Toxic Rhetoric

Our Word Arsenal

Image from

http://www.examiner.com       

 Jared Lee Loughner is crazy. He’s the one who pulled the trigger in the Arizona shooting that killed six  people and shot Senator Gabrielle Giffords.  Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and right wing bullies didn’t pull the trigger.

However, we must remember that bullets don’t come from guns alone. Words and images also hold a certain firing power, especially for those vulnerable and volatile individuals who are mentally ill. 

Words do make a difference. As a former middle school teacher, I know that the language I used as a teacher and the way I delivered this language made a difference in how my students responded.  The words and delivery that parents say to their children make a difference too.

Think about it. Here are possible parent-to-child words...two different approaches:

 (a) "Again! What makes you do such stupid things all the time?"

(b)  "I feel bad when you act without thinking about how it will affect the rest of the family.  "

How many parents have ever, in frustration, said to their child, “I’m so angry I could kill you!” Most children understand the context of that phrase and know it is not to be interpreted literally, but maybe we should re-think the violence in our off-hand language.

Words and pictures may not kill but they can put ideas into minds of the vulnerable. Bill O’Reilly verbally attacked George Tiller (“Tiller the Killer”), a doctor who was gunned down because he performed abortions.  Unstable individuals sometimes act from words they have read and, in acting on them, believe they have the backing of important people who  have uttered those words.  

Sarah Palin is not directly responsible for Senator Giffords fight for life in the hospital now. But she is responsible for using language and images irresponsibly. Crosshairs targeting “Gabby” Giffords did not pull the trigger literally, but it has the potential of pulling the mind trigger in the mentally ill. 

An argument might be made that we can’t base all our speech on the potential for how it might trigger others. I say, we can be more aware and moderate with what we say and how we say it. As a middle school teacher, I did this all the time because it made a difference. 

Language can pull the symbolic trigger under certain circumstances.  Maybe we should do more thinking before we speak.

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QXWVWZV

I lost.

Again.

The 19th game in a row.

I lose every time I play with my husband David. We've been together for almost 29 years.

He's good. Very good. But what makes it worse is his uncontrollable laughter at his own brilliant moves and my bad luck. Notice I said "bad luck." I was an English major, taught language arts and have three university degrees, including a doctorate.

What makes me repeat this losing scene night after night? Am I a masochist? I don't think so but I'm beginning to understand what I failed to learn in college. I'm just not competitive and David is. Very. So now I'm quietly observing his strategy and I'm getting better.

Marital Trouble

Years ago when we were in another Scrabble frenzy, I thought I was finally going to beat David. From the very first play, I was ahead and remained so throughout one particular time. We were near the end of the game and I just knew I was going to finally win...until David played all seven of his last tiles on the triple word score and went out, leaving me with some high scoring letters. He won on his last turn. The end.

At that moment, our then teenage daughter, Lauren, arrived home from a date. As she entered the house, I announced somberly, "Lauren, your father and I are getting a divorce." Then I saw her face. This was a teenager who didn't know what had happened at home while she was making out at the movies. With some guilt, I quickly reassured her that it was her mother's temporary insanity speaking when hope crashed hard.

During 29 years of marriage to a Scrabble-winner, I can say that I did win once. And this might be the secret of beating David at Scrabble. I convinced him to go with me to Downs Park, several miles from us. This is where I do my best thinking. We sat on a park bench and played against a backdrop of the Chesapeake Bay lapping the shore...and mosquitoes attacking David. Ever since then, he refuses to play with me in the park.

Misery Loves Company

Tonight I felt a little down after my 19th loss and decided to Google "Scrabble losers." Apparently I'm not alone. I found a Scrabble losers unite!'s Journal on Live Journal and Scrabble Losers Anonymous on Facebook. I discovered on a blog called Scrabble Losers Rejoice that Mental Floss Magazine has a list of ten words that are real but which opponents will probably challenge: aa, qat, zax, cwm, xu, qua, suq, adz, jo, qadi. Look them up!

There's also a Sore Scrabble Loser You Tube video, so shaky in the beginning that I thought someone was going to get hurt. Two girls who had just finished playing Scrabble together, talk about their game.

I'm thinking about buying the book, Everything Scrabble (Edley, Williams, Williams, Jr.). It has lots of good advice and even a poem Born to Lose by Maxene Johnson:

"...But SCRABBLE losers are unique.
They take their losses without pique,
They tally scores, emerge all smiles,
They merely shrug and blame the tiles."

In my search for other losers, I found an item that I should be wearing... a t-shirt on a site called Threadless, Nude No More with a design showing a nightmare of a Scrabble hand: QXWVWZV.
As it says at the top of that page, "Well, this just really sucks."

David gloats about yet another win.

Today's fortune cookie: It's not merely how much you know but how you play your tiles.


(Another fun blog post from Australia that you might enjoy: http://www.arizaphale.blogspot.com/2012/07/shizzle-that-is-scrabble.html)

Words and Gardening

Looking graphically at words in history presents a new perspective on words. Above are four speeches shown as "Wordles." The larger words are the most used words in these speeches. These speeches are represented:

Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, March 4, 1865

Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural address, March 4, 1933

Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963

Barack Obama's inaugural address, January 29, 2009

Can you match the word pictures above with the person who gave the speech? If you click on the picture, you will be linked to a gallery that has the answer and larger images.

Today we pulled up the bush and sowed seeds of hope. What a great day for gardening!