THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411030184
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastwise
SOURCE: Ford Reid
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
I saw an advertisement the other day that promised a short and easy path to a more powerful vocabulary.
Not just a larger vocabulary, mind you, but a more powerful one.
Send your money, get a few tapes and maybe a book, and in a few weeks you'll be impressing the boss and anyone else within earshot.
You know the old saying. ``If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with. . . '' Well, you know.
I am not against anyone knowing a lot of words. I just wish they'd use fewer of them and learn to use those correctly.
Words are like sailors' knots. Anyone who has owned a boat has gone through a period when he wanted to learn to tie every knot known to man, and there are a zillion of them. Finally, he realizes that that is not only unnecessary, it is counterproductive.
So the wise sailor sticks to the knots that he needs and learns to tie them rapidly and flawlessly.
Whatever happened to plain speaking?
It can't simply rain or snow any more. No, it has to be a ``rain event'' or a ``snow event.''
Nothing is official unless it is a ``situation.'' Therefore we have ``hostage situations'' or perhaps ``a traffic accident situation brought on by a rain event.''
One of the cars might be ``green in color.'' As if it could be green in size.
Crooks no longer go to jail. Alleged perpetrators go to regional correctional facilities. Or is it penal institutions? Geez, it's hard to keep up.
Then there are people who say things like, ``Past history tells us that the future lies ahead.'' Sounds impressive, doesn't it? I'd be more impressed by someone who could talk about future history.
The other day, I was in a consumer accessible facility of the federal government. Sorry. A post office. Anyway I noticed a sign that said something like: ``Please do not smoke. Our request is in keeping with community preference as reflected by local ordinance.''
``Smoking prohibited'' would have sufficed. ``No smoking'' would have been even better.
But wait a minute, maybe this trend is good for the economy. Somebody got paid for thinking up the wording of that sign. Knowing the federal government, it probably took a whole committee to come up with that wording. And a review committee to check the first committee's work and an executive review committee to finally sign off on the thing.
Think of all of the jobs involved in that one sign.
Probably at least a few of the people on those committees have taken vocabulary courses which have to be written and peddled by someone.
More jobs. The trickle-down effect is tremendous.
Of course, we could provide even more jobs by hiring just one more committee to translate it back into simple English.
In this case, I think it would be a fine use of the taxpayers' money to employ someone who could write a no smoking sign that says ``No Smoking.'' by CNB