Where’s The Beef?..

Musings of a Homemaker – Houghton Lake Resorter Newspaper

Spring 1964

Strolling down our lane 
one may be overwhelmed by the aroma of lilacs and apple blossoms.  Tiny pink flowers nod gently in the spring breeze.

 When lilac bushes appear in a vacant field, we know an old Michigan farm once stood nearby.

They are overdone and unimpressive.

Have we become a nation of adjective droppers?

Little girls are sweet and cars are sweet. 
Dresses are sweet.
Fishing rods are sweet.  Sugar is sweet

The weather is lovely.
 Your wife is lovely.
 Children are lovely. 
Dinner is lovely.

Freckles are cute. 

Your husband is cute.
Puppies  are cute.
 Babies are cute.

Everything is sweet, cute and lovely.

WHERE’S THE BEEF?

Teen-agers are sometimes
 juvenile delinquents.
 We may have delinquent taxes.

Senior citizens may have
 gray hair.
Gray haired people may be
 senior citizens.

Phrases overused
are lost.

 Adjectives can become
 bruised, broken and meaningless.

Let’s save them for another day.

***

(This all seemed like a good idea in 1964)

And then..

Where are we now?

What happened to the adjectives? 
They were sweet, cute and lovely.

 Now it’s PC…G….and LOL.

It may be ESP and APP.
We are politically correct. 

Or are we?

Oh, and by the way, we type “PC” for “politically correct” now.

Those in the know understand 

what we mean.

We  type G for “grin.” LOL
  means “laugh out loud.”

ESP Stands for

  “extrasensory perception“;

APP

 for “application.”

We type 

COOL for “good, 
wonderful,
 smart 
and up to date”.

A perfectly wonderful language
 has been simplified 
to nothing. 

Children in elementary school are not being taught cursive writing. Much of their writing is unreadable.

Making matters worse,
many young people
cannot “read” cursive writing.

Think about it!
The United States Constitution
was produced in cursive writing.

President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
was written by him, as the story goes, in cursive writing,
as he was seated on a train
on his way to Gettysburg.

Why have we decided
to avoid teaching cursive writing
 to generations of  young Americans
who will never be able to read
those original, historical papers?

In response to questioning,
 a teacher informed me,

 “Within ten years
 no one will be using handwriting.

 Everyone will be using computers.”

Think of the handwriting experts
who will be unemployed.
(That’s a joke.)

With this information in mind,
 the overuse of “adjectives ” becomes cute and darling.

You can now describe almost anything at all
with the terms, “sweet and lovely,”.
Over-used adjectives of the past, may have become the only remaining,
 desirable speech.

Our English language
 is bruised and broken.
 It has been transformed into 
disconnected letters.

Bring back the adjectives.
 Bring the verbs and the adverbs.

I long for them.

Is it just me?

copyright©2018

Photography By Mary Anne Tuck

http://www.thatremindsme.chat (Memories & Observations)