Watch Those Suffixes!

I don’t mind an occasional suffix now and then, but man! . . . .am I ever tired of all the "-isms" and "-ists" that have been tossed around in this election!

You’ve got your ageism, sexism, racism. And then there’s liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism. You’ve got socialism, capitalism, communism, Marxism and fascism.

How about that terrorism!

And, of course, who can forget anti-Americanism!

-ism! -ism! -ism! The politicians have turned it into a terrible-sounding suffix.
They’ve made it sound threatening, like a bee flying into your ear. You feel like batting your hand against your head to get the damn thing out before it stings you.

And, yes, they’ve made the "ist" suffix sound equally bad, like the hissing of a snake. Isssssssssssssssssst!

Clearly, if politicians want to attack an opponent, they just need to hit him with some sort of an "-ist" word. He’s an elitist or a socialist, a Marxist or maybe a fascist.

Even knowing an "-ist" makes you an "-ist" by association. "Palling around with a terrorist" puts an "-ist" on you, too.

Doesn’t matter whether the charge is true, of even if the term is correctly applied--and it seldom is. Simply being called an "-ist" alone does the trick. It simply sounds bad, not something anybody would want to be. And once you’re labeled an "-ist" it’s hard to brush off.

(It’s a weird reversal. The person who is labeled is expected to refute the label. In all fairness, the person applying the label is the one who should have the serious explaining to do. Tossing labels around is a linguistic injustice that should not be tolerated!)

Whew!

Let’s all take a break and back off the "-ism" and "-ist" suffixes for a while. They amount to nothing more than name calling and don’t allow for the kind of debate that is crucial right now. It doesn’t do any good to label a policy as fascism or socialism. Those labels obscure more than they reveal. We need to understand the components of a policy, accept it or reject it on its merits, and not be distracted by the loaded label an opponent may want to apply to it.

Things aren’t going too well for the country right now. People need to communicate their ideas and philosophies with clear, plain language that foregoes the "ist" and "ism" words that do more to block communication than to enable it.

Come on, people; take it easy on the "-ist" and "-ism" suffixes!