A Meme...

Pinterest and other social networking sites have increased the usage and popularity of this word, however it has been around for over forty years.

Have you ever received a forward, or watched a trending video on Youtube?  If so, you have experienced the marvelous and wonderful internet "meme.".

Today the word meme can be used to describe something that is shared by on the internet - - an "internet meme."  A simple search of "meme" on Pinterest will give a bunch of examples.

A meme is defined in the Webster's dictionary as, "an idea, behavior, style or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture."

The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that the word "meme" has its origins in biology as "a cultural element or behavioural trait whose transmission and consequent persistence in a population, although occurring by non-genetic means (esp. imitation), is considered as analogous to the inheritance of a gene."  R. Dawkins, coined the phrase in his book entitled, the "Selfish Gene."

In the Selfish Gene your favorite evolutionary biologist said, "The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme.‥ It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches."

A Mostly True Account of How States Got Their Names - Delaware

Once Upon a Time...

there once was a governor of the English colony at Jamestown. I'm sure it will surprise you that this governor's name was Sir Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr. Do you get it? Try saying it a little faster, "De La Warr" Now slur the sounds together and what word do you get? "Delawarr."

Does anyone hear a similarity to the governor's name and the name of a State? To the refined ear, it seems like there is a similarity. But it may require further examination to determine if there is really

The Story Continues...

as Lord Dela Ware apparently spent a lot of time marketing his name, not only to the settlers, but also to the River, which took his name, and even the local Indian tribe came to be known in some circles as Delaware Indians. I sometimes think that some people believe that although the Indians were around long before Lord Dellla War E, they spent years trying to decide what to call themselves.

"Geez" they said, "if only we had a name, I hope someone comes to give us a name after all these centuries."

Lord De La Wear came, and they said, "Perfect, we shall name ourselves after the person that rallied the invaders who will eventually decimate our lands and our people."

Contrary to this perspective, the Indians in that area did have a name prior to the arrival of the Lord Del La Warr liberation...it was the Lenape Indians.

The Big Picture...

A note on words, words have power, and one of their powers is to attempt to rename a people and essentially erase a heritage that existed for years. When the Japanese invaded Taiwan in the late 19th Century, they forced the Taiwanese to learn Japanese and not their native tongue. Does that sound familiar today?

Candidate Santorum said of Puerto Rico to be a state "English needs to be the principal language... There are other states with more than one language, like Hawaii, but to be a state of the United States, English must be the principal language."

Why would this matter? It is possible that you erase a language and after a generation or two, destroy a heritage and thereby dominate a people? Words are power!