I ran into James Morrow in the corridor the other day – and he told me that he thought he had coined a new word. You’ll know James as a Daily Telegraph columnist and as host of The US Report on Sky News Australia. The word he had thought he had coined is ‘proselytory’. The context was the push to have the Muslim call to prayer from the Lakemba Mosque amplified at midday every day – so the sound would echo for blocks around the suburb. Obviously there was strong opposition – 15 minutes of loud, amplified Arabic language would quite likely disturb your day and put you right off your lunch. But those defending the push said, ‘Well, it’s just like church bells.’ But, no, James Morrow pointed out, it’s not the least bit like church bells. For a start, that loud, echoing Islamic voice lacks the musical quality of bells, but (more importantly) the bells are ‘celebratory’ while the Muslim call to prayer is ‘proselytory’.’There’s that new word. And, yes, James it is a brand-new word, unknown to the dictionary! So, congratulations – this is your word, your coinage! It comes from the verb ‘to proselytise’ – which means ‘to make proselytes’.That means attempting to persuade people to convert to Islam. It does that because it uses words. For 15 minutes there are a series of propositions in this ‘call to prayer’. Including claims that there is no god but Allah, and that everyone should submit to Allah, and pray to Allah. That’s an attempt to change minds, to ‘proselytise’ – so it is indeed ‘proselytory’. Clearly this is a new word we need. Church bells, on the other hand, are just a time call – a musical way of reminding churchgoers that it’s time for church. Let’s hope James’ new word is widely used and picked up by the dictionaries.

Speccie reader Sue asks me to explain the term ‘intergenerational equity’. It seems to date back to 1964, when it was coined by sociologists (them again!) ‘Intergenerational equity’ is a phrase that comes under the wider ambit of DEI – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The aim of DEI is to identify a group as being ‘disadvantaged’ and then give that group special rights under the law to overcome their perceived problems. It’s based on the Marxist analysis of society into just two groups: (1) the oppressors, and (2) the oppressed. ‘Intergenerational equity’ identifies people based on age – concluding that the younger generation is oppressed, and their oppressors are folk older than them. The standard Marxist response is to legally disadvantage the oppressors (older people) in order to relieve the disadvantage of the oppressed (younger people). If this strikes you as a load of old rope, that’s because that’s exactly what it is.