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Dear wwh:
Finally, I get your point. However, let's say that fungible were a word most were acquainted with, and, also, let's say the quote had read:
"In Afghanistan, where loyalties are fungible..."
...would that have worked for you?
Or, (and I'm really just kidding here):
"In Afghanistan, where loyalties are both fungible and frangible..."
??
Curious,
WW
P.S. Thanks for the thread, by the way.
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well i agree with you about one thing Dr bill fungible is not a word for Time.. which might or might not be Curt, Clear, Complete, but it most certainly writen to a 6th graders comprehension. and slow 6th grader at that!
i hate that it cost so much.. but i read the economist. it really is a news weekly.. and covers the news of the world.. not just a little bit of it..
i love the NY'er cartoon/cover-- the one that has a vague map, the shows, close up, NY streets 10th Avenue, and looking west.. and as it moves further west, things get vaguer, and vaguer.. it makes fun of NYer's city centeredness...
and i have seen the idea copied.. it doesn't work as well from chicago or LA, but its been done..
but as much as i enjoy the poster, and as much as i think NY is the greatest, when it come to news magazines, i don't want something with a narrow, parochial view.
a long time ago, Time might have been a good news magazine.. but when did it last cover the news in South America? when americans where kidnapped? or killed-- and then once there is nothing that directly effects an identifiable US citizen.. it fall of the map! no coverage!
Oh, something really dramatic, a major earthquake.. but week after week, it seems there is no news at all from most of the world, if Time is to be believed.
I can't say i do more than skim the news about NZ or Ozzie political scandles..or about the oil scandles in nigeria, or the diamond smuggling in angola.. but at least they are covered!
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Let's hear some more opinions about what word might better have been chosen. I haven't been able to come up with one that I am satisfied with. The Taleban fighters were in the beginning fanatically loyal. They have been incredibly brave.
I woulld now re-write the sentence: "To the Taleban, loyalty is now meaningless. All that remains is the traditional compulsion to avoid dishonor.".
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I liked protean from tsuwm's thesaurus list, but that would be too rare.
How 'bout loyalties are chameleonic? Chameleonic would imply protection to save one's skin, amphibious or otherwise.
ww
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Loyalty is not changed into something equivalent, for the Taleban it is dead. All they have left is hate,injured pride and frustration.Obviously many of them must be so depleted of energy all that they want is to go home.
I laughed when I read about Taleban stragglers robbing some of the Pakistani idiots who had come to fight on their sided. Mullah Omar has given "jihad" a bad name, which should be of some help to us when Bush needs to attack terrorists in other countries.
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Let's hear some more opinions about what word might better have been chosen
Moot?
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Dear Jackie: If you are suggesting that the word "moot" could have been used instead of "fungible, I don't quite see how it fits.
1 subject to or open for discussion or debate; debatable
2 not worthy of consideration or discussion because it has been resolved or no longer needs to be resolved
I particularly hope you did not mean the second definition.
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" things, that while not identical, can be used interchangeably." -- Wheat, for example, is a fungible commodity. If you're a trader, any freightcar-ful is the same as any other. Lawyers have nothing to do with it.
The root also has stalks that are even more commonplace. Isn't a "fungo bat," used by baseball coaches to hit fly balls to the outfielders for warm-up, called that because it doesn't really matter which bat is used? Bats are fungible, at least for this purpose.
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veteran
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Let's hear some more opinions about what word might better have been chosen.
How about "Zelig-like"? The Wall Street Journal used this term in a headline a week or so ago. I confess, I was confused and had to look up "Zelig" in the dictionary. Zelig, in case you don't know (or don't remember), is the name of a character Woody Allen plays in a film about an obsessively insecure person who mirrors the opinions and prejudices of everyone into whose company he stumbles (including the Nazis even tho Zelig is Jewish). I remember seeing the movie but I didn't remember the name "Zelig" in the WSJ headline ... which perhaps makes me unsuitable for readership of the Wall Street Journal. Anyway, does "Zelig-like" work for you, wwh? Incidentally, you have stirred up a very interesting discussion here. I hear your argument about defection not being a true "exchange", and also your argument that a serial defector will be done in after his first defection, but I beg to differ with you, dear wwh, on both accounts. First, a transfer of allegiance in Afghanistan involves reciprocity. It is not unilateral because the new leader absorbs the 'defector' into his ranks. Second, as I understand the culture of the Afghan warrior, changing sides is not a 'defection' and it is not dishonourable. Furthermore, it can be performed serially without punitive consequences. This is so because Islamic warriors in these cultures exalt the myth of the 'strongman', rather like the peoples who exalted Marlon Brando's character in "Apocalypse Now" (based on Joseph Conrad's book "Heart of Darkness"). In this ancient reality, a "strongman" only has virtue while he is strong. Once he loses his strength, he is no longer capable of protecting his followers and he has lost his virtue and with it any claim to leadership. Thus, when the follower of a defeated strongman passes his allegiance over to the conqueror, he is not defecting, he is simply acknowledging the new reality of his tribal community. Years ago, I read that the director of Apocalyse Now studied the works of an anthropologist who spent a life-time investigating the rituals of ancient tribes. When a leader in one of these ancient tribes became weak through age or other infirmity, the leader's weakness threatened the vitality of the tribe. Therefore, any tribesman strong enough to depose the weakened leader by killing him, appropriated the virtue of the fallen leader and resuscitated the vitality of the tribe. (There may be a parallel here with the beehive where the hive is more important than the Queen.) So it is, I suggest, with valiant Afghan warriors who shift their allegiances so effortlessly from one fallen strongman to his conqueror. Power itself is virtue to these people, not the personality which inhabits the power.
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Well, Dr. Bill, I just read through this thread and believe it or not  , I wholeheartedly agree with you! Not only is it too esoteric a word for Time, it is also misused. As for a better word, how about fickle? Oh, and welcome back from the grave, plutarch et alter egos.
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