Wednesday, May 19, 2021

The Baby Shark Complex----At Its Worst

     With all the instructional tools at our disposal, why has the English language taken such a hit. Remember when children were taught the correct names for animals and their young. Forget that. The Media panders to sentimentality and chooses to  refer to the young of the species as babies. A major television channel just carried the story and picture of a firefighter emerging from a fire ravaged area and holding in his arms a "baby deer" which he had rescued. Fawn would have been the term back in the old days. A while ago, a different sort of feel-good rescue story involved a "baby cow." It seems that any dog that is lost or missing is called a "puppy."  Poor pitiable thing.

 And that doesn't even rise to the level of abhorrency as does the now sadly familiar term "fur babies." Even grammatically, that is an ill conceived term. If modifying baby, the adjective would be furry. Is there a distinction between  short haired dogs or cats and the long haired breeds, or do they all deserve the term? Why not return to calling things what they are. Why resort to the virtue signaling of what goodness lies within us. 

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