willclarke.net

During this contentious health care debate, we should keep in mind what’s really important: grammar.

Generally:
Preventive is an adjective, as in “We need to spend more money on preventive care.” Preventative is a noun, as in “This vaccination is a preventative for the flu.”

Of course, “preventative” has an extra syllable and people like to use it to sound smart. So it has been overused a lot, to the point where it is generally accepted as an adjective. But technically, when you refer to care that prevents later disease, you should say “preventive care.”

Sometimes when people misuse this word, I like to later refer to “preventitative” care, which of course is not a word but is even longer and makes me feel superior because I am both playing their more-syllables-is-better game and subtly making fun of them.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, maybe the reason people overuse “preventative” isn’t because they want to use more syllables; rather, it is because the letter T is elitist. Take the word “often” for example: the T is silent. But people pronounce it when the are being snobby.

Bill Clinton was both at his best and his most cynical last Thursday on his seemingly seven thousandth appearance on The Daily Show. Let’s start with the worst, his (likely accidental) observation about the sham that is our political system:

Of course he’s not upset about Obama’s flip flop on the health care mandate! Because in American politics, liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats, Republicans, they’re basically all the same. Don’t forget, McCain’s healthcare proposal was basically identical to Obama’s with the exception of the public option which probably won’t even happen anyway. But you have to PRETEND like you’re different… “otherwise how will people make a choice??”

Kind of reminds me of an episode of Futurama… (then again everything reminds me of an episode of Futurama)

In other words, we don’t have a choice. We just have candidates pretending like they’re different… except in Clinton’s words, he’s not pretending. “What you have to do, so you feel good about yourself, is to at least believe in the differences that you highlight.” Candidates’ deception must go so deep that they actually convince themselves of their own bullshit! Whatever makes you sleep at night, I suppose.

However, towards the end of the video he reminds us of why he was, and to a certain extent still is, one of the greatest American policy analysts in our history:

I like that analogy: America the functional drunk, stumbling in the right direction, albeit behind the rest of the world; full of doubt and self loathing, raising hell and shouting obscenities along the way. But we’ll get there eventually and we’ll be all right. Maybe the public option isn’t essential, but getting the government involved in healthcare is an important first step. If we can keep Olympia Snowe on board, of course.