The Old Coot says mediocre is now awesome!
By Merlin Lessler
I’ve written about this before, the common use of
overblown adjectives, but it’s been eight years and nothing’s changed. If
anything, it’s gotten worse but we’ve become numb to it. At least I have. But,
the other day the numbness evaporated and I started to notice the inappropriate
adjectives that fill the air, from TV and radio news reporters, meteorologists,
politicians and in everyday conversations.
I was jolted out of my numbness in the Blackbird Bakery
& Eatery when I eavesdropped on two young couples taking a break from
parenting. Old coots do this all the time. You think we are sitting next to you
in a stupor; we’re not; we’re taking it in. One of the fathers described the
“unbelievable” accomplishment of his four-year-old son, “he put away his toys!”
Unbelievable? Not really. That’s my point. What adjective is left for the kid
when he does something significant: learns to belch the alphabet or to cross
his eyes. He’s doomed to mediocrity. It’s hard to beat “unbelievable.”
It’s not just a parent & kid thing, this excessive use
of inappropriate adjectives. It’s all over the place. I asked someone what they
thought about the new Dunkin Donut building going up in Owego. “Fantastic!” was
the reply. I’ll concede the new building looks nicer than the old one. But
fantastic? Not by a long shot. Fantastic, is when I put a letter in my pocket,
walk to town and remember to take it to the post office and mail it. Now that
is deserving of a “FANTASTIC!”
We can thank the advertising industry for the abuse of
adjectives. They’ve hyped products for so many years that there are no words
left for something that truly is outstanding. No one will buy a great, or even
a super laundry soap. We’ve been conditioned to look for the box that screams
“Miracle Soap.” The kid that received a “fantastic” for putting away his toys
will probably be called “genius” for memorizing the multiplication tables,
though in today’s education system he probably won’t have to. It will come as
quite a shock to him when he grows up, moves to a bigger pond and discovers
he’s just plain average. He won’t hear adjectives like fantastic and
unbelievable for another fifty years. Anyhow, that’s how long it took for me.
It started the day I received my first Social Security
check and officially joined the old coot society. I took advantage of it the
night I did a book reading at the Pumpelly House and only lost the point I was
trying to make fourteen times and addressed a member of the audience by a name
which started with the same letter as his actual name. One of those Mike versus
Mark things. Pretty darn close for an old coot. I was FANTASTIC that
night. Then, two years in a row, I
remembered our anniversary, with only six reminders. UNBELIEVABLE! I drove home
from Elmira with my left turn signal only blinking for half the trip.
INCREDIBLE! I love that my bar is so low I get high praise and superlative
adjectives for mediocre performance. It’s just one of the perks that come your
way in the GOLDEN years.
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