Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2012-48

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Tony Lewis forwards an article that echoes the thoughts of editors everywhere
• Catherine Nesbitt sends some bloopers on hospital charts
• This lawyer asks a witness the wrong questions
• Rafiki and Bruce Galway share some thoughts on health
• Betty Audet forwards enough laughs for a month
• Sites are suggested by Bruce Galway, Catherine Green, Marilyn Magid, Nevil Horsfall, Pat Moore, and Tom Telfer

Tony Lewis writes: Thought you might, like, sort of, find this interesting. And indeed I do, because it echoes many of my complaints about "the decline and fall of American English, and stuff," which appeared in the City Journal:

WHAT HAPPENS IN VAGUENESS STAYS IN VAGUENESS

I recently watched a television program in which a woman described a baby squirrel that she had found in her yard. "And he was like, you know, ´Helloooo, what are you looking at?´ and stuff, and I´m like, you know, ´Can I, like, pick you up?,´ and he goes, like, ´Brrrp brrrp brrrp,´ and I´m like, you know, ´Whoa, that is so wow!´ " She rambled on, speaking in self-quotations, sound effects, and other vocabulary substitutes, punctuating her sentences with facial tics and lateral eye shifts. All the while, however, she never said anything specific about her encounter with the squirrel.

Uh-oh. It was a classic case of Vagueness, the linguistic virus that infected spoken language in the late twentieth century. Squirrel Woman sounded like a high school junior, but she appeared to be in her mid-forties, old enough to have been an early carrier of the contagion. She might even have been a college intern in the days when Vagueness emerged from the shadows of slang and mounted an all-out assault on American English.

My acquaintance with Vagueness began in the 1980s, that distant decade when Edward I. Koch was mayor of New York and I was writing his speeches. The mayor´s speechwriting staff was small, and I welcomed the chance to hire an intern. Applications arrived from NYU, Columbia, Pace, and the senior colleges of the City University of New York. I interviewed four or five candidates and was happily surprised. The students were articulate and well informed on civic affairs. Their writing samples were excellent. The young woman whom I selected was easy to train and a pleasure to work with. Everything went so well that I hired interns at every opportunity.

Then came 1985.

The first applicant was a young man from NYU. During the interview, he spiked his replies so heavily with "like" that I mentioned his frequent use of the word. He seemed confused by my comment and replied, "Well ... like ... yeah." Now, nobody likes a grammar prig. All´s fair in love and language, and the American lingo is in constant motion. "You should," for example, has been replaced by "you need to." "No" has faded into "not really." "I said" is now "I went." As for "you´re welcome," that´s long since become "no problem." Even nasal passages are affected by fashion. Quack-talking, the rasping tones preferred by many young women today, used to be considered a misfortune.

In 1985, I thought of "like" as a trite survivor of the hippie sixties. By itself, a little slang would not have disqualified the junior from NYU. But I was surprised to hear antique argot from a communications major looking for work in a speechwriting office, where job applicants would normally showcase their language skills. I was even more surprised when the next three candidates also laced their conversation with "like." Most troubling was a puzzling drop in the quality of their writing samples. It took six tries, but eventually I found a student every bit as good as his predecessors. Then came 1986.

As the interviews proceeded, it grew obvious that "like" had strengthened its grip on intern syntax. And something new had been added: "You know" had replaced "Ummm " as the sentence filler of choice. The candidates seemed to be evading the chore of beginning new thoughts. They spoke in run-on sentences, which they padded by adding "and stuff" at the end. Their writing samples were terrible. It took eight tries to find a promising intern.

In the spring of 1987 came the all-interrogative interview. I asked a candidate where she went to school.

"Columbia?" she replied. Or asked.

"And you´re majoring in...?"

"English?"

All her answers sounded like questions. Several other students did the same thing, ending declarative sentences with an interrogative rise. Something odd was happening. Was it guerrilla grammar? Had college kids fallen under the spell of some mad guru of verbal chaos?

I began taking notes and mailed a letter to William Safire at the New York Times, urging him to do a column on the devolution of coherent speech. Undergraduates, I said, seemed to be shifting the burden of communication from speaker to listener. Ambiguity, evasion, and body language, such as air quotes - using fingers as quotation marks to indicate clichés - were transforming college English into a coded sign language in which speakers worked hard to avoid saying anything definite. I called it Vagueness.

By autumn 1987, the job interviews revealed that "like" was no longer a mere slang usage. It had mutated from hip preposition into the verbal milfoil that still clogs spoken English today. Vagueness was on the march. Double-clutching ("What I said was, I said ") sprang into the arena. Playbacks, in which a speaker re-creates past events by narrating both sides of a conversation ("So I´m like, ´Want to, like, see a movie?´ And he goes, ´No way.´ And I go...."), made their entrance. I was baffled by what seemed to be a reversion to the idioms of childhood.

And yet intern candidates were not hesitant or uncomfortable about speaking elementary school dialects in a college-level job interview. I engaged them in conversation and gradually realized that they saw Vagueness not as slang but as mainstream English. At long last, it dawned on me: Vagueness was not a campus fad or just another generational raid on proper locution. It was a coup. Linguistic rabble had stormed the grammar palace. The principles of effective speech had gone up in flames.

In 1988, my elder daughter graduated from Vassar. During a commencement reception, I asked one of her professors if he´d noticed any change in Vassar students´ language skills.

"The biggest difference," he replied, "is that by the time today´s students arrive on campus, they´ve been juvenilized. You can hear it in the way they talk. There seems to be a reduced capacity for abstract thought." He went on to say that immature speech patterns used to be drummed out of kids in ninth grade. "Today, whatever way kids communicate seems to be fine with their high school teachers."

Where, I wonder, did Vagueness begin? It must have originated before the 1980s. "Like" has a long and scruffy pedigree: in the 1970s, it was a mainstay of Valspeak, the frequently ridiculed but highly contagious "Valley Girl" dialect of suburban Los Angeles, and even in 1964, the film "Paris When It Sizzles" lampooned the word´s overuse. All the way back in 1951, Holden Caulfield spoke proto-Vagueness ("I sort of landed on my side my arm sort of hurt...."), complete with double-clutching ("Finally, what I decided I´d do, I decided I´d....") and demonstrative adjectives used as indefinite articles ("I felt sort of hungry so I went in this drugstore....").

Is Vagueness simply an unexplainable descent into nonsense? Did Vagueness begin as an antidote to the demands of political correctness in the classroom, a way of sidestepping the danger of speaking forbidden ideas? Does Vagueness offer an undereducated generation a technique for camouflaging a lack of knowledge?

In 1991, I visited the small town of Bridgton, Maine, on the evening that the residents of Cumberland County gathered to welcome their local National Guard unit home from the Gulf War. It was a stirring moment. Escorted by the lights and sirens of two dozen fire engines from surrounding towns, the soldiers marched down Main Street. I was standing near the end of the parade and looked around expectantly for a platform, podium, or microphone. But there were to be no brief remarks of commendation by a mayor or commanding officer. There was to be no pastoral prayer of thanks for the safe return of the troops. Instead, the soldiers quickly dispersed. The fire engines rumbled away. The crowd went home. A few minutes later, Main Street stood empty.

Apparently there was, like, nothing to say.

ED. NOTE: This article may be found at

Catherine Nesbitt shares these

HOSPITAL CHART BLOOPERS

1. The patient refused autopsy.

2. The patient has no previous history of suicides.

3. Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.

4. She has no rigours or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.

5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.

6. On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it disappeared.

7. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.

8. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.

9. Discharge status: Alive but without permission.

10. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year-old male, mentally alert but forgetful.

11. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.

12. She is numb from her toes down.

13. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.

14. The skin was moist and dry.

15. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.

16. Patient was alert and unresponsive.

17. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid. (OMG! That was some examination!)

18. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got a divorce.

19. I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.

20. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.

21. Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.

22. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.

23. Skin: somewhat pale but present.

24. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor.

25. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.

Lawyers should never ask a Mississippi grandma a question if they aren´t prepared for the answer:

WHEN GRANDMA GOES TO COURT

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly elderly woman, to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"

She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I´ve known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you´ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you´re a big shot when you haven´t the brains to realize you´ll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defence attorney?"

She again replied, "Why, yes, I do. I´ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster too. He´s lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can´t build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him."

The defence attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counsellors to approach the bench and in a very quiet voice, said,

"If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I´ll send you both to the electric chair."

Bruce Galway and Rafiki both send this

HEALTH MESSAGE

As I was lying in bed pondering the problems of the world, I rapidly realized that I don´t really give a rat´s ass. It´s the tortoise life for me!

1. If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.

2. A whale swims all day, eats only fish, drinks water, and is fat.

3. A rabbit runs and hops and lives only eight months.

4. A tortoise doesn´t run and does nothing, yet it lives for 450 years. And you tell me to exercise? I don´t think so!

I´m retired. Go around me.

Betty Audet forwards these

THIRTY-ONE THOUGHTS TO KEEP YOU LAUGHING FOR ANOTHER MONTH

(Provided you read one each day.)

1. Accept that some days you´re the pigeon, and some days you´re the statue.

2. Needing a man is like needing a parachute. If he isn´t there the first time you need him, chances are you won´t be needing him again.

3. I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn´t looking good either.

4. Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling?!"

5. My Reality Check bounced.

6. He who has, so shall he who. - Old Norwegian Proverb

7. Someday we´ll look back on all this and plough into a parked car.

8. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives.

9. Good news is just life´s way of keeping you off balance.

10. Carelessly-planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully-planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes.

11. God did not create the world in seven days; he messed around for six days and then pulled an all-nighter.

12. I still miss my ex-wife, but my aim is improving.

13. Stupidity got us into this mess - why can´t it get us out?

14. Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly and for the same reason.

15. People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.

16. I don´t mind going nowhere as long as it´s an interesting path.

17. Indecision is the key to flexibility.

18. If it ain´t broke, fix it till it is.

19. I don´t get even, I get odder.

20. In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.

21. I considered atheism but there weren´t enough holidays.

22. I always wanted to be a procrastinator; never got around to it.

23. Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.

24. My inferiority complex is not as good as yours.

25. I am having an out-of-money experience.

26. I plan on living forever. So far, so good.

27. Not afraid of heights - afraid of widths.

28. Practice safe eating - always use condiments.

29. A day without sunshine is like night.

30. I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it.

31. If marriage were outlawed, only outlaws would have in-laws.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Bruce Galway sends this link to an unexpected briefing, Air New Zealand´s way to get people to watch the airline safety videos, using characters from the movie about the Hobbits:

Bruce also sends this URL for a repeat of an amazing close-up film clip of an encounter with a silverback gorilla family coming into a camp for a visit:

Catherine Green suggests this video for Eric Whitacre´s talk about a global choir that came together on YouTube, and the power of crowd-sourced creativity:

Marilyn Magid sends this link to a video of a young couple winning the 2012 Junior Division National Carolina Shag Dancing Championships. The boy is 17, the girl only 15. They´re dancing to Joe Turner´s "Flip, Flop and Fly."

Nevil Horsfall suggests this site for a video of a better, neater, and more efficient way of mowing and trimming grass, plants, and trees:

Pat Moore sends this link to a video of a truck fitted out like a snowmobile, which she believes will soon be all over Alberta´s frozen lakes:

Tom Telfer suggests this site for an explanation of shock waves and sonic booms. Sound travels at about 760 miles per hour, or 340 meters per second, and about 661 knots on an average day at sea level. And sometimes, you can almost see it. Going close to that speed through air can cause some unusual visual effects. This compiled footage includes F-14s, standard and Blue Angels F-18s, plus the SR-71 and an Atlas Rocket launch:

An eye-opening exploration of the human-plant relationship with author Michael Pollan. Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world - seen from the plants´ point of view. The program shows how four familiar species (the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato) evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control:

After deep budget cuts by the Harper government, the CBC plans to go more commercial, including unlimited ads on Radio 2. To sign a petition by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting to make this unnecessary, go to

Still funny and well worth watching again - one town´s dose of drama:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to