August 4, 2018 – The context of a word - oligarch
I
subscribe to a Word of the Day email from Merriam-Webster and I find it
entertaining and useful. However, when the
word Risorgimento, a noun, arrived in
my mailbox a day or two ago, I paused and read the definition a few times and
decided I would probably never use it in my life time. If I actually hear it used in conversation or
read it somewhere, I will look up the definition again to refresh my
memory. But, I purposely did not send it
to brain storage.
But,
what caught my attention was the “Trending words” section. Oligarch, pejorative, emoluments,
exculpatory, etc., words used in current newscasts that people are looking up.
It
is always fun to see how much of a percentage higher the lookups are on those
trending words. It gives me an
understanding of how I match up to other inquisitive minds that look up the meaning
of words. I often know what these words
are, or they are vague to me and I like to review the definitions to cement the
meaning of them for my future comprehension.
When
the word insubordinate came in at
15,000% more than normal, I had to shake my head in disbelief. In my opinion, everyone should already know
what that word means especially if you have been in business and question the thought
process of upper management. The phrase, “Are you being insubordinate asking a
question like that?” pops into my head from experience.
Then, I noticed abhorrent at 12,000% and that surprised
me even more. Hasn’t that word been used
to describe every war in the last century?
On
the other hand, I am comforted by only 1500% lookups on socialism – but that might be a false comfort. Maybe during the Bernie Sander’s run for
President it was a higher percentage. I personally
hope people know what a socialist is before they vote for socialism.
Just
for fun, I have listed several other trending words and their lookup
percentage.
pejorative
2800%
oligarch 6000%
emoluments 9100%
exculpatory 8200%
socialism 1500%
ideologue 6700%
epochal 6500%
clemency 5800%
upholds 23,000%
insubordinate 15,000%
abhorrent 12,000%
promulgated 2000%
Then,
reading this morning’s small town newspaper, The Daily Courier, they had
a guest column by Michael Jacobs, a
community columnist, CEO of Jacobs Capital and on the faculty of UNC’s
Kenan-Flagler Business School, on the editorial page entitled: Tech
companies should pay us for using our secrets and discussing the Tech companies
in Silicon Valley. I noticed the following:
“Tech company oligarchs have built their empires by
capturing and exploiting the average person’s personal, private information, often
without their knowledge or explicit consent.
And certainly, without paying for it.” [my italics]
According
to Merriam-Webster dictionary, oligarch means “a member or supporter of a
government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and
selfish purposes.”
Another dictionary
program lists it as:
1.
A ruler in an oligarchy.
2. [especially in
Russia] a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence.
[not my brackets]
And, Wikipedia explains
it as: meaning ‘to rule or to command’ is a form of power structure in which
power rests with a small number of people.
And, then “Russian
oligarch” is described by Wikipedia as:
“The Russian
oligarchs (see the related term “New Russians”) are business oligarchs of the
former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth during the era of
Russian privatization in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in the 1990s.”
And Russian
privatization is described as:
Privatization in Russia describes the series of
post-Soviet reforms
that resulted in large-scale privatization of Russia's state-owned assets, particularly in the
industrial, energy, and financial sectors. Most privatization took place in the
early and mid-1990s under Boris Yeltsin,
who assumed the presidency following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Private
ownership of enterprises and property had essentially remained illegal
throughout the Soviet era, with Soviet communism emphasizing
national control over all means of production but human labor.[1] Under
the Soviet Union, the number of state enterprises was estimated at 45,000.[2]
In
the later years of the Soviet Union, Mikhail
Gorbachev relaxed restrictions on private property and
introduced initial market reforms. Privatization shifted Russia from the
Soviet planned economy towards a market economy,
and resulted in a dramatic rise in the level of economic inequality and a collapse in GDP
and industrial output.[3]
Privatization
facilitated the transfer of significant wealth to a relatively small group
of business oligarchs and New Russians,
particularly natural gas and oil executives.[4] This
economic transition has been described as katastroika[5] and
as "the most cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial
country in history".[6]
Above insert from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Russia
Why
am I bringing this up? If you don’t know
what a single word is, like oligarch, I suggest you research it. You may not be getting the real picture or
real understanding of what is being discussed in the news. We, the voting public, need to be more
informed than in the past with the 24/7 news we are inundated with.
NOTE: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day
