Feminists, socialists, and crazy book titles. By Charles Moore.

On feminist hypocrisy, demanding double standards that favor women:

There is much shock professed about the metaphors used to describe Mrs May’s political plight — talk of the ‘killing zone’, or her being stabbed, and worse. I feel this shock myself, but in fact such metaphors are routine in politics and almost always have been. … The real reason it seems shocking in this case surely … is that it is men speaking about a woman. On this, old-fashioned chivalry and modern feminism agree.

On socialists making employment nonviable:

It is a feature of our age of activist judges that a legal principle can be stretched way beyond what it is supposed to mean. The prototype was Roe vs Wade, in the United States, which discovered the right to abortion hidden inside the right to privacy.

The latest such development is the expansion of ‘vicarious liability’, currently besetting Morrisons because a disgruntled employee leaked the company’s payroll data. The Appeal Court has decided the company is liable, even though the employee in question was acting criminally against the company. If the concept continues to enlarge in this way, it will soon be impossible for any business, charity, voluntary organisation, church, school to employ anyone. The unintended consequence will be a 100 per cent gig economy. …

On language:

Our son has revived the old game where you take the title of a book and change only one letter in it for comic effect. It is fun for all the family. He produced The Two Towels, Golf Hall and The Voyage of the Lawn Treader. Our daughter offered Lady Chatterley’s Liver and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Scone. My wife’s contribution was unrepeatable. I thought of The Gropes of Wrath. It is a wonderful feature of language that minute alteration can make all the difference.

hat-tip Stephen Neil