I hate to admit it, but I watch far too much TV. It is an effortless source of passive entertainment, and a starting point for my fulminations about language. Because no one, no place, no how makes more egregious errors in language than the people of the tube.
Because my wife is drawn especially to HGTV because she enjoys mind-betting on which of the three houses "Home Hunters" will choose, or "My House is Worth How Much?" I tag along, if for no other reason than to sneer with superiority at the tiny vocabularies most people possess. There are figures somewhere that document how many of the thousands if words available in the English language are actually used by most folks. The number is mind-numbing. The range runs the gamu - as we used to say from A to B.
Several years ago my crew and I insisted that anyone coming aboard never ever use the word "amazing." Faced with the restriction, it was remarkable how many people suddenly became aware of how cliched their speech had become.
In the house hunting kind of show we usually find a standard garden-variety couple in their twenties who make a big deal sabout popcorn ceilings, and kitchens that do not have granite countertops. The most widely heard adjective of praise is "amazing" followed closely by "awesome." I have actually counted the number of times awesome gets used in one progam. I lost count after`five. It seems the the only superlatives anyone seems to use are those two words - ad nauseum.
So I am going to go on a crusade. I want to change the word. Someone, somewhere -= some star, or a gushing awards show doyenne like Joan Rivers, accompanied by daughter Melissa. can help. A few years ago, atanding on the sidewalk ooing and aahing as each celbrity dismounted from their limo, she would talk to each one. The eword "amazing" covered everything. She spoke of the "amazing" performance in a recent movie, the "amazing" (pronounced amaaaaaazing) hairdo, the amazing dress, and the amazing children. Maybe I could enlist Joan in my crusade.
My wife and I mulled this over together. I said: "I think I have a word, if we can make it fashionable, that will succeed amazing." She reminded me that the Brits use "brilliant" a lot. I suggested we try to promote "stunning."
I can hear it now. The awkward couple looking at their first home can now have a choice. The kitchen is amazing. The yard (where the ubuiquitous dogs will have a place to play) is "awesome, and the remodelled bathroom is "stunning."
I noted without spending time on it that this year's annual dropping of words story, out of a university in Michigan, deals with the problem every year.
But getting people to switch cliches might be harder than stopping restaurants from featuring Tiramasu.
I need input. Without asking Joe the Plumber to increase his word use, what words must be dropped and what words do you think can become the new cliches.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
THE NEW IS OFTEN OLD
I am not an authority on Greek history, so I apologize in advance for taking innapropriate liberties.
Am I correct in recalling that the downfall of the great Athenian Pericles came, not as a result of things he did wrong, but of things he did right? He was so good at what he did that people began to tear him down. Today's parallel is often that we most detest the ones we should most revere. Or that once someone becones successful there are legions of people waiting to tear him/her down. It is a kind of "schadefreude." There is nothing people are more drawn to than a fallen idol.
The pundits have absolutely massacred Obama's inaugural address.
"Trivial." "Boilerplate" "Old ideas wrapped up in rhetoric." "Totally unoriginal," "No comparison to Lincoln's, Roosevelt's, Kennedy's inaugural." The chattering masses of punditry are outraged thsat a giant of a man should give a pygmy speech.
What these guardians of the "truth" don't "get" is that Obama was not trying to endear himself to the media, nor was he trying to make a place for himself in the Pantheon of leaders who made great inaugural addresses. Yes it was cliched. Yes is was a speech suited to a pep rally. But he was talking to the Anerican people.
The hair-splitters will say he made no platform statements, he offered nothing concrete, he avoided issues and danced around reality. Blah, blah, and more blah.
What I heard was Shakespearean. It soared. It went to the heart of the new mindset. I evoked, in all its sometimes purple prose, memories of his campaign pledge for "change."
I hate the overuse of the expression "wake-up call" but it was just that. For those who have been sleeping through the turmoil of the past several months, it is time to take responsibility for the future.
Listen, if you want to quote stirring inaugural addresses, you might look at Nixon's
1960 rhetoric. It was stirring. It called for a return to the kind of civil order and concern for each other that made America great. At a time of the deep division over Viet Nam, revolution and anarchy on university campuses,riots and draft-card burning, he promised the dawning of a new America. The fact that there has been no more duplicitous president than Nixon does not matter.
Nor does the demand for a history-making inaugural address matter in the face of whatever awful reality America, and the rest of the world, will be facing.
It was, despite the babbling disquietude of the media, the right speech at the right time. He is above the barbs of the chatteroing classes.
Am I correct in recalling that the downfall of the great Athenian Pericles came, not as a result of things he did wrong, but of things he did right? He was so good at what he did that people began to tear him down. Today's parallel is often that we most detest the ones we should most revere. Or that once someone becones successful there are legions of people waiting to tear him/her down. It is a kind of "schadefreude." There is nothing people are more drawn to than a fallen idol.
The pundits have absolutely massacred Obama's inaugural address.
"Trivial." "Boilerplate" "Old ideas wrapped up in rhetoric." "Totally unoriginal," "No comparison to Lincoln's, Roosevelt's, Kennedy's inaugural." The chattering masses of punditry are outraged thsat a giant of a man should give a pygmy speech.
What these guardians of the "truth" don't "get" is that Obama was not trying to endear himself to the media, nor was he trying to make a place for himself in the Pantheon of leaders who made great inaugural addresses. Yes it was cliched. Yes is was a speech suited to a pep rally. But he was talking to the Anerican people.
The hair-splitters will say he made no platform statements, he offered nothing concrete, he avoided issues and danced around reality. Blah, blah, and more blah.
What I heard was Shakespearean. It soared. It went to the heart of the new mindset. I evoked, in all its sometimes purple prose, memories of his campaign pledge for "change."
I hate the overuse of the expression "wake-up call" but it was just that. For those who have been sleeping through the turmoil of the past several months, it is time to take responsibility for the future.
Listen, if you want to quote stirring inaugural addresses, you might look at Nixon's
1960 rhetoric. It was stirring. It called for a return to the kind of civil order and concern for each other that made America great. At a time of the deep division over Viet Nam, revolution and anarchy on university campuses,riots and draft-card burning, he promised the dawning of a new America. The fact that there has been no more duplicitous president than Nixon does not matter.
Nor does the demand for a history-making inaugural address matter in the face of whatever awful reality America, and the rest of the world, will be facing.
It was, despite the babbling disquietude of the media, the right speech at the right time. He is above the barbs of the chatteroing classes.
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