The election is over. Facebook has been a proverbial witches' brew. The mood is one of anger.
Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils
O, for a word!
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd.
Harpier cries: – 'tis time! 'tis time!
Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw. –
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
The election is over. Facebook has been a proverbial witches’ brew. The mood is one of anger. The language is dehumanizing. You can practically visualize the three witches, horrid and haunting, circling the bubbling brew in the beginning of Act IV of Macbeth. In fact, that scene has played in my mind as I read some of the intercourse taking place there.
True, there is anger, disappointment, blame… almost every negative response one can imagine, and people who have never seen, nor will ever see each other, spew out venomous language at their pictures. Though past Psalm 90’s “three score and ten,” I have never witnessed such verbal degredation as is common today. It makes me wonder what people used before this angry period to communicate with each other, and will we ever relearn language.
I remember when I was young, in what was “grade school” when I was growing up, and words were my closest friends. Learning a new word was sweeter than homemade ice cream at New Bethel MB Church or Mother’s steaming peach cobbler from the orchard across the road! I remember entering and reentering a crossword contest until I realized that the only thing I’d ever win was another puzzle each week, and stopped.
Where did we go wrong? How did that “first word” pride disappear like vapor into thin air? When did we stop encouraging a love story with words for our students? Why, pray tell, aren’t we stoking a love of words in our children? Why do students less and less appreciate teachers who have attempted to expand their vocabulary? Why are lexophiles, word lovers, regarded with almost pure hatred?
Our society seems to hate people who have an extensive vocabulary. Good ball handlers, talented singers, graceful dancers, and others at the top of their game, are celebrated; but speak, spell, or write well, and “they think they’re better’n somebody!”
Hate is what we’ve witnessed this past week. Posts have been hate-filled, and nasty language has smeared the cyber pages so horridly that the putrid stink almost fills the room even after the laptop is closed. We’re almost forced to wear gloves for fear our fingers become soiled. The f-word appears more frequently than “the,” “a,” or “and.”
Hate is a little word, a short word, but the words associated with it seem endless! Even when we can’t come up with the name of a well-known person, or a common word used a hundred times a day, the ugly, belittling, obscene ones are always at the ready. Honestly, have you ever witnessed someone stumble over, forget, or mispronounce obscenity, vulgarity, or profanity? Does that language, on the other hand, come out effortlessly? Why?
We really need to upgrade our language. We need to put more effort into developing a love and a respect for a higher level of communication, and we need to wrap our arms around our children and breathe into them a love of language… and a language of love.
Story Posted:11/12/2016
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