Sticks and Stone, Bud, Sticks and Stones
I am going to do to this blog post what I do to conversations when I run out of talking topics — go meta. I have been told by the higher ups that my minimum word limit for this blog post is 150 words. This got me thinking (for a change). How much do we actually say in 150 words? If you are as familiar with the introductory paragraph of an exam essay, you would agree with me when I say, “not a lot, not a lot at all”. By the end of this sentence I will have used over 100 words and all I will have had to show for it is four measly sentences and a rhetorical question.
We live in a country where our politicians are extremely well versed in the art of using large fancy words in an attempt to misdirect us. This is the same world where the outcome of an everyday exchange can teeter on a single adjective. Moreover, there are some things in this world that we kid ourselves into thinking can be expressed verbally. And as much as we try, this is not improved by increasing the lengths of our sentences. This got me thinking, (again), about how important it is that we use the right words. “But Ian, if we’re constantly in an internal battle of formulating the sentences so that they either have some dramatic, intellectual or comedic quality, then don’t all our daily exchanges become some sort of rehearsed dialogue?” Well, you’ve got a point there. A world where there is a three-second gap between two people speaking so that they have time to come up with a zinger isn’t one in which I would like to live. I suppose the only remedy is to learn new ones and practice them so that they are readily available for when we want to use them. Unfortunately, very few high schools and tertiary institutions offer a words class, at least not to my knowledge. That’s why it comes down to self-study. Read. Read books. Read the newspaper. Read good stuff. Read bad stuff and then think about why it was bad and not good. And if there’s nothing else, you can resort to reading those loathsome posts on Facebook that are all in a typewriter font on a white background. Ugh.
Granted, I know Rome wasn’t built in a day but the Romans didn’t stand around talking about the city they were eventually going to build either. It’s going to take time. But in the meantime, could we please sort out the “borrow” and “lend” situation? They do not mean the same thing, folks. Thank you. Now how about that? A little cheeky banter and some thinly veiled philosophical musings all in the space of a 150 words. Well, close enough.