It might be a relief to take another brief “time out” from the roadkill aesthetics of Trumpian politics and get to our preferred subject: words and their employment. This mini-essay is intended to be relevant to those judicious individuals who, creditably, still employ language rather than inexpressive digital exchange.
Employing language that effectively and satisfyingly expresses our thoughts requires the selection of appropriate vocabulary. Consistent with this tautologically basic principle, we have always suffered reservations about the ubiquitous reliance upon a thesaurus as a general source of meaningful expression. The thesaurus is a source of relevant synonyms but not a reliable guide to the writer’s intended expression. It is our experience that there are very few legitimately contextual synonyms, i.e., “hot” is not a valid synonym for “torrid.” The cup of tea or the bath water may be “hot,” whereas the exotic female dancer may be described with the adjectivial word, “torrid;” “sharp” may be colloquelly utilized to signify “aware,” or “intelligent.” but is equally utilitarian in the eval;uation of a freshly ground blade, Words may have ubiquitious application but may not be aesthetically accurate to convey a singular feeling or meaning. Effective communication mandates the selection of words that are validly expressive of the intended message.
As an illumination of our theme, we offer a representative sample of frequently heard words ubiquitiously used without consideration of their traditional meaning:
[“So”] is a word universally employed in television news media as a precursor to an interviewee’s response to a question posed by the show’s host. The accepted use of the word, nevertheless, connotes a resultant fact or action following a consequential event or statement. not a spoken predicate to a response. The inappropriate use of a verbally dynamic connection between cause and effect is bizarre and annoying.
[“Absolutely”] The use of this confident assertion of ultimate and metaphysical confirmation, is ludicrios overkill when employed in lieu of the simple “yes.”
[“No worries”] is a popular, non-contextual, inappropriate expression in an exotic represention of the simple response, “Thank you!” We find the misused, comforting expression confusing, as well as situationally inappropriate.
[“Cool”]: This word, acceptingly referencing the existence of low or moderate temperature, used as a populist expression of consent, or consonance, may be the most prevalent word in ourb populist lexicon. Such contextually exotic terms may be disconcerting to the uninitiated and ambiguously confusing.
[“Back in the day”]: A purportedly authoritative declaration about the past, with scant historic specification, but the general, inane reference, “Back in the day,” indicates a genuine lack of knowledge or, conceivably, an unwillingness to be usefully informative.
[“Dude”] This lazy, off-hand reference to a specific person is objectionable and notably revelatory of today’s unfortunate absence of individualized personality.
[“Chill out”] is an unfeeling, non-empathic recommendation to a person who is suffering or uncomfortably worried and is expressive of lack of empathic concern. Words of understanding would be more humanistic.
[“Whatever!”] This brash response to an opinion or statement is an egregious insult and an arrogantly unkind dismissive, usually uttered in a nuanced tone of annoyed impatience. The word’s appropriate meaning is quite the opposite; properly used, it is an affirmative and generous statement of a party’s free choice.
We are confident that the reader can cite other illustrative examples of such ubiquitously used jargon.
To be clear, we do not maintain that the use of such populist expressions is immoral or wrongful, but we do find them to constitute an unsuitable waste of opportunity to speak meaningfully in a personally nuanced fashion at a time in our societal history when personal conversation, unhappily, has become rare.
-p.
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