Move Over

When I was a kid, words were dished out with great relish by those around me, especially the grownups in my life, but I wasn’t allowed to participate in their conversations. Instead, I watched in silence as their words banged around in the air above me. It was a given that children had nothing to say that anyone wanted to hear. Childish prattle, no more, no less.

Some of the words I heard were pedestrian babble, their repetition boring rather than enlightening. Their words seemed base, lowly, crude in a way I couldn’t describe (though I couldn’t have identified them as such at the time), except to say I didn’t hear other people talk this way, so automatically that seemed not a good thing. To avoid that, I would need other words I’d never heard at our table but had run across around dinner tables I found in books. Elitist fare, some might say, but if you don’t graduate from hot dogs to prime rib and Duchess potatoes or eggplant Parmesan with a side of spaghetti marinara at some point, you don’t grow no matter how tall you get.

It doesn’t hurt to try.

In an effort to lift myself up and out, I went in search of words I didn’t hear around my house. But no one was interested in the books I talked about, regardless of the words I used. “Shut up,” I was told. “Who asked you?” they said. “Kids should be seen and not heard.”

So I sat at the table in silence while my parents talked about work or argued about money, or the lack thereof, and my sisters and I played card games while my mother and grandmother engaged in intense discussions about where the next meal was coming from once my father left us. We built walls out of boxes of Cheerios and Rice Krispies around our cereal bowls. That way we wouldn’t have to look at each other, and we’d also be able to stave off moments of ridiculous laughter that might catch us unawares. We wouldn’t be tempted to giggle – or talk. Sometimes we’d tap each other’s arm with a finger or give each other complicit looks. The words themselves entered the conversation only by invitation.

At school you were encouraged to try out new words and exercise their usage. You recognized them in the books you read. They started showing up in your vocabulary. You still had to wait your turn to talk, but that was a question of courtesy, of manners. Etiquette was the mark of the well-bred person who had respect for others. We wanted to share our thoughts and hear what others wanted to share with us.

In contrast, some of today’s newsy talk shows are sheer chaos – a cacophony from beginning to end. If someone tries to ask, or answer, a question, discuss their thoughts on a candidate’s position, no one else will let them. Everybody’s talking at the same time. It’s like watching a catfight the way they go after each other. Everyone wants the first and the last word – and every word between.

And politicians? Liars all. The one who tells the biggest lie and spends the most money spreading lies, distorting facts by skewing statistics, and spewing mud, that one wins. Mud sticks even if it’s not true – they all know that. That’s why they all do it anyway.

But perhaps worse is how the need for words is changing. We live in a world where the art of intelligent conversation and the ability to read a book containing words one may not know is no longer valued. And who has time for these things anyway?

Don’t want to use vowels? Fine. We can make out the words without them. And the more letters you use to text, the more it used to cost. Just devalue some of the letters, keep costs down. And texting is faster.

Can’t take the time to look up the correct spelling? No problem. Spell it the way it sounds – better yet, reduce small phrases to their beginning letters (BFF – best friends forever). They’ll figure it out or ask someone else if they have to. And if Webster’s tosses it into the dictionary – instant validation. Translation: elevation to real word status.

English: Gore Vidal at the Union Square Barnes & Noble to be interviewed by Leonard Lopate to discuss his life and his photographic memoir, Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History’s Glare. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gore Vidal, a Democrat, and William F. Buckley, a Republican, must be turning over in their graves. Their words were well-chosen, their meanings precise, their nuances sure and steady – and they were comfortable in those clothes. They were also the forerunners of today’s vitriolic politicos.

In our current verbal climate, people who value correct spelling, grammar, and  punctuation are denigrated as “elitists” – like that’s a bad thing. Snobs with their noses always in the air. It’s mud-slinging, pure and simple.

I don’t denigrate people for their lack or misuse of convention – but I expect equal treatment. If people are snobs and elitists because they value correctness and use bigger words than others do, you might want to have a heart-to-heart with the mudslinger that lives within them. The last I heard, this was still a free country where democracy reigns.

I still refuse to “caplock,” but I have made some adjustments, occasionally sprinkling my text with, brace yourselves – sentence fragments. They reflect my conversational speech pattern and create emphasis where I want it. If diehard elitists don’t like it, that’s okay – as long as they make room for me at the table.

Now put away that box of cereal and move over.

The Family of Man

The Family of Man

Picture the scene –

We’re aboard a ship cruising around the British Isles. It’s early morning and we’ve secured a table poolside, taking turns going to the buffet so we don’t lose this gorgeous spot near the railing.

My daughter Laura and I are waiting for Kearsti, my granddaughter, and Bill, my husband, to return when Bill bolts through the automatic glass doors in a semi-contained huff, complaining about – well, something I can’t now recall. There are so many things on his list of gripes (the venue notwithstanding), it’s hard to keep track.

I’d say we are sitting there “dumbfounded and uncomprehending” – but with Bill, this is not uncommon, and we are neither of the above. As he rambles on, soliciting comments that will engender our agreement and validate his complaints – validate their severity in his own mind – we listen patiently for a couple of minutes, saying nothing. The ranting continues and Laura leans toward me, partially covers her mouth with one hand, her eyes still on Bill, and with exaggerated emphasis so she’s certain I’ll get it, mouths the words “Blah, Blah, Blah.”

It was tough maintaining a demeanor that captured the seriousness of Bill’s complaint after that, but I persevered, at least long enough for him to walk back to the buffet to collect his meal. We laugh so hard and so long there are tears running down our cheeks when he returns.

There have been many incidents like this that have occurred over the ensuing years – usually involving minor things – but none has impressed itself on our minds are indelibly as this one that instantly diffused a potential bomb. When things like this occasionally happen, Laura or I will give each other a knowing look that says “here he goes again,” saying “blah, blah, blah” in unison (not in earshot of Bill, mind you), laughing ourselves silly about how much stays the same, regardless of how you try to change it.

Blah, Blah, Blah has become the caption under Bill’s picture.

It’s always the “same old, same old” thing. Blow up, complain, calm down, carry on. It’s Bill’s way of releasing minor frustrations and what keeps him from having the heart attack people without outlets are often destined to have.

Blow up, complain, calm down, carry on. Repeat.

Isn’t this what a lot of us do?

 

Humanizing Bill’s reactions and circumventing their potential to inspire heart attacks with laughter, not at Bill but at the commonness of the situation, is how we dispel the tension in the air and help Bill relax a bit. And he’s become a good sport about it. No one, least of all Bill, wants a heart attack.

Is anyone even listening, though? Some people complain constantly, and what I’ve noticed these past few years is that the incidence of people talking over top of each other has been climbing exponentially. We don’t take turns anymore, and that’s true of way too many us: acquaintances,

English: The Active Listening Chart shows the progression in the quality of listening that an active listener can engage in. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

friends, and family. The worst offenders are talk show hosts and television commentators on discussion panels – why them especially? – a verbal free-for-all is a proven ratings booster. If someone tries to become the talker instead of the patient listener, fewer people these days are inclined to cede their turn at conversation.

There is more self-aggrandizing going on when a tendency toward its opposite would be fairer, and more helpful.

And worse, when they’re listening at all, it’s not carefully. Not attentively. How can discussion, argument, conversation exist at all if others aren’t listening to – and really hearing – what’s being said?

Conversation – give and take; “informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc.” (www.dictionary.com ).

Really? I don’t know how you view this, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much “give and take” going on in the conversations I’ve heard, or even in some in which I had hoped to participate. No “interchange of thoughts” – just one person trying to drown out the other(s), throwing their words out there slapping each other in the face with them, regardless of what anyone else is saying and whether or not others have concluded their comments. It seems he or she who is the loudest gets heard.

They remind me of a bunch of self-important magpies.

And worse – it’s rude. Did their parents teach them nothing?

In classes I’ve taught at the university, we define argument as “reasoned discourse.” Communication of any kind, especially reasoned discourse, requires active listening skills as well as conversational skills that encourage the participation of everyone. What hope is there for consideration and compromise under conditions where this kind of parity doesn’t exist? How can we expect movement to or from where one is currently standing, how can things change at all, if there is no parity? If our focus remains on ourselves, making us averse to compromise (insert the names of Congress, virtually all of them, here)?

And I’m not talking about selective skimming of verbalizations (in the way we skim text), picking out a word here and there from the stream of material flowing between two or more people and honing in on that to the exclusion of everything else – this is how things get taken out of context. Distorted. Just listen to any political ad on television. They’re replete with things taken out of context – and both sides do it: Purposefully. To obfuscate. Distract. Slant. Cover up.

Blah, Blah, Blah. We’re already hearing a lot of the same garbage from the mouths of our elected lawmakers and the lawmaker-wannabes who’d love to unseat them from their jobs.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

It’s human nature to engage in these deceptions, the little ones and the big ones. And aren’t we all, we members of the family of man, at some point on some level, guilty of this same thing?