Why Bloggers Blog: Part III-A

To Restore Meaning to
Throw-away Words in a Throw-away World

The comments following Part II were interesting, and I wanted to add a confession of my own before discussing the civility of 19th Century letter writing (Part III-B). In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, there was an anthrax scare on Capital Hill. All the networks were covering the evacuation, including "Your World with Neal Cavuto" on Fox News. Cavuto thought our leaders were sending the wrong signal by leaving their posts and quipped something like, “They could at least reconvene at the local Wendy’s and carry on with our nation's business.”

His insinuation of cowardice, prompted me to fire off a rebuttal to his mailbox at Foxnews.com. The hasty note ended with something like, “It’s obvious that you spend a good deal of time eating at Wendy’s. Why don’t you start broadcasting from there so you can enjoy a burger while you do the show!” Zing! I hit send, thinking some machine would read it and crank out a robotic reply. Later that night, I was shocked to get an email from Neal Cavuto himself.

He thanked me for my note and apologized that he had spoken without thought. It wasn’t his intent to second-guess people, and he admitted that his Wendy’s remark was as indefensible as mine was deserved. He even joked that if his love for Wendy's had become that obvious, he would begin a diet [and you can see that he's now slimmer.].

Mr. Cavuto's civil reply was completely disarming. I was ashamed of myself. Ashamed that I had given way to "Jerry Springerism," that flaw that makes us more eager "to get something off our chest" than "to take words to heart." Those who wish to write must do the latter, for it's only by taking words to heart that we have anything stored up to say. ( "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.")

Do you remember that scene about "zingers" in "You've Got Mail"? I felt like that and wrote back a humble apology of my own (to which his reply was equally civil). I don’t always agree with Neal Cavuto, but that night, I was honored to follow his lead on the high road.

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We live in a “throw away” world. Disposable pens, lighters, razors, and plastic ware fill the drawers of our homes. Many of our appliances and electronics have become "disposable" in that they are easier to replace than repair.

In a “throw away” world we don't have to live with things very long. Perhaps that's why we’re more inclined to use “throw away” words in chat rooms, email, text messaging, and “I-M”ing. Through electronic writing we have gained the immediacy of self expression, but we've lost the enduring sense of things we say.
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When shock jock, Don Imus, was fired last week for what became the ethnic straw that broke the camel's coarse-haired back, Newsweek reported: "For more than three decades...[Imus] had spilled countless words into the ether, many of them crude, tasteless, racially charged and inteded to insult. Most of them simply evaporated." Words that evaporate. How convenient.

Civility in writing requires an awareness that words matter. It also requires remembrance, the ability to see that our present is but our future past, and that we will live tomorrow with the words we say today. Indeed, the best and worst of words often outlive their source. Choose wisely.

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As a young student, I’d sometimes attempt to write in the style of the author I was reading. I did the same thing later as a teacher. If I was teaching Shakespeare, I’d write a sonnet and so on. While studying Edgar Allan Poe, I wrote this dramatic monologue of an old man who is visited at his death bed by the hateful words of his life. (It's a little cheezy. I was young. As Emily Dickinson would say, “Judge tenderly of me.”)

Visitors at Death Proverbs 6:2

“Back like a phantom in the night!
Without a chance to slip from sight...
you’ve caught me unaware,
and as I see you hov’ring there,
I note you’ve changed—quite for the worse—
and have come back like a chanted curse
that echoes through my soul.
You who I could not control.
You who trickled o’r my lip
and who this very tongue tip
pushed into the air
now rise so boldly there.

Well, look at me a good long look.
I’ve changed some since the glance you took
before you entered other’s ears.
I’ve changed some o’r the years.
And you knew just when to return—
just when and how hot to burn
like coals inside my head
and ring like bells to raise the dead!

Dear God, I wish I’d never learned
the words that have against me turned.
I wish I’d never learned to speak
or that I knew that words could sneak
back as these have done.
I never would have spoken one.”
© Copyright 1977, TK,Patterns of Ink
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Speaking of words that outlive those who wrote them... the forthcoming Part III-B is a fascinating read—not because I’m posted it—but because it contains many samples of writings that were not intended for us to see. It has been very moving as I've pulled it together these past few weeks. Have Kleenex handy.