What's the "boyfriend loophole"?

In his big speech last night, Biden proposed legislation to "close the boyfriend loophole to keep guns out of the hands of abusers." I'd never noticed the phrase before, and I can't understand it from the context. He was talking about amending the Violence Against Women Act, and he added:

The court order said this is an abuser, you can’t own a gun. It’s to close that loophole that exists. You know it is estimated that 50 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner every month in America, 50 a month. Let’s pass it and save some lives.

But what is the loophole? This doesn't read like a written script. I had to look up the term "boyfriend loophole." It has its own Wikipedia page.

The term boyfriend loophole refers to a gap in American gun legislation that allows access to guns by physically abusive ex-boyfriends and stalkers with previous convictions. While individuals who have been convicted of, or are under a restraining order for domestic violence are prohibited from owning a firearm, the prohibition only applies if the victim was the perpetrator's spouse, cohabitant, or had a child with the victim. The boyfriend loophole has had a direct effect on people who experience domestic abuse or stalking by former or current intimate partners.

FROM THE EMAIL: Owen writes:

I guess one lesson is that whenever you see “loophole” you know that it’s the rhetorical warm-up move to justify some big new demand. (Previous similar usage: “gun show loophole,” “bump stock loophole,” “private transfer loophole.”) Emotionally “loophole” is catnip because who wants a hole in their cabin wall? Even if it was deliberately made to allow you to defend yourself from attackers?

Good point. And you made me think about the original meaning of "loophole" for the first time!

"A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that 55% of Republicans falsely believe Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election was the result of illegal voting or rigging."

"Additionally, 60% of Republicans incorrectly agree that the election was stolen from Republican Donald Trump." 

CNN reports, aggressively inserting the view that the people who were polled are wrong. I believe that's a very unusual way to report an opinion poll, with insistence that the opinion is wrong and apart from any factual reporting that makes it perfectly obvious that the opinion is mistaken. 

This displays a desperate fear of the opinion, and I don't think it does much good. The urge to stamp the opinion out will tend to make those who hold it grip more tightly: What are they afraid of? Are they trying to get me to move on, telling me there's nothing to see here?

CNN continues:

What is perfectly clear, however, is that Republicans' lack of faith in our current election infrastructure is a direct result of Trump's historic efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 results.

It's "perfectly clear" why people have this opinion? This is a news article, reporting a poll, and it's making an absolute assertion about why human beings believe what they do. That doesn't inspire confidence. It makes people suspicious, perhaps paranoid. 

FROM THE EMAIL: Cheryl writes: 

“Election infrastructure...” 

Seems like that word is being softened up to mean anything they want it to mean. Wonder why. 

Good catch. I'll boldface the word in the quoted text above. Cheryl's right. There's been a lot of talk lately from Democrats around the word "infrastructure." I was just saying: "It's a propaganda word to the core."

AND: Temujin emails:

"I tried to watch but kept switching to 'Dr. Strangelove' on Turner Movie Channel. Much better acting and the plot was far more hopeful."

Writes Owen in the comments to this morning's post, "Mini Mike Bloomberg’s debate performance tonight was perhaps the worst in the history of debates, and there have been some really bad ones."

One of my current subjects on the blog has been — have you noticed? — hateability... but how should I spell it?

I've been writing "hateable." This morning I quoted an earlier post of mine: "Speaking of trying too hard, maybe female politicians try too hard to expunge or hide any hateability..."

Someone in the comments questioned my spelling of the word, and I said:

I considered the spelling of the word — looked it up different ways and even had a conversation about it.

I think it's too hard to understand without the "e." It's almost an invented word, unlike likable, which I'd prefer to write with the "e," but which has become standardized. I don't like not following the same approach to both words, but there is a difference, in that "likable" is definitely a real word and "hateable" is almost something that needs to be written "hate-able" to be understood. It's still gestating.

Anyway, I can't accept "hatable." Seems to be about hats.

But I looked it up in the OED. The spelling at the top of the page is "hateable," but the oldest use was spelled "hatable":

c1425 Serm. (BL Add.) in G. Cigman Lollard Serm. (1989) 141 Pride is hatable to God and men.

I keep reading...

▸ c1443 R. Pecock Reule of Crysten Religioun (1927) 39 (MED) It is waast in kinde, and þerfore hateable and fleable of kynde, and vnmakeable of kynde, to haue multitude of soulis þere þat oon may suffice as manye.

Ah, there's my spelling.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Haïssable, hatable; fit, or worthie to be hated.
1657 J. Davies tr. H. D'Urfé Astrea II. 200 Silvander does not onely make himselfe hateable by his fictions and dissimulations, but also drawes an odium upon all other men.

The score is even...

1764 tr. Marquise de Sévigné Lett. (ed. 2) I. lxix. 196 As you say that you hate every thing that is hateable, you certainly cannot bear her.
1818 H. J. Todd Johnson's Dict. Eng. Lang. Hateable..It should be written hatable.

Well! All the way back in 1818, the improver of Johnson's dictionary was telling us what should be.

1837 T. Carlyle in London & Westm. Rev. Jan. 400 Really a most..hateable, lovable old Marquis.

Thomas Carlyle. He's a good role model. And, look, he's got an e-less "lovable" right next to "hateable." (Here, try reading that passage. The Carlyle writing style, so hateable, lovable.)

I'll skip a few quotes, but the last one is from 4 years ago:

2015 T. Shaw I hate Kale Cookbook 5 Why hate kale?..It's painfully hip, and hipness is nothing if not hateable.

Ha ha. Kale.

Let's see, here's some input in the comments from Owen:

Prof. A @ 7:50 on “hateable” vs. “hatable.” Totally agree. It’s still gestating. Is it a word we really need? Why not “odious”? There would be a classy Latin base to it, none of these clunky neologisms.

Yes, "odious" is a great word and it does have the right meaning. But I needed "hateable" (or "hatable") for visual parallelism with "likable." Now, once I put it that way, I've made an argument for "hatable." I care about the look of the word. But I'm still clinging to "hateable" because of the visual problem of seeing "hat."

I'm not saying I'll let you decide, but I'll take some input:

Pick the better spelling.

hateable

hatable

 

pollcode.com free polls

When Maureen Dowd used the word "editrix"...

I asked:

By the way, do you find "editrix" jaunty and amusing, annoying and groan-worthy, or evidence that Dowd isn't doing feminism right?

It doesn't really matter who the "editrix" in question was, but it was some former editor of Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire.

I got a lot of interesting answers. Robert Cook went for what I see as the traditional feminist answer:

"Editrix" is anachronistic, as are terms such as "waitress" and "actress," etc. The terms "editor," "waiter," (now "server"), and "actor" are not innately masculine in their connotations, and so are suitable--preferable--when referring to females working at these jobs.

"Editrix" is anachronistic, as are terms such as "waitress" and "actress," etc. The terms "editor," "waiter," (now "server"), and "actor" are not innately masculine in their connotations, and so are suitable--preferable--when referring to females working at these jobs.

Mary Beth did the research:

Yeah, like early 20th Century, when the word was first used. Google Ngram shows it becoming popular in 1911, except for one fluke blip in the graph in 1838. It actually looks like it's becoming more popular.

We don't need gendered nouns in a non-gendered language so the use of one seems like an affectation. It was still the most interesting thing in what I read.

Though rhhardin joked us in a childish direction — "Editrix is for kids" — quite a few minds went straight from "-trix" to "dominatrix." Owen said:

"Editrix" should be "editrice." Sounds less like black leather and fishnet stockings, more classy.

And Ignorance is Bliss said:

I find a sudden urge to check if PornHub has and editrix category, just to see what that might involve.

And I think that's something of what's going on in the mind of tim in vermont:

As a man, I can only say "editrix" communicates female power and competence. But we men know nothing, we think that the sexes are different in many ways not visually obvious.

Similarly, FIDO:

["Editrix"] is perfect for a controlling female authority figure, adding a little panache to an otherwise dreary field.

I'm front-paging all that because I thought this was quite a coincidence yesterday: I was continuing my reading of Mary McCarthy's "Up the Ladder from Charm to Vogue" (in the essay collection "On the Contrary: Articles of Belief"), first blogged about in this post on April 3d (which I was reading because I'd done the research and discovered that it is the first published appearance of the word "Orwellian" (in 1950)). And I encountered the word "editress."

Unlike the older magazines, whose editresses were matrons who wore (and still wear) their hats at their desks as though at a committee meeting at the Colony Club, Mademoiselle was staffed by young women of no social pretensions, college graduates and business types, live wires and prom queens, middle-class girls peppy or sultry, fond of fun and phonograph records....

But beyond the attempt [by Vogue] to push quality goods during a buying recession like the recent one, or to dodge responsibility for an unpopular mode (this year’s sheaths and cloches are widely unbecoming), there appears to be some periodic feminine compulsion on the editresses’ part to strike a suffragette attitude toward the merchants whose products are their livelihood, to ally themselves in a gush with their readers, who are seen temporarily as their “real” friends.

There are 2 other appearances of "editress" in the essay, including one, I realize now, that was in the excerpt I put up on April 3rd:

As an instrument of mass snobbery, this remarkable magazine [Flair], dedicated simply to the personal cult of its editress, to the fetichism of the flower (Fleur Cowles, Flair, a single rose), outdistances all its competitors in the audacity of its conception. It is a leap into the Orwellian future, a magazine without contest or point of view beyond its proclamation of itself, one hundred and twenty pages of sheer presentation, a journalistic mirage....

I'm not going to insist that Maureen Dowd read my blog post, but if it's more than coincidence that her next column uses a feminine form of "editor," I wonder if she considered the word "editress" and opted instead for "editrix" and, if so, why? I think the answer is up there in what various commenters said: "editrix" sounds more exciting and dominating and "editress" is condescending. Mary McCarthy certainly meant to sound condescending as hell.

The OED says the "-trix" ending began in English with some words adopted from the Latin — administratrix, executrix, persecutrix, etc. And: "The suffix has occasionally been loosely used to form nonce-feminines to agent-nouns in -ter, as paintrix n. instead of the regular paintress. The commoner suffix in English is -tress suffix...." That is, when you go for "-trix" rather than "-tress" to goof around with feminizing one of those nouns about things people do, you're being weirder, and therefore going for an effect, like making us laugh or get excited, which is what Dowd did.