Wednesday August 12, 2020
81 Days until the election on November 3rd
161 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
This is a grab bag of stuff and I’m not sure where to start but I was thinking about Strunk and White. They wrote a book called “Element of Style.” It’s a classic in the grammar and punctuation crowd. It’s not very big, but folks alway refer to it. One of the things they say to do in your writing is to pick the proper word, be precise. When I first read those words I said to myself, “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” But now, I’ve come to appreciate those words more and more.
I think one example they gave was something like this: don’t use “go into” when you could write “enter.” Is it a big deal? Do people know what you mean? Sure. But we have a beautiful language, use it.
This reminds me of Sarah Cooper’s assessment of Trump’s manner of speaking. She said he is really talking to himself most of the time, in a kind of feedback loop. It seems he really doesn’t know when he starts a sentence what he is going to say, or how he is going to finish it. But once he has said it; he believes it. He repeats what he says as if to reinforce it in his mind.
Alex Baldwin said of his imitating Trump that Donald seemed like he was looking for the right word, and not finding it, picked another word, and then repeated the word or phrase. As if that would make it better.
I’ve noticed, and I’m sure others have too, that Trump has certain stock phrases that he uses in most situations. The phrases have no real meaning and could apply to any situation. “A lot of people are saying…” for instance.
There is a lack of specificity in most of what he says.
And then I think about the coaching phrase, “I want you to give one hundred and ten percent.” Okay great. What does that mean? ( “I want you to try.”? , “I want you to try real hard.”? )
How much can a person give? The sum total is really 100%. Therefore if you take that amount and call it 110% you have in fact devalued the original 100%. So the old 100% is the new about 90%. Great. But we all know what the coach means so we let it slide. Besides when the coach is all fired up and spitting through his mask at you to get you excited to do the best you can is probably not a good time to bring up the finer point that no one can do 110%.
But this kind of thing goes on all the time. We see it in grading and we have a name for it “grade-flation.”
The problem with such inflation is that it cheapens the value of what came before. I’ve seen it with awards too.
When I saw president Trump putting The Medal of Freedom around the neck of Rush Limbaugh I thought of all those deserving people who had come before him who had been awarded that medal. Now? Who would want it, now that it had been sullied in that fashion?
But this trend seems to be inevitable in so many things. Some people call it “progress.” But progress is different. It’s the idea that as things change they have improved somehow. If they haven’t improved then it’s not progress, but the same-old/same-old.
I also have seen the calls to re-introduce classes like civics, shop, music, home-ec, phys-ed and art. I’d include such subjects as ping-pong, juggling, and wooden puzzle solving. Such activities have been shown to use other parts of ones brain and lead to making one a better rounded person. So does poetry, and music, and painting and sculpting and getting out and running around.
I went to private school from the sixth grade until I graduated high school. One thing private schools did was have everyone play a sport. It didn’t matter if you were good. It mattered that you were part of the team, and you did what you could. I’d like to see more of that attitude in the public schools. No try-outs, no cuts, Everyone plays. It’s not the winning so much as it is the playing, being part of a team. I remember practicing a play in football, a sweep. It’s a complicated maneuver. The guards, (the players on either side of that ball being hiked) have to simultaneously “pull.” That means as soon as the ball is hiked they don’t charge forward to block their man, but rather step back and run to one side of the men on their team lined up on the line of scrimmage. So as the Tackle and the End on the side where the play is coming are blocking their men, the Guards are running behind them.
While the Guards were “pulling” the Quarterback has gotten the ball, stepped back to allow the Guard on the side where the play is not going to run by him. As the QB stepped back he’s “pivoted” (ie turned) to hand the ball off to a back that is passing by him from behind.
Depending on the backfield formation there may be another two backs involved, also running to that side of the field where the play is going.
The idea is to overload the side of the field so that the other team runs out of players to stop your advance, and the man with the ball can break free and go for a touchdown or big yards before being forced out of bounds.
A sweep requires everybody on the team act in concert and do precisely what needs to be done at the exact instant it needs to be. From the time the play starts to when the Guards pull and begin their run is a few seconds. When it works it is a thing of beauty. The whole team moves as one. The Center and the Tackles and the Ends surge off the line as the Guards step back. They begin their run to the side. The Quarterback has pivoted holding the ball out for the Back coming across and then there is the wild scramble as the opposing team tries to “contain” the play not letting the ball carrier get around them to the outside. Meanwhile Linebackers (those on the defensive side right behind their linemen) are either running to the side to head off the ball carrier or they are trying to “shoot a gap” to make it through the surging line of scrimmage and the pulling Guards who are now running parallel to the field of play so they can trip up or tackle the ball carrier.
It requires precision. It requires that everyone do their job. 100% on the split second.
To be part of that effort, when it works, builds an unspoken bond. You understand something you didn’t before. It’s a zen-like thing.
We, as a nation, need some of that zen-like concerted effort moving together as one.
81 Days until the election on November 3rd
161 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
PS The view from my window*.
*No, not now. April 2016, Costa Rica. I was on a mission. More later.
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