After hours of trying to figure out what to write about, this was inspired by a sound byte I heard on the TV at 10:00 tonight. Yeah. Thank goodness.
Today’s Word:
sophistry
As in:
Each year, the holiday season brings out controversy, as cities create festive displays for the season. The difficulty, in planning these displays, is that of separating the decorations from any indication of support for any specific religion.
One small town, short on revenue, but with an existing supply of “controversial” decorations, had a plan. They decided to use a bit of sophistry to describe their ornaments without the “religious baggage.”
Town representative Aaron Keene, began by insisting the small collection of Menorahs, were not Menorahs, but, rather, simply “candelabras.” Angels were to be known as “winged humans,” Christmas trees were referred to as “green gift umbrellas,” and the nativity scene was repositioned as a “statement on the condition of the homeless” or, “victims of the foreclosure crisis.”
While rarely considered a religious icon, (despite his name) to make the holiday icon makeover complete, representations of the fat man in the red suit were referred to as “Annual Gift Guy.”
If the plan works, Keene plans to continue the program for all holidays. Decorations for the Easter holiday would simply be “spring” decorations. Anything that resembled a cross, was really the letter “t,” which was now stood for “terrific.”
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True, I’ve not ever seen a city decorate for Easter, and I’m sure that if they did, there wouldn’t even be a hint of a cross, but, I was amused by the idea of someone trying to pass a cross off as a “t.”
sophistry / SAF – is – tree / deceptively subtle reasoning or argumentation, an argument used to deceive