Ally

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Ally
/ˈalʌɪ/ (n.)

Politics: Of a state, playground faction, fashionable political cause or marginalised constituency, to formally cooperate with another for a military or other purpose.

We are frequently invited these days to declare ourselves “allies”. But to “ally” is to take sides, which it to accept the premise that there is a side to take — that there is some kind of war going on.

The JC has a hard time accepting this premise — at any rate, not between the factions he is usually invited to suppose are at war, especially since he seems, by accident of birth, to have been lumped in with the one most of them feel they are at war against, so if there is a war (and let’s say it again: there doesn’t seem to be) then declaring oneself an ally for the oppo doesn’t seem an awfully smart move. I mean, do you know what the secret society senum pallidorum does to people who break its sacred oaths? These dudes don’t muck around, you know. They’ve been sacrificing virgins in a Bavarian castle since the fourteenth century.