Hanging Out With the Right Words

AT THE END OF THE DAY, if you don't think outside the box, you'll get thrown under the bus, according to the narrative. And its all good. Have I omitted any prescient cliches? If so, it is to be hoped that memory will serve before the end of this brief commentary on the lack of verbal originality in modern American culture. Everyone seems to have some sort of narrative these days, we are all seeking to get outside some imaginary box, and we avoid buses. We just can't seem to do any word smithing for ourselves. It is estimated that the English language contains approximately one million words, more words than any other language. And although English is regarded by linguists as a highly expressive form of communication, with but few rhyming words (bad for didactic prosaic poets), replete with an abundance of synonyms, we fail to take advantage of our vast wealth of potential wording. We slink back into the comfort zone (there's another one!) of the exhaustively hackneyed. Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of swell, cool, groovy, and sitting in the catbird seat. We sit beneath our bus, inside our boxes, making our linear one dimensional narrative in comfort, because we have for some reason convinced ourselves that this is preferable to....actually thinking. Any visit to the house of primates at a good zoo demonstrates to us our imitative tendencies. Our close cousins, the chimpanzees, continually mock our gestures as we stand gawking at them, and they at us, and they imitate each other. They often throw their dung at us through the bars. But no, chimps are not our "cousins". They are, according to all genetic proof, to the scientific narrative, our brothers and sisters. (see "The Third Chimpanzee", by Jared Diamond). Fortunately we humans only give each other shit verbally. We hope this form of imitation will remain for us but a form of symbolism, and that we don't "buy in" to the literal primate program.. Have a good day. (oops, there I go again, on track).