purists who love words are a defeated bunch these days, and there isn't much they can do in retaliation except to bottle up their literary and grammatical frustrations, which isn't medically indicated for hypertensives, which many of them probably are. we all have creative or gastronomical or athletic outlets, my particular edible outlet being frying up some turkey bacon at midnight. the smarter thing to do, of course, would not be to drown my sorrows in bacon-scented turkey fat, but write a scathing manifesto deftly disguised as bestseller fiction aimed at the masses. i'm thinking in particular of a bestseller fiction book (a book that really serves as a very subtle way for the grammar purist to shame those who cannot use a semicolon;) on grammar entitled eats, shoots, and leaves, which is based on a joke that hinges upon a misplaced comma, where a panda enters a cafe, orders a dish and eats it up, shoots someone, and leaves. A patron asks the panda why he did that, and the panda pulls out a dictionary and flips to the definition of panda: furry mammal; eats, shoots, and leaves". ahahahahah! Ah! if only it weren't for that extraneous comma! alas! alas!

i read something a while back about word prostitution, and since i'm in a dour mood right now where i feel like i know better tan everybody else and feel particularly negative and smug and alienated about it, i want to write about how i hate the word "nice". i detest that word. word purists lament the adoption of words for uses other than what they were intended for. for example, the word "gay". culturally, it is analogous to "homosexual", but in fact, the word doesn't mean that at all. when "bling bling" was added to the dictionary, i nearly cried.

anyway, i always love to ask people to describe other people because it is as much an insight into the character of the person i am talking to, rather than the person being described. Recently, though, I've been hearing so much of "he is SO nice." or "she is SO nice." it is making me batty! i think nice is an overused and prostituted word that has, as a consequence, lost its original meaning. it doesn't tell me anything about a person's persona, it's such a bland description. it would intrigue me to hear that someone is temperamental, volatile, assuming, but principled. it would attract me to hear that someone is sarcastic, full of biting wit, an excellent purveyor of physical slapstick comedy and low-brow humor, a master of sexual innuendo, yet unfailingly loyal and loving. my interest would be acutely peaked to hear of someone unparalleled in verbal repartee, deadpan delivery, and with about 22 other sides to them. i know that people aren't nice, without any other dimension to their personality. i know that everyone is intrinsically interesting, for some reason or another, and i would never want to be described as simply "nice". on two levels, then, being nice doesn't cut it anymore. being nice, as far as i am concerned, is no measure of any character, anymore.

there. my rant is over. whew. back to normal life, normal life.