It Matters

Lori and I were somewhere the other day and she saw a billboard just like this one:











And she said to me, "Do they have ANY idea what that means? Really, who wants the red shirt treatment?"


Now, Lori's not a trekkie, but she's been around me enough to know what a redshirt is. Here's a video that pretty much sums it up:









So, I was thinking. Do they REALLY have any idea what they were saying? Redshirt isn't just a Star Trek thing, either:


Here's a listing from wikipedia (okay, not exactly a high credibility source, but you're reading a blog after all...)

Redshirt or Red Shirt may refer to:
Redshirt (college sports), a term referring to delaying a college athlete's participation in order to lengthen eligibility

Redshirt (character), a stock "cannon fodder" character in fiction, particularly in Star Trek: The Original Series

Red Shirt, South Dakota, a small Lakota village in South Dakota, United States

Red Shirt School of Photography, a trend pioneered by National Geographic photographers to have subjects wear overly colourful clothes

RedShirt, an encryption scheme used in games by Introversion Software

Delphine Red Shirt, an Oglala Lakota Sioux writer

Kuilix, a Pend d'Oreilles woman whose name meant "Red Shirt" or "Red One"

Redshirts or Red Shirts may refer to:

Redshirts (Italy), volunteer followers of Giuseppe Garibaldi in southern Italy during his Expedition of the Thousand

Red Shirts (Southern United States), militant white Southern opponents of blacks during and after Reconstruction

Red Shirts (Mexico), an anti-Catholic paramilitary organization in Mexico in the 1930's

Red Shirts (Surkh Posh), another name for the Khudai Khidmatgar, a Pashtun movement against the British in the North West Frontier Province, and its successor, the Awami National Party of that region in Pakistan

Red Shirts, another name for Abahlali baseMjondolo, a South African shack dwellers' movement

Redshirts (film) (Camicie rosse), a 1952 film directed by Francesco Rosi

Never mind the Star Trek reference, do you think they're going to delay treatment to extend my eligibility? Or maybe they hate people of color - or Catholics?


Words matter. So many phrases and words carry really loaded meanings, don't they? I mean, we can't avoid EVERY possible mis-interpretation of our words, but you'd think that someone at the ad agency would have said, "Hmmmm, do you suppose that 'red shirt' might have some negative connotations? Maybe if there was just a quick and convienent way to search through an immense ammount of information to somehow, oh I know this is a dream, find some really common understadings of a word or phrase. But, alas, the internet is only a series of tubes..."


James McMurtry says:

I hadn't intended, To bend the rules

Whiskey don't make liars, It just makes fools

So I didn't mean to say it, But I meant what I said

Too long in the wasteland

Too long in the wasteland

Must have gone to my head

I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said...

Words matter. What we say. How we say. When we say. Words matter.

I love you and I hate you can come from the same mouth.

And it matters.

Help me. Go away.

It matters.

Say what we mean, mean what we say. Cliche? Yep. True? Well, cliches have a tendency to be true, right? I mean, otherwise we would call them...um...unique words of wisdom, or something...
Words matter.