I'm not a smart person. Yes, I have multiple degrees, but it's really the same degree and I just earned it twice. All it really means is that I not only know Maslow's needs hierarchy up and down, I also know that Maslow's first name was 'Abraham'.
I'm certainly not the brightest bulb in the drawer, but I try not to use words inappropriately. I know Karly wrote about this earlier this week, and I can appreciate her coming forward. What I hate, absolutely despise, is when someone uses a word inappropriately in a pseudo-professional setting and holds themselves out as a professional. In short, if you're being paid to write an article, you shouldn't use words inappropriately just because you heard some one on Entertainment Tonight use the word to describe Anna Nicole's burial dress and you liked the sound of it.
Case in point - and I'm not referencing the author or the publication. If they're stupid enough (and they may be) to step up and take credit for it, then so be it. This was printed today regarding the Scooter Libby trial:
"It is all very weird. Reporters telling their anonymous sources, the anonymous sources giving info to spin, not a whistle blower, but trying to discredit a whistleblower. It is all kind of surreal."
First what does that even mean?
Second, and more to the point, surreal? Really? Was it all very dreamlike, marked with odd juxtapositions and moments of incongruence? Did Scooter Libby take his oath while sitting on the back of a unicorn as a soft wind blew across a rippling pond and birds barked at the moon? Was the judge in the case Eddie Van Halen, but for some reason this didn't seem to bother you and, in fact, you found some amount of comfort and calm in the preceedings?
Surreal has become like "Kleenex" or "Styrofoam". People just use it to describe an experience when they can't come up with "intriguing", "interesting", "exciting", "an honor" - or probably more accurately, choose not to use any of those words because surreal sounds more regal.
Yes it sounds more regal, but you sound like a dumba$$ using it to describe your dinner at Shogun.
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4 comments:
Well, I know that the smoke from the onion volcano can be hypnotic, so maybe that was a bad example.
You are such a writer at heart! When is your paper being published?
What does regal mean?
I don't know. I heard it on some reruns of Three's Company ("I'll meet you at The Regal Beagle") and I liked the sound of it.
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