130. Language Heroism

Here's a real hero for you. Brendan Riley, who covered the state of Nevada for the Associated Press for 37 years refused to use the casino industry's word "gaming" except with reference to electronic games and in titles like Nevada Gaming Commission. He called it a "soft word," meaning a word that gently covers a hard fact. The hard word here, the correct word, the word he insisted on, was "gambling."

Here's an imagined hero, though her character is real, drawn from known students.  Sarah is an 18-year-old, hired for her sweet voice, being prepped to sell things to people randomly called during the dinner hour.  She's told to begin her pitch by saying she's conducting "research."

"But it's not really research, is it?" she says.

"No, but research is something people respect and will talk to you about. The word 'research' gets them into a conversation with you."

"But isn't it just a cover for what I'm really doing, selling stuff?  I'm deceiving them with it, right?  I'm not telling the truth." After seeing the look on the marketing director's face she says, "I don't think I can do this."  And so, though she needs the job (her father has been downsized out of his) and, with her town hard hit by the recession, knows that she, lacking skills, is not likely to find another, she takes off her nametag, gives it to the marketing director, thanks him very much, and walks out.  She, making that kind of sacrifice, is as great a hero as Brendan Riley.

Think what's she's preserved in America. How about our courtesy, our civilized forms?  Here's this company taking advantage of that, using our unwillingness to be rude to strangers to get its huckster foot in the door.  How about our privacy?  Coming right into the house at its own chosen time because we share this device, this telephone, this instrument of so much warm communication.  Get enough calls from the poor, lesser Sarahs and we not only bark at them we bark at the next friend who calls.  There goes American courtesy.

How about our morality? We plaster the walls of our schools with exhortations ("Don't be a Just Me" "Take your turn" "Speak softly") and furnish graduating classes with mottos ("Aim High" "Dare to Dream") that say be good, be true, be nice so effectively that we fill the land each year with Sarahs, fresh, aspiring Sarahs.  Heroic Sarah has, in her case, preserved that morality, our morality.  Against what? An industry forcing her sisters into prostitution.

And then there's our language, the language our English teachers teach us to use correctly and properly. She has kept it clean for use.  Words should have referents, and reveal the world.  They should not obscure it, they should make it clear.  Oh what a defender of words she's been!

Of course the fight for the English language can't be won by just a few. We need a band of heroes.  Well, we've got a start.  Brendan and Sarah, shoulder to shoulder.  Keep producing them, teachers and editors, and we'll win this thing yet, English teachers.

[Oh my fellow teachers, oh how I am thinking of you now, in 2018, after Donald Trump has so displayed his way of using the English language.  How are you responding to his success?  Is it, "All is lost," or is it, "Once more into the breach, dear friends"?  Once more off to school with our briefcases, once more a load of essays, once more those margins waiting for "Are you sure of this?"  I can't see any high hearts.  The best I can see are firmer jaws. "This is a tougher battle than I thought.  One breach after another.  Well into this one.']