Scary stuff going down in India

[70Chip]

Something struck me as odd today. The news kept describing the Lubavitcher Jews as "ultra orthodox". I follow religion somehat and I was not previosly aware of such a classification. And when I hear something like that I wonder about motives. You could almost translate the word ultra in this context as "these people are crazy too". Strange.

Update: Apparently the term "ultra orthodox" has been used to describe the Lubavitch though they understandably consider it to be pejoritive.

From a linguistic standpoint the phrase is certainly redundant if not absurd. It's like saying "ultra pregnant". (I'm surprised the Palin daughter didn't get this designation) Orthodox is a word that has meaning and this seems to be lost on news people and other secularists. Again, when I hear such terms in the press I interpret them as an attempt on the part of people to whom religion is completely foreign to basically say "people we don't like and we don't want you to like them either".