More From the Woke Dictionary

This continues the short satirical glossary, lexicon, or devil’s dictionary, explanatory of some recently familiar words. Find part one here.

Abortion. Cuts out the middle man – or woman.

Antifascist. See Fascist.

Attention Deficit Disorder. A common experience in restaurants, whereby one orders a meal, and then finds that the order has been forgotten, because the waiter has left the restaurant to continue his Ph.D., score some crack or glue himself to a Banksy painting.

Australia. A country in which every public speech has to be prefaced by placation of the Aboriginal Spirits, though a bottle of whisky usually does just as well.

Banksy. A conglomerate of right-wing artists employed by the Bank of England to divert the public with trumpery sentimental images stencil-painted on walls.

Bill Gates. The proposed name for the barrier (‘gates’) which will open if one presents one’s QR code with a certificate of vaccine health (‘bill’) so that one can receive one’s WEF/WHO/PRC-sponsored monthly feudalment of gluten-free crickets and 3D printed Mao suits.

Black Lives Matter. 1. A clever anti-racist slogan which is designed to confuse the enemy because no other race is allowed to echo or imitate or extend its meaning. 2. An organisation devoted to and benefiting financially from White Fragility.

Blackwash. If one has a controversial utterance to make, then, as Mick Jagger once sang, ‘Paint it black’, and it will be exempt from all criticism. Someone in Camb., Mass., 40 years ago: “We have to blackwash Harvard.”

Bloody Obvious. Not obvious to anyone born after 1990, possibly even 1980. The subject of every one of Jordan Peterson’s monologues.

Bullingdon Club. A club, recently closed down, for being too sedate and boring. Everyone left it to join Antifa, Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain, Just Stop Oil in order to have some really boisterous breaking glass and ballyhoo.

Butcoin. Cash. “We don’t accept cash here.” “But…“

Christianity. 1. If Jesus was white, then a patriarchal, repressive, punitive religion. 2. If Jesus was black, then Hallelujah! “Je suis Jesus.”

Colour-Blind Casting. The Green Goblin played by Red Buttons; Scarlett O’Hara played by Eva Green, etc.

Crap. Akin to clap. A response to music, specifically, a natural response to rap music. John Lennon: “Those in the cheap seats clap; those in the front seats rattle your jewellery; and after 1990, if I am still alive, you can all just leave a small tribute under your seats.” See Rap.

Cwitticisms. 1. A witticism which involves politically incorrect criticism. For instance, “Madam, I will be sober in the morning, but you will still be a man.” Or, “What kind of woman do you think I am?” “Well, I am not sure, but until we establish that, we can’t haggle over the price.” 2. What Jonathan Ross tries to avoid.

Deadnaming. 1. Speaking ill of the dead. “He wasn’t much of a man.” 2. Speaking ill of the alive. “He’s a man.”

Diversity-Equity-Inclusivity. Called ‘D.I.E.’ by Jordan Peterson, a rare instance of a joke from this distinguished intellectual.

Fascist. 1. Originally, an enthusiast for chastisement using traditional rod or axe. 2. Specifically, a twentieth-century socialist, nationalist, militarist and racist state-builder. 3. Generally, anyone. But see Antifascist.

Fatshaming. No longer an acceptable form of abuse. It has been proved that nutritional authorities in former decades were wrong to tell us that carbohydrates were good and fats were bad. Fatshaming was very common in the 1970s. It has now been replaced by carb-shaming, gluten-shaming and sugar-shaming.

Feel Good. Feel bad. But to have done what is necessary in order to comply with the requirements of the system as monitored by Human Resources Departments.

Feudalment. Akin to ‘allotment’, and with a learned reminiscence of the distinction between ‘allod’ and ‘feud’; an allocation which is heavily conditional on reciprocal performance by the citizen of certain public-minded actions, such as inserting the chip, saluting the flag, taking the knee, removing Joe Rogan from Spotify, etc.

Foucault, Michel. A Frenchman who proved David Starkey wrong in a San Francisco bathhouse in 1983.

France. A country desperately trying to hold onto the proposition that “all bad ideas come from David Starkey”.

-gate. A suffix added to any word to denote a minor political controversy.

-Gates. A suffix added to any word to denote a major political conspiracy. “Have you heard about partygates? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supplied the canapés.” “Have you heard about beergates? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation stood Keir Starmer a half of IPA.” See Bill Gates.

Gentrification. An attempt by the middle classes to keep one step ahead of immigrants. See Immigration. 

Global South, the. A fictional entity, dreamt of by elites who have never seen it. A useful rhetorical device to indicate not only care for the suffering but also equality with them, thus avoiding condescension while usually being quite condescending.

Gluten-free crickets. The staple food of the future.

Golden Fleece, the. The code name for the holy grail of all modern thought; the ultimate what-we-want; the telos or eschaton of all human activity. It is the world we modern argonauts arrive at when we perfectly harmonise our aspirations to achieve sustainability on the one hand and diversity-equity-inclusivity on the other. It is also, alas, impossible. See Oxymoron. But it is the protocol of the people really in charge, and their minions in Human Resources Departments. It is called ‘golden’ because it is so marvellous, and ‘fleece’ because it is a fraud.

Good Luck With That. A slogan invented by Jordan Peterson to describe almost any instantiation of woke precepts.

Great Reset. The policy of keeping everything absolutely the same but finally letting everyone know what is going on.

Greer, Germaine. 1. A feminist. 2. Not a feminist.

Growth. An imperative for any successful society that has ever existed; an unconscious imperative, hidden behind war, until the 17th century, and since the 17th century, a conscious imperative.

Hashtag. 1. A key no one can find on a computer. 2. A game enjoyed by a majority of children, in which the smallest child continually fails to catch anyone. 3. A word people say at random in front of pretty much anything in order to give it significance. The modern equivalent of the obsolete habits of using italics or winking.

Houellebecq, Michel. A Merovingian author, who wrongly predicted the outcome of the battle between Charles Martel and the Umayyads at the Battle of Tours in AD 732.

Human Resources Departments. Constructions designed by Franz Kafka, Heath Robinson and Ezekiel to keep us occupied and feel good about it. They perpetuate CPD, ESG, SDG and other acronyms, too exhausting to list by anyone who does not have to do so for professional reasons. See Feel Good.

Immigration. The regrettable movement of white working class people out of the slums and into nice middle class neighbourhoods. See Gentrification. Opposed by Nigel Farage, on account of his privileged Dulwich College education.

Insulate Britain. From insula, the Latin for island. The purpose of Insulate Britain is to keep Britain out of Europe. The movement was inaugurated by Dogger Man in prehistoric times, but its modern hero is General de Gaulle.

Intellectual Dark Web. A conspiracy of mild-mannered men stating what was bloody obvious at any time between 50,000 BC and 1950, but stating it now and therefore causing doomsday-glacier-scale extreme-weather events amongst the non-existent Far Left. Utterances such as “be responsible” are now fascist.

Islam. 1. A religion. Not to be confused with Islam sense 2. 2. Terrorism. 3. The future. Not to be confused with Islam sense 2, though it may resemble it a bit. See Hoeullebecq, Michel.

Iver Mectin. A songwriter who died in 1951 from a coronary thrombosis caused by taking an mRNA vaccine. Famous for the World War One song “Don’t Keep the Home Fires Burning”, now the anthem of Insulate Britain.

Je suis. A French phrase, indicating compliance and conformity. See Me Too.

Just Stop Oil. An unfortunate recent revival of Fatshaming.

Kwarteng, Kwasi. An insufficiently blackwashed politician. Chief Whip: “Damn it, no matter how much we wash them, we cannot remove the Eton Mess from Kwasi’s trousers.” See Blackwash.

LGBT community. Not a community.

Macmillan, Harold. The hero of the Great Reset. A master of hidden punctuation. “You’ve never had it. So: good!“

Mansplaining. A regrettable patriarchal habit whereby men attempt to express themselves. Often ‘mansplaining’ has the effect of annoying women so much that they end their relationships with the men, whereupon it is renamed ‘explaining’.

Me Too. An expression of contemporary entitlement. An impertinent way of asking to have as much sexual activity, licit or illicit, as movie moguls enjoyed from 1920 to 2010.

Moral Izzard. A condition in which one feels so protected by a liberal society that one has no fear about the risks of dressing up as a lord one day and a lady the next.

1963. The turning point of all history, between the Lady Chatterley trial and the Beatles’ first LP. A glimpse of the rest of all history: a world of J.F.K.s and David Frosts, rising without trace, dying without grace.

Oxymoron. 1. A contradiction in terms. E.g. ‘progressive conservative’, ‘settled science’, ‘sustainable development’, ‘Elliot Page’. 2. Someone who breathes in oxygen, breathes out carbon dioxide, and therefore contributes to anthropogenic global warming.

Pronoun. 2. In favour of nouns. Adopted by those who prefer being to doing. Contrast Proverb. 3. The equivalent of a proverb: that is, a sententious utterance made by someone in favour of pronouns. “To every thing there is a season: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to love and a time to hate, a time to be a him and a time to be a her.” “The proud will inherit the earth.”

Proverb. 1. In favour of verbs, not nouns. Adopted by those who prefer doing to being. See Pronoun. 2.A sententious utterance made by someone who is against pronouns. “Frowardness is in his/her heart, he/she deviseth mischief continually; he/she soweth discord.” “Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee.”

Racism. 1. The simple variant of the tendency of whites to feel superior to those of other colours, whereby they grind the faces of the blacks, etc. 2. The subtler, elite, variant of the tendency of whites to feel superior to those of other colours, whereby they flagellate themselves ostentatiously, take the knee, engage in positive discrimination, admit their unconscious bias, and feel cleansed and elevated by such an elaborate set of purification rituals. Robert Clive: “You know, my dear Hastings, no damned darkie in the entire subcontinent could ever feel as good as I do after a good whipping by Ms. DiAngelo.”

Rap. Music designed to loosen one’s bowels through the impact of relentless low frequency noises and hectoring vocalisations. See Crap. Music oddly spared the requirement to be tasteful, politically correct, woke etc. See Racism 2, also Blackwash.

Roe V. Wade. A tennis player. The sister of Virginia Wade. After Virginia won Wimbledon in 1977, her sister Roe, not to be outdone, transitioned into a man, promptly became the 10,000th best tennis player in the world, and was never heard of again.

Rowling, J.K. The unacknowledged author of the book, Hermione Strikes Back, an exciting novel wherein Harry Potter and his friends fight a prejudiced elderly crone called Rowldemort, and shout “Terfiamus” and “Wingardium Cancelara” a lot.

Safe Space. Beyond the Oort Cloud, a region in which no one ever says anything controversial.

Safe Spice. A new sort of chilli pepper which has been stripped of all its capsicum so it adds no heat to food. Nigella Lawson: “Its perfect with gluten-free crickets.”

Serf and Terf. A woman who is forced to clean mixed-gender toilets, while being wholly opposed to them.

Sife Spice. A safe space in Australia.

Slavery. 1. An interesting status in which one has forfeited one’s life so it belongs to someone else. By extension, any status which is not that of perfect freedom: and since perfect freedom does not exist, any status. “Slavery is on a spectrum.” “Everyone is a slave of something.” 2. A regrettable episode whereby natives of East Africa were sold by other natives of East Africa to Europeans who transported them across the Atlantic and sold them to other Europeans. Entirely the responsibility of Edward Colston, Cambridge University, Al Jolson and Aristotle. 

Starmer, Keir. A statesman of the future. Thought to have been designed by Elon Musk. An early prototype, not able to drink beer easily.

Sustainability. Ostensibly, the inclination to keep a society in the same condition. More ambitiously, the attempt to slim down a society, i.e., fatshaming for everyone. Actually, the hypocritical attempt to ‘grow the economy’ while pretending not to do so. See Sustainwash.

Sustainable Development. In music, ‘sustainable development’ is found when the second theme of a sonata is a single note maintained monotonously and perpetually. (Tickets available every evening for those who bring their QR codes to the ‘bill gates’ at the Albert Hall.) See oxymoron.

Sustainwash. To decorate the countryside with wind turbines and to force everyone to ‘reduce carbon emissions’ while buying oil from Saudi Arabia, gas from Russia, plastic toys from China. See hypocrisy.

Taking the piss. Rather like taking the knee, a ritual of self-abasement carried out by someone so extravagantly wealthy or privileged that the cause is fatally undermined by the hypocrisy involved. “Prince Harry took the piss today when he arrived at COP-26.”

TERF. What Margaret Court won all her Grand Slams on. Since Billie Jean King refused to play on ‘terf’, Margaret Court was unopposed in every final between 1891 and 1971 and therefore won an unacceptably large set of tennis trophies.

Thompson, Emma. A gluten-free misery-laden grey old lady.

Useful Idiot. You.

White Fragility. A fragrance manufactured by Robin DiAngelo. Makes white women behave extremely uneasily in public; however, also makes them smell quite virtuous.

Wind Turbines. Our equivalent of Easter Island statues. Hominids in the future: “What the devil were these for?”

Woman. 1. Before, a creature of whom it was said by Otto Weininger, early in the 20th century, that it was the only thing in the universe which would never be understood, because man could not understand it, and it was incapable of understanding itself. 2. Now, a creature that is the only thing in the universe which will never be defined. See Starmer, Keir. (But at least, contra Weininger, it will be understood, now that men can transition into women, ask themselves what they are, and answer in a brisk, helpful, mansplaining manner.)

World War Three. 1. Superficially, what will start next week. 2. Actually, something taking place as we speak, the battle between those on the side of Kanye West and those on the side of the Global South.

Yoga. An exercise designed to help one overcome the loosening of the bowels caused by rap, vaccines, and gluten-free crickets.

Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.