Dumbing It Down vs Guilty Pleasures

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'  --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Today I feel a good rant coming on.  I gotta get some things off of my chest.

Language is exceptionally powerful.  It's true that the mind thinks in pictures and raw emotions, but words stimulate the mind into creating a tangible image to grasp.  If you doubt what I mean, think about the pronoun in each of the following sentences: "She became the president of the company."  "One never knows."  "He left the station at 3:00."  Who were the "she," "one," and "he" mentioned?  What did their faces look like?  Was the "one" male or female? 

So, if you follow my argument, and agree that the words we use change the audience's world by giving them new mind pictures to experience, what happens when we start simplifying the language we use?  It's subtle.  For example, a Martini is a beverage that has 5 parts gin, 1 part dry vermouth, and garnished with a lemon twist or an olive.  So a patron walking up to the bar and asking for a martini made with her favorite vodka is akin to asking for a hamburger but replace the meat with tofu.  We've changed what's in it, therefore, we cannot name it the same thing.  At the very least we should now call it a vodka martini or a tofu burger.  And yes, vodka is the tofu of the alcohol world.  (Tilapia is the tofu of the fish world, but that's another rant.) 

I also see generic over-generalizations, for example "cooking dinner."  "Cooking" demands a procedure of steps to take a set of basic ingredients and combine them into a common mass that is greater than the sum of its parts.  Cooking is NOT opening a can or a package and heating the contents inside.  Even if you closely follow a recipe, "cooking" involves some level of risk.  It allows for both failure and serendipity.  "Cooking" is art and therefore how much of yourself you put in is a variance of degree--analogous in range of a paint-by-number to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.

And if you think I'm being melodramatic, I would further suggest that our over-simplification of "cooking dinner" by opening a package and (perhaps) applying heat has gone a long way to contributing to the "food deserts" that lead to both poor nutrition and obesity.  Andrew Zimmern writes a rather scathing and insightful article on the very topic.  Please read it.

Food and language are the mediums about which I most enjoy being self-righteous, but we can all find numerous idiocies that give us crazy eyes.  Television programming (how can there be that many shows about hoarders/antique treasure seekers/ghost and monster hunters/dating rituals of the self-absorbed/B-list celebrities gasping for one last breath of fame?); or driving through the city, dodging a never ending slalom of construction during rush hour; and American political rhetoric.  The list can go on, ad nauseum. In short, we--probably all humans, to some extent, but many Americans, in particular--have institutionally (and lingually and cullinarily) sacrificed the absolute glory and majesty of what's available for a silver bullet of the least common denominator. 

But here we come to the irony of Humpty's statement, above.  Humpty Dumpty is a jerk.  By being so persnickety in his use of language, he would entirely alienate himself from everyone else, and in his isolation would miss out on one of life's greatest joys: the Guilty Pleasure. 

Most of the inane television listed above exists solely to satisfy our guiltiest of pleasures, Shadenfruede.  I confess that I, too, can find myself engrossed in a good episode of Cops.  But remember, I am also quite fond of Spam.  Both are satisfying on occasion. 

That's where I will leave this conversation.  With the idea that, in responsibility and recognition of what we doing, bad things can be really good.  But if we simply accept the banal and lazy ways of the herd, we are destined to be treated as cattle.  Life is too rich not to enjoy it all.  Or as a great man once said (maybe it was Shakespeare, Walter Cronkite or Hagar the Horrible), "Everything in moderation.  But don't overdo it." 

For breakfast, a by-definition-not-cooking-breakfast:

A cheese platter of
Gran Queso
Stilton with Mango
Vermeer Reduced fat Gouda
Menage
Saxon Creamery Big Ed's Cheese

Sliced White-flesh Freestone Peach

Farmers Rye Bread, toasted in a skillet

Applewood Smoked Bacon

Yellowtail Bubbles Sparkling Rosé


P.S. I recognize that I'm neither the first nor the best in ranting about the dumbing down of food or language. "It is what it is," is a phrase that needs to be done away with all together so that we might actually have a conversation about what "it" is. "Have a good one" is a throw-away dismissal that could be so much more rewarding if the receiver heard, "Have a wonderful afternoon." My all time favorite commentary about American's poor writing skills is one writer's passion for Alot. Read it. Laugh out loud. No, I mean seriously laugh out loud, not just LOL.