I have become Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time in questioning how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my first decree:

Emperor’s Decree No. 1: No one is permitted, anymore, to say “I’m so over it” if they are not, indeed, “over it.” How will the Emperor’s spies know whether or not someone is indeed “over it”? Simply put, if one angrily yells “I’m so over it” and then breaks a coffee table with one’s fist, one is clearly not over it. Saying that one is “over it” should be a declaration that one is finished with “it” — done expending time and emotional energy on “it”; at peace with “it.”

The Punishment: Violators will be slapped, repeatedly, on the left cheek, by a burly, noisome man with large and calloused hands. Before each successive slap, up to slap one-thousand, the Imperial Deliverer of Slaps (“Pete”) will say, “I am so done hitting you now.” Prisoners will be released after the final clout.

Now, go forth and obey.

The Emperor shall grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.

We might think that people never have to pay for anything, with all the things we hear are paying for themselves. Most times, when someone says, “It pays for itself,” the proper response is, “No, it doesn’t.”

I know someone who buys annual memberships at several aquariums and zoos because doing so only costs a little more than the one-day pass. He once told me that if you go to the Baltimore Aquarium just twice in a year, the yearly pass “pays for itself,” which is why he has bought the yearly pass. Baltimore is a four-hour drive from where he lives, but no matter. He is determined to have his pass pay for itself, so he loads the kids into the car and takes a second trip to Baltimore within the year. Not to do so is to have paid for a yearly membership when only a one-day pass was needed. Driving to Baltimore costs money for gas and tolls, but if you add it all up, as I’m sure he has, it still costs less than paying for two separate day passes to the aquarium. This math convinces him that the yearly pass pays for itself. If he goes to the aquarium a third time in the year, it will pay for itself even more. If he goes ten times, the yearly pass pays for itself so much it’s practically free.

Let’s be clear — if you spend any money you were not going to spend already, then the “yearly pass” or “buy-one-get-one-half-price” does not pay for itself unless you were bound to buy that additional item in any case. It might be an excellent value, you might judge it to be money well-spent, but you don’t come out with the same amount of money at the end that you had before you bought the extra item or extended pass — you don’t save money compared to another option that you were considering. That is what it means for something to “pay for itself.” You could simply not drive to the aquarium a second time that year and spend less money. (All of this is not even considering that aquariums and the like offer these inexpensive season passes in part because they know some people will not come back a second time in a season after paying extra for the season pass, and also because the real money is in the soda and theme park crap they sell people when they do come back — getting you through the gates is what they’re after.)

So what does pay for itself? My lawnmower. I spent about $250 to buy it. I am willing and able to do the work and put in the time (yes, time is money), and my initial cost of $250 paid for itself the first season. Lawn-cutting services charge $35 a week to mow my yard. Owning the mower and mowing my own lawn paid for itself after about 7 weeks. I spend around $35-$50 a year for gas, and maintenance and repair is averaging $50 a year, but it still would cost me a lot more to hire someone to mow. Just letting the grass grow wild is not an option, so I am bound to spend some money. The mower paid for itself compared to the option of having someone do it for me.

Of course, if we want to be literal about it, the mower didn’t pay a damn penny for itself. It doesn’t even have a bank account. I paid for it. But we’re not being literal about it. So the mower paid for itself in one season. Sadly, the aquarium membership, that cheap bastard, never does.

“The kids today can’t write, you’ve surely heard it said, and new technologies are to blame.” So writes Kathleen Fitzpatrick at cnn.com, but she doesn’t agree that texting and other electronic media are making students less literate. Whatever your view of the influence of e-communication on writing skills, read the insightful comments below the article.

Fitzpatrick is attacked for writing, “I’ve got nearly 20 years of experience in the classroom[...]” Commenter Keith writes:

“I’ve got nearly 20 years of experience in the classroom…”

I’ve got – if it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny.

Commenter deaneasy writes:

You’re opinion died at “got”. Sorry.

He recognizes his error and then posts:

And mine died at “you’re”.

At least he has got a sense of humor. I also like that tomj writes:

This “writer” has proven the theory against which she argues. Her misuse of sentence structure, and it’s importance in comunication of written ideas, shows a fundamental lack of knowledge about her subject.

First, there’s the sarcastic “writer.” Is Fitzpatrick not writing? Then there’s the incorrect “it’s” as a possessive in a sentence accusing someone else of not knowing how to write. I wish I could make this stuff up.

Commenter Uthor disagrees with those critical of “I’ve got.”

You shouldn’t be so hard on people who say or write “I’ve got.” Many speakers of English say this very often. That makes the construction a solid part of the English language. Usage is law.

It’s petty and disingenuous to sigh and toss your flighty little head over such things. There are rules of Latin that some school-marmish stuffed shirts stand up for (don’t end a sentence with a preposition, don’t start a sentence with “and or “but”).

They are wrong–and more clownish than those who they self-righteously scold. English is a Germanic language. There are plenty of Latinate words because of court languages (French, after the Normans conquered England), but the heart of the language is Germanic. The core language is good and short and to the point.

God save us from English Nazis.

(Using “Nazi” to mean “strict” is one of my pet peeves. Nazis killed millions of people. I object to diluting the word’s meaning by applying it to people who are strict about grammar or the way customers order soup.)

Commenter JS writes:

The use of “I’ve got” is a colloquialism appropriate to the chatty tone of an internet opinion post. Writers often intentionally use grammatically incorrect constructions for the sake of humour or to convey a conversational or informal tone. I doubt this writer would use “I’ve got” in a scholarly article or even a business letter.

Score one for those of us teaching writing students to consider their audience, purpose, and genre. But not everyone thinks that all writing is writing. Ken from FL, an alleged college instructor, refers to Fitzpatrick when he writes:

Please keep this person away from our children. Blogging, etc, is not writing.

Blogging isn’t writing, folks. Ken from FL has so decreed. I’d keep typing (not “writing”), but I don’t have time — I’ve got to go tell all the writers I know to stop blogging, lest they lose their writing licenses.

(Cross-posted at DPG Online)

You know what frightens me a little about us? — people, I mean. We are really eager to accept things the way they are, even if they are way worse than the way they were pretty derned recently. 

Oh, sure, we’ll moan about “how it used to be,” but, for the sake of ease, something in our heads makes us want to accept stuff, “as is.” Things go more smoothly that way, I guess. 

Or maybe we do this because we feel like we simply can’t stand up effectively against things like plummeting standards. One of the most popular American phrases right now (annoying as I might find it [imagine the whole of the American populace not adjusting its phraseology just to please me]) is: “It is what it is.” Usually, this is a resignation: It ain’t changing. 

(Now that I’m on the subject of annoying phrases, would people PLEASE stop saying “I’m so over it” when they are still mad? Hmm? “I’m so over it” — annoying even in its proper use, by the way — is supposed to mean you are finished with it — done being angry; finished giving the situation your time and energy. If you drive your fist through a plate glass window while bellowing, “I’m so over it,” not only are you putting yourself in grave mortal danger — as well as nearly eliminating your future shot at become a concert pianist — but you are really sort of proving that you are not, in fact, “over” anything.) 

Anyway, I mention this issue of “dropping standards” because, two nights ago, Karen (my wife) and I were in a fast food restaurant. I was exceedingly grumpy because we were stopping to eat on our way to look for a new car (a process I would gladly replace with sledding naked, without a sled, down a hill made entirely of stucco). 

We walked in to find a long line leading up to one register and we were faced with the vexing decision: Does one walk up to the register with only one customer at it, or, does one wait until one is the next cow in line and then proceed to the indicated chute? I always felt that the former was the polite thing to do; yet, that there is certainly wiggle room in there for alternate reasoning: If the people in front of you were asinine enough not to move to the vacant registers on their own, do you owe them your courtesy? (Thoughts like these are the ones that contributed to my current addiction to green tea and cookies. Yes, this is a cry for help.) 

After a bit of a wait (my own wait undertaken while standing hunch-shouldered and under the weight of knitted brows, which must have been, in my unbelievably grim mood, so exaggeratedly knitted that any nearby, french-fry munching anthropologist might have expected he’d just made that elusive discovery he and his colleagues had sought for so many years) we were the lucky ones and we ordered: Sandwiches, fries, drinks. Standard. 

“Your name?” she asked. 

“CKharriesn,” we said. 

“Chris,” I said, a hand gently laid on the arm of my charming wife, as I disentangled our names with — if I might point this out — very manly take-chargeness. “But . . .” 

“Where do we wait?” Karen asked, smiling a pretty smile. 

“Over there’s fine,” the girl said, smiling a pretty smile.

 ”But . . .” I said, grimacing the lost grimace of proto-humanity. 

We waited. Karen sat at a booth. About a minute later, I had gotten the food and sat down.

 ”That was fast,” Karen chirped pleasantly. 

“Goes to show you,” I said, hunching over my meal, rooting around for my stone knife among the paper napkins. 

“What?” she asked, surgically dismantling her sandwich, the way she always does, before putting it back together properly . 

“Huh?” I grunted. 

“Goes to show you what?” 

“Goes to show you,” I said, “what we’re willing to accept. Now we’ve moved-on to being pleased that we didn’t have to wait too long for our fast food. Remember when you would order and they would just hand it to you and you would just sit and eat? Bing-bang-boom?” 

She snorted a quick laugh. “This is going to be a blog post, isn’t it.” 

“More than likely,” I replied, biting into a pretty good spicy chicken sandwich that (it occurred to me) in twenty years, I would probably be contentedly cooking for myself in the same restaurant, just before thanking the manager for the privilege of paying him, exorbitantly, for the use of his ovens and fryers. 

(Some other time, I will tell you about the little fellow with wire-framed glasses and a pith helmet who tapped me on the shoulder with tears of joy in his eyes and a notebook in hand.)

A reader of the Bucks County Courier Times, Brad Thompson, gives word choice advice on today’s Opinion page:

“[Blank] sucks” began as a teenage homophobic slur in the 1960s to bully unpopular boys. Now, the “s-word” describes anything bad. Let’s say “stinks” instead.

This proposal worries me because it is possibly offensive to people with body odor. Also, to skunks.

And will people still be able to say “That stinks” when they want to complain about the stench coming from an overflowing trashcan, or will others think they are just saying that trash is bad?

The dove is a symbol of peace but symbolism is a tricky business. Perhaps due to its reputed monogamy and habit of living among humans without  much friction the dove has been such since biblical times at least. Likewise the corruption of symbols, the dove included, has always been a staple of human interaction whether in a friendly confusion as happened with our Martian friends or with malign and murderous cunning. The dove, like the olive branch, is a somewhat arbitrary vehicle for sentiment and as all good people are learning, sentiment has immovable limitations.

The clear opposite of the Dove, in politics as in fact, is the Hawk. While the Doves are an ancient political race the Hawk, or War Hawk was only conceived around 1812. “War Hawk” was what the peaceniks of that day called those who sought to resist Britain on the high seas. The Brits, you understand, did not admit to the existence of such a thing as an American Citizen, only British Subjects. One of the things Britons were subject to was the press-gang, meaning a young man would be abducted off the streets of some port or taken with his entire crew and ship which were “pressed” into service in the Royal Navy. Conscientious objectors, if not hanged, were dropped into prison hulks; old rotten ships anchored in harbor with only the meagerest rations and care.  The Star-Spangled Banner was written by an American on the deck of a British ship during this ill-remembered encore to our Revolution that saw the President run off like a chicken.

In that time as in all others those who opposed war, the Doves, denounced those who supported war as unthinking predators craving nothing but a vapid glory or the profits they might finagle from the deaths of other men. Then as now any fact or principle that might suggest war as the proper course was simple rubbish. The warmongers argue for war just as the fishmonger argues for fish. War Hawk was definitely a term of insult but a curious one in a nation whose icon is an even more fearsome eagle.

Hawks and Doves continue in their apposition as all witness ad nauseum. While the Doves accuse the Hawks of heartlessness the Hawks indict the Doves for fecklessness. And war is far from the only subject on which this occurs. There are Budget Hawks and Deficit Doves; those who do not council war but only less pliability in our foreign relations are still Hawks, according to the tractable Doves. Hawks on Social Security want to cut it. Doves desire to expand it. A simpler and less inflammatory nomenclature suggests itself. It seems that Hawk and Dove are almost synonymous with Right and Left. With a bit of jiggering this can well be said on issue to issue but as always Reality does not play nice. Who is the Hawk on Iraq? Basically W and the so-called neo-cons. On Afghanistan? That’s a chewier bit of suet. Those baffled by Obama’s loose embrace of Afghanistan, mostly Doves of the Left, should understand it as a tactical maneuver to prevent the label of Dove, peacenik or pacifist from adhering too conspicuously to the aspiring Candidate. On the Left the proud Progressive still understands that pacifism tends to get its wings clipped electorally whenever it is too obvious. It is to this fact that we owe the Iraq war votes of Senators Kerry, Clinton and many another. As much as America at large admires the Dove they do not wish to carry one as a battle standard. Indeed, it would convert that standard into a flag of surrender or at least truce. So the question always becomes, are we at war or are we not? If not, the Dove. If so, the Hawk. Pearl Harbor turned a stubbornly cooing nation into a flock of screaming raptors over a Sunday afternoon. But the struggle for the definitions and declarations is still one between Hawks and Doves. Was 911 an act of war or a particularly spectacular crime? Hawk and Dove each have their predictable answer. So what bird is which on Libya?  Here things get up-ended and scattered to the skies. You do not hear such a discussion on Libya, do you? Hawk and Dove, to the extent they are serious appellations, serve as shorthand for enthusiasts or laggards. With the tables not turned but smashed on the ground the terms fail so the temptation becomes irresistible to mark out a third way, either between the arrayed camps or, even better, high above them. Enter a new species; the Owl.

It was Alan Greenspan in his former life as a Congressman who first coined this crapulent evasion. The subject was the war in Viet Nam. What is needed, he intoned, was a repudiation of both the Hawks like Johnson and Nixon and the Doves of McGovernite circles. The owl is wise, right? With his diurnal apathy and panda-bear eyes the Owl is unruffled, majestic and inquisitive. He asks perpetually Who? Who? Given his resemblance to an Owl in his coke-bottle glasses, it is not too much to presume that Greenspan would answer, Me! Me! The political Owl was allegedly beyond the parochialism and ideological restraints that kept the Hawks and Doves from seeing common ground and simple sense. The Owl, unlike his competitors, considers What is Right for the Country as opposed to Politics as Usual. Ross Perot made claims to Owl-hood though time proved him to be more of a loon. In every setting and on every issue our current President lays a presumptuous claim to the Owl’s favorite branch. Really all of them do. John McCain would seem to be the Hawk’s Hawk by pedigree though he was far more the Dove than his constituents on most issues, but he also considers himself an Owl. By definition the Owlish position, whether it is for immediate surrender or carpet-bombing, can be neither cruel, like the Hawk nor cowardly like the Dove. It is as if when you go into the voting booth your choices are Common Sense versus Partisan Games. The Owl is for Common Sense; everyone else, otherwise.

Common Sense is what we certainly want in our banker, isn’t it? In our Central Bankers, even more. So that desire is being rhetorically fulfilled by a Sarah Bloom Raskin, a soaring official at the Federal Reserve. She eschews the daft dichotomy between Hawk and Dove on all matters under her purview and implies that this is the attitude at the Fed generally. We don’t have particular, principled views on controversies like Inflation or Unemployment or the Debt or the Deficit or even the Currency. So what does direct the Fed? “We are trying to be as wise as possible in deploying all the tools we have to fulfill our legal mandate.” unlike every other silly goose you know who is trying to be as UNWISE as possible! See how simple these things really are? But since this is her bird of choice and, coming from Greenspan, has such a venerable plumage, let’s examine what an Owl metaphor might imply. First off, the Owl is no vegetarian. He is no less bloodthirsty nor skilled as a hunter than the Hawk. Rather the Owl does his predation at night in the privacy of darkness impenetrable to us day-dwellers. He seeks the unwary; the mouse caught out. This is nature’s version of the Fed’s operational secrecy and aversion to audit. Would the Owl have such a reputation as a wise, honest broker if he were seen devouring bunnies at noontime? With eyes so large, surely the Owl sees more clearly than the Hawk or the Dove, but not in daytime, folks. Peering into our reality the Owl will see only a painful glare so he closes his eyes and sleeps. Folklore tells us we want him to remain asleep. What is the hoot of an Owl in the sunlight but a harbinger of death? When in his own element the Owl lingers and listens; his head swivels silently but what interests him is no different from what interests the Hawk, which is an available meal, the more easily procured the better. And as always, the Dove is a viable option given its poor flying, diet of garbage and habit of traveling in unmissable flocks.

So however regal, no, the Owls do not hold the answers. Nor do the numberless Turkeys in our Legislature and government, though revered by Benjamin Franklin as the truly unique American bird. The Swan (a goose with better PR) is likewise a poor candidate, being vain and belligerent though reputedly monogamous. The Penguin holds no greater wisdom except maybe on Antarctic survival. The Pelican? No, he will swallow anything, an indictment that attaches even more thoroughly to the Buzzard. The industrious Sandpiper and the languorous Gull, the Peacock, the Ostrich, Duck and Plover have all been seen on the public stage and all have left a dreadful mess of pinfeathers and droppings. Perhaps we should have a politics of men, not of birds, as we have a nation of laws, not of men. Because on whatever wings soar those in the back of our limousines and in our high offices who peck always at our seed they see us all as only one species.

Pigeon.

Recently, in Australia, the recording/performance artist Lady Gaga and her entourage were pelted with eggs, apparently to protest Ms. Gaga’s use of a wheelchair as part of her musical act. Ms. Gaga, who has the full use of her legs, needed to be shown the insensitivity inherent whenever anyone who does not need a wheelchair uses a wheelchair, whether it be for artistic purposes or not. The eggs were intended as an attention-getting device.

Obviously, as a sensitive person myself, I applaud the throwing of items at insensitive people to get their attention on important matters. Most insensitive people don’t realize they’re being insensitive, and throwing objects at them is a good way to start the conversation process, which will start a dialogue which will in turn lead to the curative process, and then, inevitably can we begin to heal, as a people. I would like to point out, however, that millions of men and women all over the world struggle with the tragedy of infertility. The throwing of eggs is a sad reminder of the burden these people live with every day of their lives. Therefore I must reluctantly say that it was insensitive of the wheelchair activists to throw eggs at Ms. Gaga et al, no matter how noble their intentions.

Feebogzh.

Ms. Gaga has a checkered history of sensitivity. She is the US State Department’s go-to person in the worldwide fight for rights of gays and lesbians, and yet, in attempting to discredit charges that she borrowed the tune “Born this Way” from Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” she used the word “retarded.” Ms. Gaga apologized for that insensitive usage, and yet the very fact that she uttered the word at all was a devastating blow to the millions of people all over the world who have to deal with intellectual disabilities. “The R-word” hurts, no matter the context in which it’s used. As this public service message featuring two cast members of the hit television program “Glee” suggests, using “the R-word” as a synonym for “foolish” (i.e. “When Lady Gaga performed that song in a wheelchair, that was R-worded,” or “Stop riding around in that wheelchair even though you have full use of your legs, you’re being an R-word”) is no different from calling a black person “the N-word,” or a Jewish person “the K-word,” or a Mexican person “the S-word”.

Not feebogzh.

Ms. Gaga would not have dared to say “The people accusing me of stealing Madonna’s music are being so ‘N-word,’” would she? No, of course not. So she should not have used “the R-word.” And if you can’t see that it’s totally the same thing to call a black person the N-word as it is to use the R-word as synonym for “foolish,” then you’re just being insensitive and those of us who are sensitive should all join together to shame you into realizing that you’re less sensitive than we are.

Sadly, this insensitivity is pervasive. Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel used “the R-word” in reference to criticism from liberals over Barack Obama’s health care reform efforts. The political commentator Janeane Garofalo used “the R-word” to criticize those whose politics she dislikes. The comedian Sarah Silverman apparently thinks insensitivity is funny, as she has frequently used “the R-word” in her comedy routines. Another comedian, Whitney Cummings, has also found humor in “the R-word.” Ms. Cummings will be appearing in her own eponymous situation comedy on NBC this season. Apparently NBC thinks “the R-word” is acceptable. I wonder if they would build a show around a comedian who used “the N-word” the way Ms. Cummings used “the R-word.” After all, as the “Glee” commercial makes clear, there is no difference between the two words.

Yet I must admit that even I myself have been guilty of insensitivity at times. In recent blog posts, I have described the comic book character Green Lantern as “lame.” In this context I was using the word “lame” as a synonym for “foolish” (I don’t like the character Green Lantern — he is foolish). As a person who has the full use of his legs, I would never think to employ the use of a wheelchair for “shock effect,” as Ms. Gaga did in her insensitive performance. Yet, by using “the L-word” as synonym for “foolish,” I was committing the rhetorical equivalent of the same crime. That was wrong, and I deeply regret it. I know that millions of people all over the world deal with the tragedy of physical disabilities, and using “the L-word” in that manner was a terrible reminder of the burdens they face every day, and it also implied that people with physical disabilities were “foolish.” Obviously, this is not the case.

Feebogzh.

I understand that words can hurt. For most of my life, I have been underweight, and had lower than normal upper body strength. For instance, today I find it taxing to lift a window-mounted air conditioning unit and carry it up one flight of stairs. I am, in other words, “weak.” And yet, every day I am confronted by situations in which I hear people using the word “weak” when they mean “foolish” (i.e., “Lady Gaga’s use of a wheelchair during a concert was really weak, let’s throw eggs at her,” and “When Lady Gaga used ‘the R-word’ to attack her critics, that was really weak”). How do you think I feel about this? I feel very insulted. I feel hurt. I feel bullied. People would never think to say that Lady Gaga’s use of a wheelchair during a concert was really N-word, so why would they be so willing to say that it was W-word?

Insensitivity comes in many forms and we have to nip it in the bud — if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the “Glee” public service message, that’s it.

But that is not all. I recently suffered from gastrointestinal problems that required a hospital stay, and a biopsy of a small growth found on my duodenum. During this time, I was unable to eat particularly spicy food. I had to eat blander, “weaker” food. Although this condition was temporary and I have since fully recovered and can now eat anything I want, my harrowing three week ordeal gave me real insight into the suffering of the millions of people all over the world who have debilitating gastrointestinal problems that require them to eat only bland food and drink flat soda all the time.

That is why I was particularly devastated to find Rachel Maddow, the sensitive political commentator, use the term “weak sauce” in reference to Democrat complaints about Republican political tactics. (Interestingly enough, Ms. Maddow works for the cable network MSNBC, the sister company of NBC, which will be airing the R-word using comedian Whitney Cummings’ new program. I am sensing a pattern of corporate insensitivity here.)

“Weak sauce” is a hurtful, insensitive term that belittles the plight of those people who must, for health reasons, only consume “weak sauce.” By using that term as a synonym for “foolish,” Ms. Maddow is implying that people who suffer from gastrointestinal problems are, themselves, “foolish.” But they are not. They are you and me. They are our mothers and fathers. Our sisters. Our brothers. Our uncle. They are our neighbors and our neighbors’ neighbors. In other words, they are you and me. Except, they’re not really me, anymore, since I have fully recovered from my health problems. But others, my neighbors, my mothers, my fathers, my sisters and brothers, are not so lucky. And I am sensitive enough to recognize this.

Feebogzh.

Ms. Maddow used the term “weak sauce” in 2010, and I have been unable to bring myself to watch her program since that time. I am too sensitive to watch an insensitive person’s television show. This is especially disappointing since Ms. Maddow is both a woman and a lesbian. One would think that she of all people would understand the power that words have. She would not think to say,”The Democrats are being such bitches about the Republicans’ tactics,” or, “The Democrats complaints about Republican tactics are so gay,” and yet, she did exactly the same thing by saying “The Democrats complaints about Republican tactics are very ‘WS-word.’”

That is why I am proposing a new word, totally made up by me, that we can use as a substitute for the word “foolish.” Because it was totally made up by me, just now, it has none of the insensitive connotations of “the R-word,” or “the L-word,” or “the W-word,” or “the WS-word.” It can be used freely, without fear of offense. The word is,

Feebogzh

It is pronounced exactly like it sounds, and it is to be used thusly:

“My use of the word ‘sad’ in the second paragraph of this post was an insensitive slight against the millions of people all over the world who suffer from depression, and I need to learn to stop being so feebogzh.”

Words matter. They have force. The words you use are just as important as the actions you take, because speaking and expressing yourself are actions. The words you choose reflect what is in your soul. And if you use words that some sensitive people find insensitive, then it only proves how insensitive you are. And that is totally feebogzh.

Once upon a time in America there were posters that said “Loose Lips Sink Ships“. It was good advice for serious times. (According to some sources, posters actually said “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships“, but we remember the catchier, more concise version.)

These days we have different posters and different slogans. Pictured below is one posted in a men’s restroom where I work: “Clean Hands Save Lives!”

Once upon a time we were worried about German U-boats. Now we’re worried that people aren’t washing their hands after urinating. I leave it to you to decide if this means that civilization is progressing.

Of course, people should wash their hands after using the restroom, so the new posters do offer good advice. Still, even if washing hands isn’t as dramatic as preventing naval catastrophe (note the lack of an exclamation point in the “loose lips” poster — none is needed), couldn’t the “clean hands” slogan writers have at least tried to find a rhyme?

History remembers “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” I don’t think “Clean Hands Save Lives” is quite as catchy. If it will indeed save lives, we need to inspire people to wash their hands after eliminating bodily waste. What we need is a better slogan. Readers, in the comments section, would you help the slogan writers?

Maybe I’m just a linguistic sponge, but I find myself falling into the discourse of those around me. A northeastern boy, I’ve felt that if I moved to say, the south, that I’d pick up not only the vernacular but the accent within weeks.

This brings me to adverbs.

You know these words, which serve as modifiers or intensifiers. They often end in –ly. They are words like really and very or words answering questions like How? In what way? To what extent? Your knowledge may consist of information from the “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here” Schoolhouse Rock! song.

That song shows a store dealing in adverbs. But while everything else in our culture — except maybe fast food — has become more expensive, adverbs are cheaper than ever. The “Lolly” song — and with its catchy tune, how could it be wrong? — comforts us that “anything that can be described can be described some more,” so pile those adverbs on.

Adverbs do have their place, but these words, particularly ones that end in –ly or words like really and very, can spread like kudzu throughout your communications. By making everything “really great” or “very important,” we make nothing great or important. In extreme cases (see below), adverbs might make you seem like a pompous, condescending jerk.

Good communicators avoid overusing adverbs (a search of [avoid adverbs] results in hundreds of anti-adverb sites). I heard a story, probably apocryphal, about a budding writer who sent a manuscript to a famous author. All the famous person did was blacken out the adverbs with a marker and send the manuscript back: There’s your writing lesson.

What does this have to do with my linguistic sponginess? I realized adverbs are popping up everywhere in my language, in our adult discourse, and I’m blaming the kids. Like mosquitoes are vectors of West Nile virus, kids are vectors for adverbs. Spend enough time with the sub-ten-year-old set, and you will find yourself modifying everything.

Not that these little words don’t fit, well, perfectly sometimes, and not that kids have a monopoly on adverb use. (One dear friend of mine uses the word “frankly” as a warning that he is about to tell you a lie.) But the epidemiological examination of adverbs reveals they emanate from children, perhaps stemming from a child-like desire to exaggerate or just a linguistic reflection of the struggle to express intensity for first-time life experiences, now matter how minor: “This new cereal is completely awesome!”

There was a time when the kids had us totallying everything: “Totally this” or “Totally that.” They have given  us the bauble very: “She is very honest.” “This is very valuable.” “He is very, very tired.” Now we are awash in really, not just as a worthless modifier like very but often as a one-word question indicating disgust-laden disbelief. You know that cell phone ad campaign? “Really?” is cemented into our culture as a way of saying, “Are you that stupid?”

Because I spend time with these little spouters of adverbs, I knew I was infected, but I thought I was aware of the extent. Then I was shocked to discover a new vocabularic virus had embedded itself in my discourse. When I looked, it was everywhere.

The word? Actually.

I realized my little son has filled my house with a cloud of actually. Worse, what he is saying through this onslaught of actually is “as a matter of fact, dear father, this is the reality, not the one you are proposing.” As I noted that these actuallys left the house with me, I began observing his subversive linguistic behabior. When I asked him something, I learned that 94% of his responses begin with actually. (Further, of that 94%, 81% are accompanied by his raising an index finger, as if to emphasize his superior view.)  We have conversations like the following:

“Stay out of that freezer! You know you can’t have dessert until you finish your dinner.” “Actually, Mommy said I did finish eating.”

“I want those Legos picked up.” “Actually, [some other guilty party, normally a sibling] left them there.”

“Why are you still wandering around the house? We put you to bed an hour ago.” “Actually, I go to bed at 1:00 a.m. now that I’ve turned seven.”

Method of transmission? Brute repetition. I half-heartedly engaged in the task of disciplining myself to eliminate actually until a colleague of mine called me out. We were brainstorming about a project, and I responded to one of her comments by saying, “Actually, that’s a good idea.” She laughed at my use of actually, and I then understood how I sounded. In “Actually, that’s a good idea,” actually serves as a condescending head pat. I might as well have said, “While I didn’t expect the nonsense you were spouting to be a good idea, I now find myself surprised to find that it is.”

So I accelerated my mission of linguistic cleansing. I have asked friends, colleagues, family, and students to point out my adverbial excesses. But the vectors, while they pretend to assist, are crafty. Just the other day, that innocent little diseaser of diction “helped” me, catching a stray actually I had uttered by saying, “Actually, Daddy, you just used the word ‘actually’ again.”

It is wearying to mention Wisconsin so let’s mention it not. It’s unnecessary because those events are not exceptional, actually, but for scale and location. The struggle there is just one beach head in the constant, global and universal struggle. A tiny tendril of that struggle touched down here in Atlanta yesterday as a noisy bussed in scrum of unionists faced a smaller, carpooled scrum of flag wavers across the intersection in front of the Georgia capitol. I can’t say that I attended although that was my intention. For me it was just a three or four block walk. Approaching I could tell my side by the abundance of Carhartt’s and posterboard signs. I could tell the other by their red t-shirts and glossy-stock signs. The unionists numbered maybe 200 and the anti-unionists half that so this was less than a political Woodstock. An earlier scheduled event for and against a referendum on Sunday liquor sales (I’m pro) was a bit larger.

I didn’t stop. I didn’t break stride. I walked past my guys and their guys at the same camel-esque speed and blinked at them as if I had no idea what I had stumbled upon at all and walked straight to the bar. So I guess I am a deserter. I have no excuse of prior committments of any kind. As I said, the whole spectacle was right on my side porch, geographically. I couldn’t say I feared for my safety or my reputation as I trust the former to luck and the latter to oblivion. Sorry America, there was one less voice than there could have been trying to come up with a counter to the axiomatic chant of “Unions Yes! Slavery No!” Apparently these two things are Socratic opposites and mutually exclusive. If that is so I fear there is a startling fondness for slavery in the nation as only 7% of it is unionized.

Wai, wai, wait a minute. It’s more than that. Yes, well I am not counting public employee unions as part of the nation. In my view their actions and interests run counter to the General Welfare, a view I share with FDR so there you go. I have edited this troublesome element from the public scene. Easy, yes? No.

This really is the elemental struggle to which all else is ancillary. Who is in. And who is out. This is the constantly shifting line along which we trip our lives long, not least of all in our politics.

The Constitution declares it powerfully: We The People and in the manuscripts it is bold and larger than all that follows. But this was an aspirational call. While the Framers spouted the claim, they also proposed ratification and let’s not forget that they didn’t seek just 51% of a poll but the approval of nine of the thirteen States. In the end the document was endorsed by 100% of the States so I think I can excuse these guys drafting me into their We even though I hadn’t yet been born. Other parties and institutions deserve no such forgiveness however, as they submit themselves to no such discipline. Constantly all the actors on the public stage are trying to draft me (and you) into their We.

This is restricted to neither the Port nor Starboard rails of our Ship of State. Sarah Palin screeches out “We the People” as lustily and presumptuously as Howard Dean. In each case… in every case you can be sure that when someone declares “Power to the People!” what they really mean is MORE power to MY people. The national labor unions daily declare to speak for The People and there is no doubt that they speak for their own members, who are also taxpayers it must be admitted. Does this mean they speak for the taxpayers? I have not seen any argument or evidence that this is so. The unions take an adversarial stance to the budget; state, local and federal, wherever they find themselves. It is a mountain (of money) to be conquered. In the other corner we have the splintered and tremulous but much larger faction that pays INTO the mountain with little hope of getting anything out. These are the folkses that put Walker and his hellhounds into their offices a scant three months ago. Are these The People? Can you have two The People? Six? Forty? A thousand?

Yes, you can, you do and you must. But let us not stop at the division between the beneficiaries and the burdened of just one issue. We must have as many We-s as we have people. All of us are on the detrimental side of some deals and the beneficial side of others; we resent the former and relish the latter. Mostly we are in mutually beneficial arrangements and the day we find we are not, we at least think of changing our phone carrier, our religious leaders or our bedpartners IF we are free to do so. The freer you are to do this the better for yourself. And we all have selfs. So it is in life, so it is in politics.

This is why I ain’t people in the face of so much recruitment effort all around. No one is fully on my side and I would be pretty suspicious if they were. The only thing we can firmly count on in The People, and even this firmness is relative, is that everyone is fully on their OWN side. So many of the sprouting tax-resistance and Constitutional groups are calling themselves Patriots generically. Well, I also ain’t no patriot if you are one. I don’t recall marrying any of you losers and if I did, it was back in 1787 and there was a pretty ironclad pre-nup in the form of the Constitution which you really should have read closely. If you are going to dump out of that contract then guess what? You are in breech. It’s void. All of it. You aren’t We the People anymore. There shall be no We the People. There will just be numbered souls on a certain patch of land; not citizens, not subjects, not pets. Not people. Just an unruly crowd jostling to make their claims and avoid their duties.

And as an element in that crowd I would be no different, certainly no better! I might prove the worst of the lot and this is the main reason that I, personally endorse our Constitutional Order, disorderly though it sometimes appears. It allows me to shirk my unpleasant but manifest duty to be Global Monarch which is the most likely result I can see from global anarchy. Plainly it would be better for the world if I were in charge of the world but it would be much the worse for me. My compromise therefore is that I will be monarch of myself and do what I may to make other people likewise. Not because I concern myself with YOUR rights and privileges but because I zealously guard my own. This always was the purpose and art of the Constitution, the sturdiest fruit of the Enlightenment. And it has served us well, basically, though if you think otherwise there is a means to alter it that requires a bit more than 51% of some poll to be included in the collective voice of We the People. So I submit that I am included in We the People in that context. If you want to speak for The People in any other sense and you mean me, there is at least one ass you can kiss. One ass, two cheeks.