Out of My Mind (42 page)

The advantage the written word has over the spoken word is that you can think a moment about what you want to say and how you want to say it instead of blurting it out. When we speak like that, we usually recognize that we haven't said what we meant accurately so we rephrase it and say it again. On paper, you have the opportunity to say it right the first time.

There is one punctuation mark I don't understand so I never use it. That is the semicolon. The colon is a practical divider of ideas and I often use one, but I never use a semicolon because I don't know what it does. I don't even know why it's spelled all one word instead of being hyphenated as “semi-colon.” The semicolon is a period over a comma. If you use a period, a comma, a colon, question mark, quotation mark, hyphen, dash or bracket, you know what you're doing, but what does a semicolon do? Is it sort of a colon? Is it used to separate ideas in a sentence that are more different than when you use a comma, but not so different as when you use a period? This bears no likeness to the use of a colon and I hereby call for a worldwide English language boycott of the semicolon!

I'm not sure “amuses” is the right word—but it amuses me that a good newspaper, appealing to the same audience, would never use the words that are commonly spoken in some movies and television shows.

The whole idea behind the word tolerance is good and we're all occasionally disappointed with ourselves for not being tolerant, but a little intolerance is a good thing too.

I am intolerant of the television hit
The Sopranos
. I fail to understand why so many people accept and enjoy a show that incessantly uses
language so foul that I can't use it here because no newspaper would print it. Do dirty words turn people on? I am revolted by them.

I read a review in the
New York Times
describing
The Sopranos
as sophisticated and intellectual. The reviewer never mentioned the word used most often in the show because the
Times
would not have printed it if she had. She did not ever refer to the language used, which so dominates the dialogue that it's hard to follow the plot.

I spent four years in the Army and I'm familiar with all the words, but I don't use obscenities and the words had never been heard in our living room until I tuned in to “The Sopranos.” This is a well-acted and otherwise well-written show, but I must have been asleep during the intellectual part. I tune out of any television show that has a psychiatrist, and
The Sopranos
has a few.

The use of foul language on the show is not limited to the lead character, mob boss Tony Soprano. (The creators of the show might argue that this language establishes his character.) In a recent installment, his teenage daughter used obscene language in an argument with her father and mother. Tony's wife, Carmela, wears a jeweled cross around her neck but uses profanity.

If I knew anyone in the Mafia, I'd ask if they really talk that way in their homes. I bet they do not.

There have been good movies in which obscenity and profanity were used effectively. I don't object to that. What I object to is the mindless profusion of both in some movies and television shows when such language does nothing for the plot or the characters.

I asked several regular viewers of
The Sopranos
whether the show's characters used profanity, obscenity and vulgarity, but most of them couldn't give me an answer because they didn't know the difference. Profanity is speech that is disrespectful of God or religion. Obscenity involves some sex act. Vulgarity is often associated with a body function.

Most newspapers don't print an obscenity even when it's part of a statement from a public figure. For example, when President Bush and Vice President Cheney were on a dais together and thought their microphones were off, the President described a reporter with a vulgar
epithet involving a body aperture. Newspapers reporting the story did not use the word.

There have been a few times when newspapers found it necessary to violate their own policy. In 1974, when the texts of some of President Nixon's White House conversations were made public, many papers did print the worst of the language because they felt it was vital to a full understanding of the story.

Again in 1991, when the Supreme Court appointment of Clarence Thomas was at stake, newspapers printed some of the explicitly sexual language used in the harassment charge against him. Many newspapers also printed some of the explicit language in the text submitted to Congress recommending the impeachment of President Clinton. To avoid those words would have changed the meaning.

Newspapers that printed the actual text of the Clinton report omitted the same language in their news stories about it.

All this seems decent and responsible. I find
The Sopranos
indecent and irresponsible. Now, I suppose you can't wait to see it.

It's about time we stopped saying we're sorry when we aren't sorry at all. We have destroyed the meaning of a good word by using it a hundred times a day in all kinds of petty circumstances that don't call for being sorry. Well-meaning parents teach their children to say, “I'm sorry,” before the kids know what being sorry means.

The word “sorry” does not seem to be related to “sorrow.” Sorrow is a much more serious and sadder emotion than simply being sorry. The word “sorry” suggests regret but not remorse or grief as sorrow does.

We have established degrees of regret when we speak of it. We begin with the simply uttered “Sorry” and then progress to “I'm sorry,” “I'm so sorry,” “I'm awfully sorry,” “I'm terribly sorry” and the ultimate, “I can't
tell you how sorry I am.” None of these statements is uttered with any real sense of regret.

Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston don't have a lot in common but they did have one thing in common recently : They both spent a lot of time saying how sorry they were. Neither of them sounded like anything except they were sorry that the things they said and did became public. Their regret was not over what they said or did but over the attention they got.

Trent Lott was not sorry he held racist opinions for most of his career. He was sorry he made a dumb statement that made it apparent he had racist opinions. He went all out apologizing and it didn't work. Even though it would have been possible to vote against making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday without being a racist, Lott apologized for having voted against it, admitting, in effect, that he had been racist when he did.

One of Lott's Republican colleagues in the Senate was quoted as saying, “I'm sorry to say I think he has outlived his usefulness as a Republican leader.” That's sorry on top of sorry and hardly sincere, either. Do you think that senator was really sorry to say that? He sounded pleased to say it.

Cardinal Law didn't seem anymore apologetic when he was shown kissing the Pope's hand before uttering words of abject apology for having helped perpetuate the sexual abuse of young boys by old priests. I'm sure he was sorry he lost his job and he was sorry everyone found out how wrong he was but it seems likely that, in his own mind, he did nothing that calls for him to be sorry. He no doubt has prayed for forgiveness and thinks he's been forgiven.

Both these experienced and worldly men should know that apologizing for something wrong that you have done or said doesn't work. An apology in the world these days means nothing. Everyone does it all the time. It almost never means that the person apologizing feels in anyway apologetic or regretful. There's no evidence that prayer is any more effective in ridding a person of guilt than contrition, either.

We have ruined the whole idea of apology with meaningless repetition of the word “sorry,” just as we have diluted “Thanks” by overuse. At least ten times a day we hear ourselves saying “Thanks” or “I'm sorry” when thankfulness or regret doesn't enter into our feelings. If someone bumps into us on the street, we instinctively blurt out, “I'm sorry,” as if it was our fault. It is not an occasion that calls for an apology on the part of the person bumped into and it is just one more little thing that diminishes the significance of genuine contrition.

I'm sorry about this essay. Really, really, terribly sorry.

Like the basement, the attic or garage, our language needs to be cleaned out once in a while. There are some words and phrases in our language that we ought to retire. I've made a small collection of some we could do without:

“Have a good one.” This is a trite substitute for people who realize that “Have a nice day” is tired but don't know what else to say.

“Parental discretion advised.” Does any parent advise their child not to watch when they see these three words on their television screen? What it's really saying is, “Hey, Kids! You might want to catch this dirty show.”

Use of the word “experience” as a verb in advertising is annoying. The ads read, “Experience the ride of your life,” or “Experience the taste of a great beer.”

I have an unreasonably strong aversion to making verbs out of nouns like “parent.” Here's a sentence from a magazine on my desk: “Parenting doesn't come naturally to some men.” How about, “Being a father doesn't come naturally to some men.”

“We're not getting the job done.” The favorite post-game cliché of the coach of the losing team.

Use of the word “feel” for “think,” as in, “I feel you're wrong about that.” I use “feel” that way very often myself and feel I shouldn't. I use “very” very often, too.

We could do without subjunctives. No one knows what they are anyway and they sound pretentious. The indicative is always better, simpler. “I wish I was younger” is preferable to “I wish I were younger.” I can take the subjunctive in a few places where the style fits the occasion, as in a meeting where the chairman uses the formal subjunctive: “I move the meeting be adjourned.”

“In and of itself ” should go. What does it mean?

“Your call is very important to us.” Then why the hell don't you answer your phone?

Using “world class” for “good.” This was a British expression used thirty years ago and we've taken it over. Americans use it to describe things that aren't much better than average.

A “bout” with cancer. People try to lesson the seriousness of the disease by using the word “bout” as though it was (not “were”) a temporary affliction.

“Associate” for sales clerk. The loud speaker in the busy store says, “Attention! Will a sales associate report to the cashier!”

Using “unbelievable” for unusual. I heard the phrase fifty times listening to sports events last weekend. Football players made “unbelievable” catches. Golfers made shots that were “unbelievable.” Sports announcers were all looking for some superlative to describe a good or unusual performance and they all lit on “unbelievable.”

“Straight ahead” used by news announcers or anchormen meaning, “Coming next.”

A mistake I hear too often is use of the adjective “Reverend” as a title. It is improper to address a clergyman named Paul Reynolds as “Rev. Reynolds.” He is either “the Rev. Paul Reynolds” or “the Rev. Mr. Reynolds.”

It's easy to get proud of yourself for knowing a little grammar. I'm not much of a grammarian, but I am always annoyed when I hear
people misuse the word “comprise.” The whole comprises the parts. The whole is not “comprised of ” the parts.

The favorite term used by immigrants who know very little English is, “No problem.” It seems to give them a sense of security with our language because it suggests they have mastered a bit of our jargon.

The word “shall” is too complicated for me. Look it up if you don't think so. I use “will” in every case.

Use of the word “negative” for “bad,” as in, “The weather had a negative effect on attendance.”

Class dismissed.

Whenever I see the word “humor” written, I wish we spelled it the way the British do: H-U-M-O-U-R. It's a better word with the “U” in it.

A sense of humor is one of the most universally admired qualities a person can have. You can accuse a friend of being dumb, cheap or fat but if you want to keep him as a friend, don't tell him he has no sense of humor, even if he doesn't.

Humor is held in high regard by all of us. We like to think we “get the joke.” As the ultimate put-down, men have always said women have no sense of humor. It never seemed to me to be a gender-specific characteristic. Oscar Wilde wrote that “nothing spoils a romance so much like a sense of humour in the woman.”

Disagreement about what's funny comes from the fact that there is no measuring device for humor. What's funny to me might not be funny to you.

I got thinking of humor when I read that Art Carney had died. He was my idea of a really funny performer. Art was second banana to Jackie Gleason on the television classic
The Honeymooners
, and even if you're too young to have seen it when it was originally broadcast, you've probably seen reruns. Art was a comic genius. He could make you laugh with a
gesture, a small facial change or a couple of words. I knew Art because his brother, Jack Carney, was producer of
The Arthur Godfrey Show
when I worked for Godfrey, and I met Art often.

Art was not a particularly funny guy. In all the times I was with him, I never recall anything funny he said. What he was, was an actor who knew how to act funny and be funny on camera or on stage.

Humor is one of the most pleasant aspects of our lives and one of the most evanescent. When we laugh, we're happy even if it's for a fleeting moment. A laugh relieves tension. I use humor in my writing, but it's a mistake for a writer to set out deliberately to be funny. If it sounds like a joke, it probably isn't funny. Spontaneity is prerequisite to humor and jokes are the kind of intentional humor most apt to fall flat.