UPDATED WORDS & PHRASES ABUSE-64

I wrote about the American language in a 2007 blog essay, Misused or Abused Words & Phrases and a short follow-up essay, Further Thoughts on Dissimilation, but now I feel compelled to write again. It is not only that the general public commits unbearable sins and embarrassing written and especially spoken gaffes in regard to our language to the point that sensitive souls want to feign blindness and deafness as mechanisms to bring about surcease from pain and suffering. No, it is people in which speech is central to their professions that are the most egregious culprits with the least excuse who annoy me the most. Journalists on TV, radio, and in the print media as well as TV and radio talk show hosts are equally guilty. Not to mention politicians, academics, and business leaders who also depend upon communication skills to do their jobs properly, yet they do not write and speak properly – that is to say without using clichés and repetitious, trite, and hackneyed expressions which diminish their ability to convince people, especially people like me, of anything. When it comes to not recognizing incompetent and lazy speech habits Ignorance is NOT Bliss. Rather it is confining and intellectually constricting not to be aware of speech, written and spoken, which is poorly put forth. This country is not going to fall like the Roman Empire because a big majority of people in all categories has lost their ability to communicate effectively and with style and grace. Nevertheless, I don’t believe that it will project a national sense of pride and confidence either. What in particular am I going on about? As I wrote in my 2007 essay, the word “very” is by far the most overused word in the American language. Since then it appears to me that this overuse has increased by an order of magnitude (one order of magnitude is 10, two orders 100, three 1000, etc.). I wrote back then that “very” had practically become a compound word as an adverb being used as a modifier for adjectives. I now see the necessity of excising the word “practically.” If you think I am exaggerating then you are clearly not paying attention to the way people, on TV and radio and in private conversations, are expressing themselves. I am fully conscious that if you have not noticed this then I may be doing you a disservice to call it to your attention. Once you become aware of it, perhaps you will want to upbraid me for the annoyance it will then cause you. Go right ahead if that will make you feel better. Not only does it become excruciatingly painful to keep hearing the word “very” being unceasingly overused, but also its function as an intensifier is so diminished that it becomes meaningless. If everything is emphasized, then nothing is. It is as if every negative situation is labeled as the direst, then none is or every positive situation is the greatest then, again, none is. I would only caution you NOT to interrupt and confront the speaker by telling her/him to damn well quit overusing that word (by at least one order of magnitude). That would not be proper manners and, who knows, might lead to fisticuffs or other physical violence. Even barring that, it could well result in an unpleasant oral argument that would be undignified to say the least. If you feel you must intervene, then by all means take the uninformed speaker aside and in private gently attempt to correct this wayward misuse of our language. What else? There is plenty more to come. You, gentle reader, are surely aware of the ubiquitous, unceasing, omnipresent use of the expression, “you know.” It is not even used as a question any more such as “You know?” It is merely a speech filler without any merit whatsoever. Some people use this phrase in their speech blissfully unconsciously and others as a nervous habit, also seemingly unconsciously. I was once discomfited by the inane insertion of this phrase into so many people’s speech, but now I am convinced that it is infuriating to the point of driving the insane, sane and the sane, insane (I am in an aporetic state whether I fit in the first category or the second – the reader may have no such doubt that I belong in a third state; insane before and after). Professional athletes are especially prone to incessantly insert “you know” in their responses to sportswriters during interviews. Even allowing that these athletes are known for their physical prowess rather than their mental acuity, many of them did go to college, albeit nominally. Perhaps the professional football players should have spent a bit more time learning to speak better rather than trying to knock each other senseless. The class action law suits now being undertaken by retired football players against the National Football League because the players claim they were not sufficiently warned by the league of the risk of damage to their brains indicates to me there wasn’t much there to damage in the first place. Just what the hell did they think would happen when they repeatedly banged each other in the head even when wearing helmets? Even though I have not had that experience, I am convinced I would rather undergo “water boarding” than continue hearing a speaker keep using that expression. Despite my previous imprecation against confronting people who keep saying “very” I might well resort to physical means to silence those bleating miscreants who keep babbling on incessantly with “you know”, “you know”, “you know” ad infinitum. I just might want to kick a few of them in the head, sans helmet no less. No sensible jury would convict me for whatever I do to achieve this highly desired result. How many times have you heard TV and radio newscasters as well as TV hosts of various programs breathlessly intone the mantra “You are not going to believe this.” when they are about to introduce a news story containing an unusual element? I’ll guess the answer is myriad times or even a myriad of times (When uses as an adjective “myriad” means many times and when uses as a noun “myriad” means precisely 10,000 times. Don’t take my word for it, look it up in an unabridged American lexicon.). If they opine that the listener is not going to believe what they are about to be told then why bother to tell them. I realize, as I have stated in the aforementioned essay, that the American language, in fact any language, is not to be confused with logic. Still, that does not mean that statements should be intentionally illogical. How about one being sensible? Is that too much to ask? To answer my own question – apparently it is. Despite my previous attempts to enlighten the ill educated among the Americans, it appears that I have failed. I will tell you straight out, I do not enjoy having to classify myself as an abject failure. Newscasters, especially on TV, are still calling the period after a disaster, an “aftermath”, as when, for example, the damage is still being assessed when a tornado has devastated a town or small city. “In the aftermath of the tornado the people who were in its path are coming together to deal with the destruction and pain.” Again, as I have previously explained, “after” means second and “math” means harvest. In this case it is a bitter harvest, yet there has not been a second destructive event following and caused by the first. The classic example of this is the fire following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Is that a concept difficult to grasp? To repeat myself, apparently it is. What actions have I taken in the past to educate those dummkopfs? I have repeatedly written e-mails informing them of their benighted language skills, yet it was all in vain as I never heard from any of them and the mistake keeps being repeated. Let us make a covenant. I will continue to tilt, a’ la Don Quixote, at the windmills of ignorance if you will take up a cudgel to combat language deficiencies wherever you encounter them. Deal? Do you hear the expression “at this point in time” still being used? I do. It is Nixon/Watergate era usage. How droll and dumb that it is being used in contemporary speech. There was precious little reason for it back in the 1970’s, say nothing for its continuation now, but at least then there was the element of originality. What just punishment should be imposed on its users today? I have a suggestion. For this and the other enumerated sins the following might be appropriate: Many years ago the brother of William F. Buckley put on a public speaking seminar for professional people such as top business leaders, university deans and presidents, and high level government officials. You could well imagine the fee was not unsubstantial. One of the techniques he used was to have the participants practice delivering a speech in front of the group. Immediately in back of the speaker was a gong that was loudly rung if said speaker made extraneous or unnecessary sounds such as “ah”, ”uh”, “you know”, “very this”, very that”, or other such unnecessary folderol. Can you imagine the shock and chagrin the speaker would experience on hearing that sound in such close proximity to his ears? For the modern language butcher I would substitute his head for the gong and make sure the instrument striking it contained substantial heft. Don’t be queasy – sacre blu! Those dummies deserve that and more. How common is it for people to exclaim “to tell you the truth”; “I am going to be honest with you”; “I am not going to lie to you”; or some similar formulation? We have all heard this repeatedly so the answer must be it is common. There is no cogent reason for any honest person to have to insist they will tell whomever they are talking to that they will be truthful. On the other hand maybe Mark Twain was right when he said, “I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead - and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and they would be honest so much earlier.” And some people believe I am a cynic. There is one language affliction that adult Americans do not seem to suffer. That one is the nonstop insertion of the word ”like” in their conversations. This seems to be restricted to teens and tweens. I suppose it is a bit unfair to criticize too harshly these immature humans as their brains are largely just a hash of mush. I once tried to mock my granddaughter and her friend over their continued use of “like” in what passed as conversation, but I might as well have been talking to the wind. I was either disdainfully or unconsciously ignored. With that young generation it is difficult to discern their thought processes. Despite my adjuring Americans, especially trained journalists, authors, and public speakers, about not using such modifiers as very, almost, quite, extremely, etc. with the word “unique” in my 2007 essay, it is readily apparent that in the years since absolutely no one has paid any attention to what I wrote. Yet, and yet, is there a word more universally misused, at least in the United States, than unique? If something is unique it is one-of-a-kind and therefore no modification allowed; that is if the speaker wants to be considered a truly educated and literate individual who has more than a basic understanding of the American language. An unhappy note, as least to me, was a recent C-SPAN Book TV event where author and American Enterprise Institute president, Arthur Brooks was introduced by House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA). It was a stellar introduction until Cantor said in closing, “and now without further ado….” which is an expression that was a cliché at least 60 years ago. I had heard it used a couple of other times on Book TV in the past few years, but it was with great disappointment that such an esteemed person as Eric Cantor would employ it. How sad. “The reservation was made for Bob and myself.” Have you ever heard that type of construction? If so, what is wrong with it? The answer is plenty. People who use such monstrosities simply do not have the knowledge or confidence in their use of the American language to properly express themselves. The rule is simple and even easier to apply if one’s ear is at all attuned to the American language. First, for clarity, let me state the rule. If it is the subject of the sentence then the proper pronoun is “I”, “she”, “he”, “we”, “they”, or “who”, but if it is the object, then it is “me”, “her “, him”, “us”, “them”, or “whom.” The subjective pronouns are actors and the objective pronouns are acted upon. Consider the opening sentence of this paragraph: “Reservation” is the subject so the correct pronoun should the objective one, “me.” Whether it is a compound subject or object, as in this case, makes no difference. No native American speaker would say, the reservation was made for “I” or “myself”; “me” would unfailingly be used. Usually the objective pronoun comes after the subject in a sentence, but not always. If I say, “My wife has a better memory than me” I may be factually accurate, but I would not be grammatically correct. A simple test would be to ask her to name all 50 of the state capitals. No, just joking. By completing the sentence “My wife has a better memory than I have” the correct, subjective pronoun becomes obvious. The “self” pronouns are neither subjects nor objects. They are reflexives (I hurt myself – one would not say “I hurt I” or “I hurt me”) or intensifiers (I myself witnessed the accident). Do you not agree that when so explained, the proper use of pronouns becomes, like the Egg of Columbus, as clear as the sun at mid- day?

THE DECLINING USA-63

This essay will be hard-hitting and pull no punches (it is not always wrong to use clichés, it is just that one should not overuse them and never include mixed metaphors) and it is not intended to please far left or far right partisans. While I have seldom, if ever, been labeled a Pollyanna, I certainly have not been accused of being, as the Germans say, “Weltschmerz” either (inherently pessimistic). Where then does that leave me? I would like to believe it is realism that drives me, leads me, and forms the basis for my belief system. And so I shall continue to adhere to this philosophy unless and until I am definitively proven wrong. My thesis is that the United States, as many people I know believe, is in decline and has been for several decades. For evidence of this I will cite historical precedent and current data, both absolute and comparative. I do not mean to imply that the situation of the USA is unique; hardly. The European countries are finally now beginning to pay for their massive decades long “welfare state” policies and “entitlement mentalities.” We, the United States, are following the same downward path to an inexorably declining economic and social fate. It is just that the Europeans have a head start on us; pas de proble’me, never fret, we are gaining on them (there is always room for a bit of ironic humor). What about Asia? There are arcane and supposedly sage commentators who posit that Asia, and in particular, China and India, will be the dominant economic and social entities in the future and not in that distant a future either. I would challenge them to read the book, “The Empire of Lies” by French economic journalist Guy Sorman which makes the case that China has more serious problems than we in the West can comprehend, which I would characterize as, to quote the Bard of Avon, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” As far as India is concerned even though it has made tremendous economic gains in the last couple of decades, emblematic of it problems is that it is still a country that is welded together, such as it is, with an English language which was imposed on the Indians by the hated English during their colonial period. Down through the centuries there have been oracles, or those who fancied themselves such, who have predicted or chronicled the downfall of various empires or civilizations and have done so with regularity. There is a famous quote discovered years ago which lamented the degenerated state of people and particularly the youth, stating, in effect, that they were going to hell in a hand-basket at that time compared to the caliber of people who came before. This was in the 3rd century BC following the “Golden Age of Greece” which claimed such notables as Socrates, Pericles, Plato, Thucydides, and Sophocles. If the Greeks in the century following their Golden Age failed to measure up to previous standards what about contemporary Greeks? Is there a more entitlement driven, to the point of inciting violent street protests and demonstrations, and a more whining group of ingrates anywhere on earth now or in the past than this current crop of Greeks? The Greeks gave the world democracy and look at that sorry lot now. The 18th century English historian, Edward Gibbon, chronicled “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” in his book and British author Bernard Lewis has written sympathetically and eloquently about the literary and scientific achievements of the Ottoman Empire as well as its decline, especially in his 2002 book “What Went Wrong.” Lewis shows how the Ottomans failed to modernize, thereby falling behind the West in all aspects of military, economic and social categories. At one time it was said, quite accurately, “The sun never sets upon the British Empire.” Those days have long since past. The British did not seem to ever recovery from the enervating effort of winning World War II while the much younger United States seemingly went from strength to strength in the post war period even given the pitfalls or pratfalls, depending upon how one wants to define them, of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. It is since then that the USA has begun to slip appreciably. One who appeared to disagree with that timetable was Philip Wylie who wrote a 1942 book titled “Generation of Vipers” which was a jeremiad against politicians, businessmen, and the public in general at that time. Fortunately for him he died in 1971. One could speculate that he would be absolutely apoplectic given the much worse state of American society today. Two primary, but not exclusive, sources of more current data for detailing the decline of the United States are the books “The BATTLE: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future” by Arthur C. Brooks and “FDR Goes to War” by Burton W. Folsom & Anita Folsom. I would, that these and other data were less compelling in supporting my thesis, yet how can I arrive at any other conclusion than where the facts unmistakably lead? N’est-ce pas? The federal government is “growing like Topsy” relative to the private sector. According to Brooks in 2009 the federal government added 13,000, mostly high paying, jobs. In 2012 the average federal worker earns 73% more than the average private sector worker (Does any observant person really believe that, on average, a public sector worker is more productive and efficient than a private sector worker?). From 2001 - 2008 (if I am not mistaken Bush The Younger was president) the Dept. of Energy grew by 54%. Medicare Part D (prescription drugs for seniors) became the largest medical entitlement program in history. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that its cost to taxpayers between 2004 -2013 would be $593 billion. As president of these United States the gallant Bush signed spending bills that contained more than 55,000 earmarks without a single veto. It was the aforementioned Bush who offered up the notorious Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) with a price tag of $700 billion and bailed out General Motors and Chrysler with $17.4 billion. The bailouts of the auto companies may or may not have been sound moves, but that hardly squares with the idea that Republicans are always frugal while Democrats are profligate. By 1997 (the Clinton administration) Fannie Mae was buying sub-prime home loans secured with nothing more than a 3% down payment. Four years later (Bush admin.) it was buying mortgages with no down payment; yet congress pushed for making even more risky loans. New government mandates required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase their low and moderate loans to at least 55% of their mortgage purchases. From 2001 – 2006 subprime loans rose from 7% to nearly 19% of all mortgages. Two of the leading lights in congress who led this travesty of Freddie and Fannie taking on these risky mortgages which turned unto a worldwide financial disaster were the egregious Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and the termagant and labile Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Both were too mendacious and dishonorable to accept any blame whatsoever for the debacle. Those two jokers were not known for their comity or comedy for that matter, especially the cranky Frank. True, the Wall Street greed-heads took advantage of the situation to profit mightily from that whole sorry business, yet it was the offal-smelling politicians who caused it. The increase in the national debt was $4.9 trillion (call it $5 trillion) during the 8 years of the George W. Bush administration, going from approx. $5 ½ trillion to $10 ½ trillion. During the 3 ¼ years of the Obama administration the national debt increased by another $4.9 trilllion, culminating in a total national debt of more than $15 ½ trillion to date. To be fair, the economic conditions of the country were much more dire when Obama became president than when Bush did. However, also to be accurate, the Obama administration, except for the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of $787 billion (stimulus package) signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 9, 2009, which is widely thought to have been largely wasteful and ineffective in ameliorating the financial woes of the nation, did not put the economic recovery of the country as its first priority. Everyone remembers that Obama’s Chief-of-Staff, Rahm Emanuel, said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” So President Obama and the Democrats in congress imposed what has turned out to be an unpopular healthcare reform, comprising 1/6 of the USA economy, on the American public as the signature legislation in the first two years of the Obama administration. No sensible person denies that a major change is needed in our healthcare system to keep it from imploding financially, yet to turn complete control of the healthcare system in this country over to the federal government is a proven recipe for inefficiency, medical rationing, and financial disaster. Respected economist Abba P. Lerner wrote a primer on economics titled “Everybody’s Business “ in 1961. In it he stated the national debt was not a problem in that “we owe it to ourselves.” He was correct in that the national debt was a fraction of what it is now, some $290 billion, and by 1970 just 5% of our debt was foreign held. By 1990 19% of our debt was foreign held and by 2011 this had ballooned to 46%. These last statistics came from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) who is chairman of the important House Committee on the Budget. Ryan, 42 years old, is one of only a few people in congress who are truly looking out for the good of the whole country in trying to achieve fiscal reforms that will keep us from imploding. Most of the congress people, both Democrat and Republican, are not worth a rat’s posterior. Ryan also came up with the statistics that in the last 40 years the federal budget was approximately 20% of the economy. Given the growth of the government it is project that by mid-century this figure will be about 40% and by the end of the century close to 80%. Currently $0.40 of each dollar of the federal budget is borrowed. It certainly is not irrational to forecast that, unless drastic changes are made, on its current trend this country will become a collapsed financial and social society. There have been 47 defined depressions or recessions in the United States since 1790 and the average length of these economic downturns since the mid 1850’s is about 17 months. Why then is the current recession lasting so long? I would postulate it is the same reason that the Great Depression of the 1930’s lasted so long. What do they have in common? Both were punctuated by massive federal government intervention. First President Hoover then President Roosevelt, with the best of intentions (remember the old saw about what the Road to Hell is paved with), used the federal government to attempt to stimulate and control the economy. It is an eerily apropos example of first a Republican President then a Democrat President employing the federal government to “fix” the current economy as was done in the 1930’s. What comes to my mind are the words of philosopher George Santayana who said, “Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Of course these leaders have tremendous egos (or they would not have been driven to achieve the positions they held), which force then to believe they will succeed where other have failed. In addition to these four presidents there is a prime example of former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev who was convinced he could reform Soviet communism and make it into a viable and dynamic economic and social system. Communism had never worked anywhere at anytime in history and it eventually failed spectacularly in the case of the Soviet Union. What a surprise. President Obama has made clear that he favors a “redistributive fairness” mode of income, that is to say, leveling the amount of money Americans can keep simply because that would be “fair” rather, as Arthur Brooks calls it, a “meritocracy fairness” form of income – allowing people to keep most of what they earn based upon the merit of their efforts. What is “fair” as to the amount of income taxes that people pay is, as the saying goes, in the eye of the beholder. President Obama repeatedly stated that higher income people should pay even more in income taxes than they do now. But what is the breakdown of what people pay as a function of their income? Here it is: The top 1% of earners (1.4 million people) bring in 17% of the income, but pay 35% of federal income taxes; the top 5% of earners bring in 37% of the income, but pay 60% of federal income taxes; the bottom 50% earn 12% of the income, but pay 3% of federal income taxes. Further, this disparity is becoming more pronounced with time. From 1986 to 2006 the proportion of taxes that the top 1% of earners paid grew from circa 26% to 35%. In 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to raise taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 per year and on couples earning more than $250,000. His rational was that we needed “a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code.” He has repeated this consistently every since. As of 2012 the bottom 50% of earners will soon, if not already, not only not pay federal income tax, but will be net takers from the government in the form of the Income Tax Credit, food stamps, Medicaid, and the school lunch program among other government largesse. That President Obama wants to fundamentally change this country into a more European type quasi-socialistic society cannot be gainsaid. However, conservatives who believe that all will be well if Obama is defeated in his re-election bid this fall and Republicans keep control of the House and regain control of the Senate are themselves a bit deluded. History is not on their side – such an outcome would doubtlessly slow, but not stop our inexorable descent into a financial and social abyss. This attitude by conservatives would be risible were it not so specious. As far as incontrovertible historical data to bolster my thesis that it is politicians in general, not just Democrats, who have created a too big, too intrusive, too powerful, too expensive, and an overweening government are concerned, the following study from Arthur Brooks is compelling: In 1913 the ratio of total taxes - local, state, and national, to the federal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 8%; in 1940 after the New Deal policies of FDR it was 15%; in 1980 it had reached 30%; in 2000 it was 33%; in 2009 it was 43%; and is projected to be 50% by 2038. During this period as taxes increased as a percentage of GDP there were local governments, state legislatures, and congresses which were alternately dominated by Democrats, by Republicans, and sometimes basically evenly split and there were 9 Republican presidents along with 8 Democrat presidents between 1913 and now. How else can one rationally interpret these data other than the way I have? I would welcome hearing dissenting opinions, just remember, to use an American Civil War expression, an opinion unsupported by facts is not worth “a pinch of owl’s dung.”