Our Language

It began with a trip by car to the local fast food burger chain. At first, it appeared as if someone had made the intellectual equivalent of a typo while painting. The sign read, “Drive-Thru.” Really? That was odd, but when we learned that the truncated spelling was intentional, did any of us stand up and declare, "No, you can't do that to our language!"?

Of course not. We are not allowed to call a company foolish. That company provides jobs, it moves the flow of commerce. We do not have to hold them accountable to our basic rules of life. We idly allowed for the manipulation of proper spelling to take place while going about our stuffing of fries and slurping of colas. Let’s not go overboard – this kind of verbiage is not a travesty, though it is bordering on something that is just plain wrong.

Can we not use the extra few letters worth of paint to properly call a fast-food-delivery window what it is, a Drive Through?

Soon, it was apparent this was not a mistake but rather the introduction of an oncoming trend. Child care became Kiddie Korners; the convenience store became a Kwik Stop; the ice cream parlour became an EZ-Freez. Even churches took to the act. A musical was “Wee-Three Kings,” a choir became a “Praize Band.” WHY? What is the point of a z instead of an s in that instance?

Before long, there came a cereal for kids not rabbits that tricked the kids into thinking they would get a kick out of performing trix instead of tricks while eating Trix instead of Kix. Try explaining that one to a three-year old.

It all came tumbling down with the great American chicken sandwich. Good food indeed! But, when a company begins by spelling fillet as “fil-a,” the point of words is doomed. Later, that same Georgia chicken discovered that an illiterate cow was the way to advertise, as if dumb beef is somehow less appealing than the chicken which that cow protested against in the first place. The jokes about illiterate cows abound, but we won't poke fun at a chain's target audience. That would be mean.

However, we could take a shot at the irony by which that same company purports to support and promote education through their toys and kids meal packages while simultaneously misspelling common words and butchering (get it?) grammar for the sake of a simple pun. Have you seen these ads? “Buy More Chikin.” “Eet Moore Chikin Heere.” It might as well read, “We Are as Dumb as You are so Buy Our Chicken.” Then again, that chicken is good!

Then, without warning, along came a vitamin-laced water provider that went and pulled a fast one. Their label is written in all LOWER CASE letters! (Get it? That is an attempt at irony.) The label-writers at a soft drink company are no e.e. cummings, so who are they to write without proper capitalization? Unless someone in that company can provide proof of direct family lineage to the great poet, then they may not and shall not advertise in lower case letters. It is not only bamboozling the American people to think that they are original, but it is also dumbing down those who choose to drink the stuff.

The more we publish or sell or advertise or print material that is incorrectly written and formatted, the more we counter the very meaning of education. It is bad enough that parents do not support education, the least a company could do is try. The point is - the more we tolerate, the more we lose!

While Hooked on Phonics tried their very best to stem the tide that was becoming the unfortunate dismantling of our language, we stood by and thought it cute that a “Masked Marketeer” came up with that idea. We were pirated! Would you let someone steal your luggage? No! Take your CD player? No way. Then why were our words any different? Our language was taken from us on the deep Sea of Ignorance that has become commercialism. And what did we do? We stood aside, handed over that big fancy wheel that drives our ship, and allowed for our language to be pillaged.

How is it that a corporate scheme undermined the very thing that identifies us as a people?

When we no longer police our own language we begin to lose our identity. Language itself represents us. It will become the only testimony that we were ever here in the first place. Buildings will collapse, empires will dissolve, commerce will eventually turn over to the next great theory, and this life as we know it will become a boring chapter in a history book which no one wants to read. Under the section for our times, there will be a heading that reads: “Bizness Was Good: The EZ Years!”

Without clear and concise language we are nothing more than the animals – but a cow would never utter a moo in a tone that tries to convey anything more than its three or five main concerns. We realize that animals communicate through their own rhythms and nuances, but they do not alter it to be clever or to throw a pun around like we throw their dung at some humiliating toss-a-contest.

History will look at us as a confused race - one that is lost between kwik, quick and qwik all because someone wanted to be cute... as if the proper delineation between to, two and too or there, they’re and their aren't enough to confuse kids or people who not speak English as a first language.

Perhaps this is taking things too seriously. After all, language is a living and breathing evolution of history. But what does it say about us if we mistake cash for kash and EZ for easy? It says we are either lazy or stupid, or maybe complacent.

Recently, students wrote a paper in a Pennsylvania school about the famous literary character Rip Van Winkle. The teacher was surprised to receive several essays that identified the sleepy fellow as R.I.P. Van Winkle. Talk about an assumption. Did anyone tell Van Winkle that his century-long sleep was in fact the same sleep of death that Hamlet moaned about?

By letting our language devolve into its own sub-genre where words are only understood by a few, we have begun the extermination of thought. As soon as we do not even know what the hell we are talking about, we devoid communication of its substance. Likewise, we water down the basic meaning of what we are saying. This is without even addressing text message lingo - the very place where language has gone to die.

R U kidn me? Neone noes we git it. IDK. Mabee dae dont. WutEv. C U L8r…

Boy, spell check is going to love this post! Sorry, but the proof is in the typo.

Rush Concert Rankings

Rush will be playing Pittsburgh on September 16, 2010. I am thrilled to know that for the rest of my life I will be able to say that my first time in the new Pittsburgh Consol Energy Center (to undoubtedly be renamed 5 times during its history) was to see a Rush concert!

Because I have been so busy reading composition papers for the last three weeks, I will simply provide a list and call it a post to the blog. (A cop-out, I know.)

MY FAVORITE RUSH CONCERTS:
Ranking of Rush concerts - based on quality of show - that I have seen...though I recently miscounted. I thought I had seen them 18 times; it has only been 16 events to date. Drat!

1 - Pittsburgh, June 2007 - Snakes & Arrows (Just a great album played to a great tour)
2 - Cleveland, 1989 - Presto (This one cost me a relationship...so worth it.)
3 - Pittsburgh, December 1987 - Hold Your Fire (MY FIRST RUSH SHOW!)
4 - Pittsburgh, June 1992 - Roll the Bones (Man, was it cold for that outdoor night.)
5 - Cleveland, November 2002 - Vapor Trails (Wow, really, what a GREAT comeback!)
6 - Cleveland (2nd night)...1991 (Nov?) - Roll the Bones (Exhausted after 3 shows in 3 nights)
7 - Pittsburgh, Memorial Day, 2004 - Rush 30 (Made me feel old...)
8 - Pittsburgh, August, 2002 -Vapor Trails (Took 2 of my kids to this one - so proud.)
9 - Milwaukee, 1997 - Outdoor show in June - Test for Echo (A surprise summer show)
10 - Atlanta, 1993 - Counterparts (Someone I forget entirely bought this ticket for me.)
11 - Cleveland 1st night, 1991 - Roll the Bones (Rocking Cleveland!)
12 - Pittsburgh, - July 2, 2008 - Snakes & Arrows (First concert where I ran into my students.)
13 - Pittsburgh, 1989 - Presto (Are those giant rabbits?)
14 - Cincinnati, Sep. 2007 - Snakes & Arrows (Great trip...should have gone to Columbus too!)
15 - Pittsburgh, indoor 1991 (Oct?) - Roll the Bones (The only time I ever skipped classes...)
16 - Milwaukee, winter/indoor, 1996 - Test for Echo (First as a married man)

Between now and September 16th, I will rock and I will write.

Until the next post...

In Praise of Baseball

I have seen this year after year. As much as we love football and hockey in this country, there is something about baseball that captures people in the heart. Do not deny it. You love baseball! Okay, maybe you don’t. Many people, however, do love the game, and those people go about life with a bounce in their step, a glint in their eye and a warm grasp on their memory. They wait all winter for baseball and spend all summer enjoying it. It is about life.

If I were a Jedi, I would do a great mind trick that would finally and ultimately convince you of the fact that, despite your denial, you really do love baseball. I cannot do that…so I won’t even try.

I have given up the fight of trying to convince people of the beauty of baseball. I am now confident and content that those who do not appreciate the great game, never will and that is their loss. Much like the father who abandons his children and never even realizes that he is the one who loses out when the child takes his first bike ride or dances her first recital, those who ignore baseball simply do not know what they are missing. In the meantime, I will sit in the stands, follow the standings and question the stance of the next power hitter. I will absorb what you deny.

See, baseball is about so much more than the final score. If all we cared about in any of life’s pursuits was the final score, would we even spend our time being alive? A very wise person once asked me this, “If life is so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?” Wow – that hit me like a line drive. What a concept. And it got me thinking about a lot of things that have nothing to do with baseball but also about a lot of things that have much to do with baseball.

In life, there are choices. If a runner is on third, he can attempt to steal home. A rarity, yes, but a surprise attack strategy nonetheless. What happens when one steals home? One runs the risk of being caught stealing, getting called out and disappointing the team. Sure, the rewards outweigh the risk…or do they? Is one run and attention from thousands worth potentially losing the game? How many times has a runner attempted to steal home? A few dozen, maybe, in the entire history of the game. How many have scored? Who knows? I would think that stealing home is a lot like abandoning your kids. It walks a fine line between cautious risk and undue consequences. By the way, Ty Cobb alone stole home 54 times in his career. Perhaps that is a lost art.

In life, there are also mistakes. What is interesting about baseball, and what separates it from other sports, is that there is no direct penalty for having committed the error or the blunder. Even the much-maligned balk results only in a free pass to the next base. Imagine being the guy who balked in a winning run! In football, a referee either gives or takes away yardage; in hockey, they take a player from the ice and place a man in the penalty box; in basketball, they grant a free opportunity to score a point uncontested. Not so in baseball. The errors you make effect you in ways to which only you can react. If a booted ball advances a runner, you still have the chance to get out of the inning. It is not arbitrary. That error could cost the whole game or an entire season, or it could just be a blip on the road through nine innings. Much like our laws, one could argue. Depending on the severity, a judge’s rulings could sidetrack long-term success or place you under custody of the manager for a longer term; or, it could simply teach you a quick lesson to never do that again. But, what’s the point of even discussing that? You hate baseball, remember?

We have in this our life teams that support us, teams that want us, teams that respect us; fans who hate us, fans who adore us in an overly-obsessive way, and fans who might not even notice that we came or went in the roster that is their own life. We have umpires who keep us cool, those who infuriate us and those we get mad at, even though they only kicked us out when we lost our cool and crossed the lines of the rules we knew about all along. It is funny how those things work.

What baseball offers is a time to reflect. We don’t get enough of that in our hectic lives. Between pitches, we can converse with a friend, guess what pitch will come next or just sit quietly enjoying the surrealism that is the moment. Heck, we can even get up to run an errand if we want to do so and not really miss all that much. See, baseball can be like that moment in pre-school when you realized it was okay to relax. In fact, there are but a few moments during baseball when we must focus absolute concentration. We do this with the pennant on the line, the final out moments away, the winning run on second (and, really, what is more exciting in baseball than the potential winning run standing on second?), the ceremonial first pitch, the singing of the National Anthem. In life, we pause when our children are born, stretch when we have worked too hard, clasp our hands in cerebral prayer as the floodwaters rise, doff a cap in farewell to a loved one, shake our heads in dismay over things both silly and profound, anguish when the bad news arrives, and watch the highlights of somebody else’s victory or defeat.

Eh, whatever. If you don’t like baseball, you just don’t like it. What can I say? It is neither sport, nor metaphor. It’s just a game I guess. By the way, that person who said -- “If life is so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?” -- she was nine when she asked that question. Barely to the on deck circle of life, and I think she has a lot of things figured out already. I think she will do well at this game.