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foam and wastewater in the New River (CNRC) |
Is there such a thing as a scumbag? And if so what factors
go into turning a person into one? First of all the dictionary defines scumbag
as a “contemptible or objectionable person.” But so is a jerk, an idiot, a ne’er-do-well,
a crook, a liar. What differentiates the word scumbag from other terms for
people who aren’t appealing is the conjunction of the two nouns scum and bag.
Scum is defined as “extraneous matter or impurities risen to or formed on the
surface of a liquid often as a foul filmy covering” and bag is a “usually
flexible container that may be closed for holding.” So in a literal sense the
compound word amounts to a vessel filled with waste—something which is
tantamount to a toilet. If you call someone a scumbag then you're saying that like
a toilet they breathe the kind of toxic effluents that also tend to stink. Are
there people whose personalities can be said to be so compromised that they're literally repositories of all that is bad and awful to intake? For instance are
dictators and those responsible for genocide scumbags, or could they be
described as misguided individuals, whose sometimes purely held conceptions,
are merely the result of an inability to conjoin ideas with reality? For
instance for all the pain he caused it’s hard to call the Grand Inquisitor
Tomas de Torquemada, a scumbag when there are so many people who're more
qualified for the appellation. You know scumbags, they’re too selfish to be
interested in ethnic cleansing. By definition scumbags lack a mission. They’re too busy sitting in their own shit to care
about anyone else. They take in enormous quantities of alcohol, food and drugs
and end up puking over everyone around them. You’ve read about the hit and run
drivers, who're usually intoxicated and leave their victims to die in the
streets. These are examples of the kind of people who can rightfully hold the
title of scum bag. (“Bronx cyclist killed by hit-and-run driver during deadly weekend," The New York Daily
News, 6/12/16)
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