Open Mouth Insert Foot

                It seems Paula Deen reaped the whirlwind with one powerful word uttered years ago. Let’s be honest. How many times have you wished you could grab words that flew out of your mouth and stuff them back, way down inside, never to see the light of day? As Paula has spoken tearfully about her moment of folly, people who must be perfectly insightful saints have said Paula “just doesn’t get it.”

                What’s not to get? Words can hurt as well as soothe, incite as well as quell, express love or shower hate. We even have laws against hate speech, but be careful of your definition of hate speech. Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric would fall under that definition but would you believe a lower court decided the verses someone quoted from the Bible was hate speech because the verses spoke against the activities of a group of people?

                Supposedly we have freedom of speech in America. They can’t throw you in jail for saying something against the latest zeitgeist, against the latest politically correct flavor of the month. But people and businesses can shun you, fire you, or cancel contracts with you. This is not freedom of speech! The government does not have to squash us; we the people, influenced by the government, will do it instead. 

               What is lost when a man or woman becomes persona non grata because they uttered something another finds offensive? We lose the grace as a people to acknowledge that we’ve all been there, perhaps not so egregiously, but been there never the less. We lose the ability to forgive even when we are hurting. And sometimes we need to acknowledge the fact that somewhere, sometime, someone will say something that deeply offends us. That’s the price of living in a free society.

What happens when we are so fearful of offending anyone that we bury our thoughts, insights and discoveries? We will eventually be afraid to speak the truth with love, to speak against the majority (IRS investigation, anyone?) and declare the Emperor has no clothes and is stark naked.

Personally, I think the old boy is “starkers” now.  So sue me. 

 

Word Rant

       

                Do certain words grate on you? When you hear them used, or misused, do you cringe? There’s a term in the writing world called “weasel words.”  A weasel sucks the guts out of an egg, leaving an unbroken shell – a useless look-alike egg. A weasel word, like an empty egg, is actually useless and needs to be deleted whenever it pops into one’s prose. Can you find the weasel word in the last sentence? Which word could be eliminated without changing the meaning of what I wrote? I’ll give you a hint: I actually hate that word and whenever I hear it I actually want to scream.
            I was listening to the evening news and the reporter was talking about a house fire. He mentioned the name of a person who “actually” lived in that that house. Hold the phone! Stop the presses!  He actually lived in that house!!!!!????? As opposed to what? Not living in the house? 
            I think “actually “ is a 99.9%  useless word.  “The cookie actually tasted good.” Change that to “The cookie tasted good.” I could go on forever (actually???) but you get my drift.
            Are there words or expressions that drive you up the wall? My husband hates “At this point in time.”  He maintains the “in time” is totally unnecessary – weasel words.
            There, I ranted and actually feel better.