Senses of Entitlement

by Hendrik Hertzberg
April 8, 2013

Names make news, an old newsroom motto has it. But names also make opinions. What something gets called can have more spin on it than a Mariano Rivera cutter, whether the person doing the calling intends it that way or not. Sometimes the difference between positive and negative is a matter of taste, literally or figuratively. (My sweet might be your treacly. Or your cloying.) Sometimes the difference is a product of circumstances, as when yesterday’s beachfront property becomes today’s flood zone. Sometimes it gets all judgmental. After a couple of Martinis one may regard oneself as pleasantly pixillated, but one’s spouse may consider one drunk as a skunk.