As schools talk about stopping “bullying,” I’ve been thinking lately how this word is a metaphor for people acting as arbitrarily aggressive as bulls — male cattle — act. Not all bulls are mean — some are quite docile — and so I’m not sure it’s fair to ascribe human aggression to members of the genus Bos. Could we call it “humanying,” as in “Billy, stop taunting Joe. Don’t be a humany.”? Somehow “horsing around” or “monkeying around” don’t have quite the negative connotation, though no one wants to be called a “pig.”
-
Recent Posts
Top Posts & Pages
- Six things I learned about Dunkirk, N.Y.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates's 'Between the World and Me'
- About
- 1840 Survey of Flagg Township, Ogle County, Illinois
- Links
- Literary links: 'The Red Wheelbarrow,' and a definition of postmodern novel
- 1872 Rochelle map
- Art happens now, so write anew today as you are today: How to write creatively (2020 edition)
Archives
Categories
- 'Teachings' books
- Comic silliness
- Fiction
- Flagg Township
- From the journals
- From the pocket pages
- Gratuitous self-promotion
- Hagemann family
- Illinois
- Image and idea
- Links
- Music
- Nonfiction
- ogle county
- ogle county history
- Ogle County Poet Laureate
- Philosophy
- Photos
- Poems
- Rochelle
- Teaching
- Teaching writing
- Thought of the Day
- Transcribed from life
- Uncategorized
- Visual art
- Writing
Meta