Word Back: Trump reached his goal: Make America Grate Again

Make America GREAT Again

Great as in...The Greatest Generation.

As he wrote his famous book on his Montana ranch, Tom Brokaw gave a lot of thought to the GREAT-est Generation. He gets credit for popularizing the term although its first documented use is by U.S. Army General James Van Fleet ("our greatest General" Pres. Truman called him) during the Korean War. Brokaw might cover it in the book but, well, you see, I never read it. As offspring of that generation, I already knew how great they were. 

It took some time to realize it. 

My parents, two Denver natives, born 1923 and 1925, who found themselves growing up in The Great Wall Street Collapse of 1929, the Great Depression, The Great War Part Deux, and America's post-war boom which, as far as I know, does not have "great" attached to it. Great Caesar's Ghost! That was a term The Daily Planet Editor Perry White in "The Adventures of Superman" made famous, first in 1946 on the radio show and then on TV in the 1950s. We Boomer kids loved Perry White's apoplectic outbursts. We loved cub reporter Jimmy Olsen getting blasted by White: "And don't call me chief!" And his outbursts at Clark Kent, "mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan daily." "Great Caesar's Ghost, Kent!" Kent just took the abuse as underneath all the mild manners and big eye glasses was a super man from another planet who "could leap tall buildings in a single bound" and round up passels of bad guys before breakfast. 

We loved Superman. Our parents were not so sure about this hero worship. But our first heroes were our World War II fathers. We sort of knew their good deeds. We played with his medals and shoulder patches and uniforms. He had a helmet and machine guns, booty from the war. We played war, having no idea what it was preparing us for. But our parents' generation accomplished great things and we knew it.

Vietnam and assassinations and Watergate almost banished the greatness. Today marks the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings. The end of the war was in sight. Our fathers were still in great danger and we wouldn't know the stories first-hand had they been killed on that day and the others that followed in 1944-45. Death on all fronts. Our Denver neighborhoods swarmed with our fathers' memories and the ghosts of those who made it home or made it home and died later or were not quite right. You'd think all of that would be enough to lift a nation, cause it to avoid pointless wars and entanglements. You would think it would be enough to stop a charlatan and his goons from taking over our great country. 

Researching this post, I came across all kinds of references to great. I watched the first season of "The Great," a satiric retelling of the Greats of Russia: Peter and Katherine Very funny. Educational too.  

I came across this reference: "Literae humaniores, nicknamed Greats, is an undergraduate course focused on the classics (Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Latin, ancient Greek, and philosophy) at the University of Oxford in England and some other universities."

Make America THE GREATS Again!

Finally, the Online Dictionary writes this: "great is sometimes confused with grate."

We can certainly see that Grate is a far better term for what America has become. Make America Grate Again. Yes, MAGA is grating, it grates the nerves. It's prime spokesperson, POTUS, may be the most grating person on the planet. His online rants are beyond grating, they get on my last serve.  Not so great.

We take a Word Back: What to make of make?

In my 5/21 post, I brought up a term: word back. Used in a sentence: "I want my word back." Words in my English language have been stolen by corrupt people with no clue about the word's origins and what it really means. This is a travesty in my book, and I have a really big book on my side: The Oxford English Dictionary or, as we English majors call it, the O.E.D. Many of our public libraries used to have the book splayed open on a stand. Oddball students such as myself could peruse at their leisure, or make a beeline to it during a heated argument over the origin of a word or phrase. Yes, heated arguments about words. How I miss those. And the main reason I went dateless most of my college career.

Today's word is "make." And yes, it's the first word in the acronym MAGA. Those are the four words I will tackle during the next couple weeks. They are real words, not just initials on a red ballcap. 

What are we to make of make? Let the O.E.D. be our guide.

I hate to begin with a downer but, to save time, I must. Make can be a noun. In fact, it is a variant for maggot. Here's an example from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” circa 1604: “Your worme is your onely Emperour for dyet, we fat all creatures els to fat vs, and wee fat our selues for maggots.”

In more modern terms, we have this line by Mae West in 1930's "Constant Sinner:" "The double-crossin' heel! The garbage-can maggot!"

You don't see "make" in there. But, it is a variant which means it's rarely used except by historical fiction writers and time travelers. But the reference comes alive in 2025 because critics poke fun at MAGA followers by calling them MAGATS or MAGHATS or just MAGGOTS. We don't use the term as it's below our station to do so even though it's hilarious. 

Make is usually used as a verb that means to produce. Let's let Merriam-Webster have a crack at this: Make (transitive verb): to bring into being by forming, shaping, or altering material; to lay out and construct, to compose or write.

Back to the O.E.D.: The earliest known use of the word is in the Old English Period pre-1150. It has Germanic roots. It's use in Old English includes references in literature, music, and religion. 

Does the O.E.D. have anything to say about sexual references in popular culture? I didn’t look. But I have some examples. Let's make out (kiss, etc.). “Making Whoopee” (song about kissing etc.), "I want to Make It With You," a popular 1970s song by Bread which is really about sex as in "Love the One You're With" or so says Stephen Stills. Let's make a baby is a line used by married couples in rom-coms. "Wanna make sex?" is not a common term although it has been used in dingy bars at closing time.

"To make" is a very positive act. A maker is one who makes. A Makerspace is a place dedicated to making things usually artwork. My artist daughter visits a local Makerspace. Many public libraries have makerspaces in their children's/teens sections. Many of these libraries are under attack by Trump & Company and local right-wing kooks. Many makerspaces are funded by government grants which are being eliminated by the GOP-controlled Congress.

Makers, themselves, are under attack for being too woke and not appreciating all the MAGA Goodness spread like fairy dust by Donnie and Elon. Arts workers jobs are being eliminated along with budgets for state and local arts agencies as well as the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. To tell an artist he or she can't make any more is absurd. That's like telling us not to breathe. But it will hurt all of us, this pilfering of money for the arts and humanities. 

Merriam-Webster lists these antonyms (opposites): Dismantle, destroy, eradicate, abolish, take apart, etc., etc.

To Make. Think about it.