juste, meaning the perfect word. I love finding the perfect word to convey a thought or feeling. An example is susurrus, which is a soft whispering, like the sound of wind moving through pine trees.
If you are reading this essay, it is Thanksgiving and most Americans would be able to define the term. But would most be able to define socialism, a term much bandied these days? Do you think Jasmine Crockett or AOC could explain that socialism is an economic and social philosophy where all means of production and distribution of goods is owned collectively – instead of privately – and managed by a centralized government? I wonder if Jasmine and Sandy from Long Island know that the Nazis were the National Socialist Party of Germany? I suspect that Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani understand that the “goal of socialism is communism,” according to Vladimir Lenin.
Communism was envisioned by Karl Marx and was based on class warfare between workers and owners/capitalists. It promises a workers’ paradise without private property, where a central government with a ruling class directs all means of production. It famously iterates, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Comrade Zohran has used this rhetoric. Interestingly, class warfare has expanded beyond economics and now uses racial and sexual class division.
Continuing our glossary of terms, capitalism is an economic system of private – or corporate – ownership of capital (assets) where production, pricing and distribution of goods are determined by free market competition. Despite what you may have heard, capitalism is the engine of prosperity and has raised more people out of poverty than any other system.
I’m not hearing much from progressives these days. Have they been overrun by the radical socialists? The progressive movement began in the late 1800s as opposition to communism and the abuses of the Industrial Revolution. Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were progressives as was FDR. However, American entry into WWI, implementation of the income tax and prohibition were so unpopular that progressives were beginning to lose elections, so they changed their name.
Instead of appropriating the classical liberalism moniker of the Founders, they euphemistically rebranded themselves as “modern” liberals, later dropping the modern modifier. Classical liberalism favors free markets, limited government, civil liberties, private property and equality under law. Progressives, aka liberals, promote the opposite.
A portmanteau is a blending of two separate words. Examples are motel from motor and hotel, and brunch from breakfast and lunch. I’m not sure you can blend Democrat and Socialist as a portmanteau or even link the words with a hyphen because the two concepts are non sequitur (don’t fit). This radical movement is riding the coattails of the Democratic name, while the socialist/communist aspects are supplanting the old party. The word democrat derives from the Greek words demos (people) and kratia (rule). The Democratic Socialists are anything but their implied name; they are ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing.
We live in dangerous times and part of this is the result of poor education. Philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember [or are not taught] the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Revolution can be rapid and violent, as in the Russian Revolution or Cuba. Instead, communist Antonio Gramsci advocated a slow march through educational institutions with socialist/communist ideology. It seems to be working with younglings, even among the Congressional “seditious” six.
