Day: June 7, 2016
Demagogue:what does it mean?
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Merriam Webster { link at the bottom of the page]
Demagogue
The word means “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power”
Lookups for demagogue increased 9,000% over the hourly average after Stephen Hawking, one of the most famous scientists in the world, stated that he was unable to explain Trump’s success in the Republican presidential primaries:
I can’t. He is a demagogue, who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Abraham Bosse’s frontispiece to the book Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. Published in 1651, the book argues for an absolute monarch and a system in which people trade liberty for safety.
Demagogue means “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.” It comes from the Greek word meaning “popular leader” and originally had the positive connotation of “a leader in ancient times who championed the cause of the common people.” The first known use of the word in English comes from the introduction to Thomas Hobbes’s 1629 translation of a text by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides:
It need not be doubted, but from such a Master, Thucydides was sufficiently qualified, to have become a great Demagogue, and of great authority with the People.
Hobbes wrote Leviathan a few years later in 1651, in which he argued for the merits of absolute political power held by a monarch and against the separation of church and state. Demagogue took on the negative meaning of “a leader who seeks to gain power by exploiting popular prejudices and making false or extravagant claims and promises” very soon after it was introduced in English in the mid-1600s.
This isn’t the first time that the word demagogue has been used in reference to Donald Trump. Back in July, both Lindsay Graham and Rick Perry used the related word demagoguery to refer to Trump’s ideas.
Trend Watch tracks popular lookups to see what people are talking about. You can always see all Trend Watch articles here.
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I stole her sturdy wings
The sun is shining brightly
Shall I sit by the pool?
No,I always live my life by
Rigid personal rules.
Last week’s unruly weather
Let rain fell down in spools
I might have had the heating on;
Oh,those rigid personal rules.
Wear a dress from Mayday
Wear coats when winter’s cool
Only wash your hair on weekends
That’s a personal rigid rule
But,Ma ,my hair is oily
The girls all point in school.
Don’t be such a cry baby
Don’t be such a fool.
Ma,I’ve done my homework
I’m top of all my year!
Can I have an hour alone?
She thwacked me on the ear.
I was her little puppet
And she controlled my strings
Till I caught my Guardian angel
And I stole her sturdy wings.
Well,Ma died half my life away
But she is now a ghoul
Watching me so patiently
With her chart of rigid rules.
She didn’t leave me no money
She didn’t leave me no jewels.
She just left me a message
All my rules are yours.
I cried ,Holy Moses
She is worse than God
She made rules for everything
From love to boiling cod.
Don’t bath when you’ve your period
Don’t let your brothers see
You are now a woman
But you’re still under me
I think I’ll leave those rules behind
And if it makes me fear
God will send a devil round,
I’ll hit him with this spear.
Flexible our bodies
Flexible our minds
We must climb the mountain
And leave those rules behind.
Following personal rules
Can make us feel secure
But our vocation calls to us
And cares not if we’re pure.
Steal and purloin all you need
From books and people too.
Follow your own calling
While you share our human zoo.
And share your learning freely
Give as well as take
Oh,my Lord ,I see some men
Carrying a stake.
They are going to burn my body
But they can’t touch my soul
Wrap me well in flax, my dear.
In heaven ,I’ll be whole
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How median,how average?
Stan was just about to begin his talk on “Averages” when a clap of thunder frightened the old folk who were waiting to listen to him, while eating their first slices of marmalade cake which his dear wife Mary had baked and iced with orange icing
That was loud,cried Minnie Muddle from the next street.I hate thunder.Her white face did look very pale especially as she used to use Blusher in Pale Orange.However ,she couldn’t afford it anymore
I like it,Stan remarked,but Emile is nervous.And there was Emile inside the big wicker waste paper basket with his amber eyes gleaming anxiously and his tongue licking his dry lips.
Well,said Stan,the word “average” has different meanings in different situations.
In ordinary language it usually means typical. However in statistics which analyses data it is used as a way of describing the “centre” or” center”of the data.
There is more than one way of doing this.
If we are asked the average wage in the UK and told it is £26,500 what does it mean?
Does it mean nearly every body gets that?
Well.I don’t called, his neighbour,John as he re-arranged his tartan kilt over his knobbly red knees.
This is based on people in work,Stan replied kindly.
It is called the median which is that figure such that 50% get less than this and 50% get more.I can’t recall where the folk who get exactly that are placed.So 50% of people in work get less than £26,500.Some on the lowest wages get only about £11,000. and even less if they are part-time or on zero hour contracts.
And ,of course , we know bankers and rock-stars get millions some years.So it’s not telling us much about the spread or range of wages.How far they differ or deviate.We can measure that but it is based on the mean wage.We get that by adding up all the wages and dividing by the number of workers.
The mean is usually higher as it is pulled up the the million-pound earners.In London wages are higher
Example:
GLA Household Income Estimates
In July 2015, the GLA published an update to the Household Income estimates. This data covers a range of geographies from Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) to UK regions. The full dataset can be downloaded from the London Datastore.
The median household income for London in 2013/13 was £39,100, while the mean income was £51,770.
That’s enough for one day,Stan,whispered Annie.She was looking very glamorous in her red knit dress and purple tights which matched her eyeshadow – she had got that in Harrods.It was called.Purple Princess.The only problem was it was hard to remove and the matching cleanser cost £40.As she was on only a quarter of the median income in the UK she could not afford it so she had to keep wearing this colour regardless…. unless perchance she did some shop-lifting which is, of course ,a crime.As Annie had killed her own husband and got away with it,no doubt stealing Eye Make Up Remover was pretty low on her list of sins or crimes.
Some crimes are sins but some are not.such as stealing food for your baby if you can’t afford to buy it.However eyes shadow is not essential to life even for a woman like Annie.
Stan boiled the big kettle and made the tea while Annie cut up the remaining marmalade cake and passed it round. to all the merry pensioners staring at the Blackboard somewhat tentatively.
What about pensions,asked John plaintively.What is the average there?
I think we’ll wait for a few days before we tackle that or you can google it and see what you find.The State Pension is about £6,600 per annum but many people also have a pension from their jobs too.That is really important if you can get it.
I don’t know how people live on the State Pension, Minnie cried.I suppose they eat tripe and oxtail and such things.Or steal from the waste bins of their neighbours.
What exactly is tripe? her friend Joan enquires tactfully;her blue eyes full of tears..
I think it’s the lining from the cow’s stomach or intestines,Annie cried.
No wonder people go to McDonald’s.It might be a cheap cut but we don’t know.
Annie jumped up to turn on the fan heater and knocked over Stan who was sitting by her.He fell over and his chair broke in half.
That chair must have been listening to your talk,chortled John swinging his kilt humorously.Fortunately, he was wearing some green underpants and a half slip in silk beige.
Ring 999.Stan called.We need help from Dave.Emile was very pleased because he preferred chatting to Dave to listening to Stan’s lectures.As does the average person in the UK,so I guess.And so will all of us
How my heart sings 