Why does language evolve the way that it does?
I stumbled upon a passage written about John Adams by Thomas Jefferson. Adams was a notoriously jealous and petty. He earned the nickname “His Rotundity” for being obese and arguing that everyone should refer to George Washington as “His Majesty the President.” Jefferson was a cool guy. A philosopher and statesmen that shared the opinion that most reasonable, fun loving people of the era had: Adams was a jerk. After learning that Adam’s official notes from the Treaty of Paris were “a display of his vanity, his prejudice against the French court and his venom against Dr. Franklin.” I found Jefferson’s reply interesting. He simply wrote, “[Adams] hates Franklin, he hates [John] Jay, he hates the French, he hates the English. To whom will he adhere?”
This begs the questions: Why, 232 years later, do we say we hate things, but not adhere them?
2 responses to “To Hate or to Adhere”
Jefferson was a really cool guy who had lost of slaves, at least some of whom he slept with. Adams was a bad-tempered fatty who, along with his son, consistently denounced the institution of slavery. Sometimes “cool” just isn’t enough
Fair point.
In my defense, this isn’t exactly a post about slavery.