Preaching to the choir

I have one question: Is it just me thinking this or are we unable to speak or write without literally padding every sentence, as it were, with useless cliches, antiquated adverbs and a heavy dose of talkradiospiel? And then saying it all over again?

To make a long story short, what I’m trying to say, quite frankly, is that we waste words. Lots of words. I can’t help but be amazed at how everyone in this great nation of ours uses 20 of them where, at the end of the day, one would do.

I see this in letters to the editors, which I, for one, edit. And I see it in the works of professional pundits, who, make no mistake about it, must be paid by the syllable.

Don’t get me wrong. I am guilty, occasionally, of piling on the verbiage and saying the same thing over and over, in multiple ways. It’s as though we cannot believe that saying something once will make the point. So we make our point. Then we add, “In conclusion” or “the bottom line is …” and make it all over again.

Let me get this straight. Am I missing something here? Do we think no one will hear us if we only say it once? Wake up, and smell the Starbucks! People hear you the first time around.

As Max Frisch said (whoever Max Frisch is): “My greatest fear: repetition.”

And that brings me to another writing gripe: our reliance on interminably quoting famous, infamous or unknown people. Or our Founding Fathers. The Constitution. The Bible. Harry Potter.

Doesn’t anyone have an original thought anymore? Are we so insecure that we can’t make a point without the affirmation of some dead guy or best-seller or ancient piece of papyrus?

And can’t we write without asking questions? Like we’re afraid to really say what we think, so we ask it instead? We don’t want to offend anyone by being too affirmative, so we ask instead of tell, even though it’s clear we’re telling and not asking. Get the point?

There’s also another genre of 21st-centuryspeak: insults. Where is the poetic venom of yesteryear? Used to be we had such creative torments as “your mother wears Army boots” and “may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.”

No longer do we indulge in such metaphoric verbal abuse. Today, we do not mince words:

You are a ——— (fill in the blank: psychopath, moron, traitor, politician, idiot). What cave did you crawl out of? What have you been smoking? What’s in your drinking water? How stupid can you be? If you don’t like it, move to another country!

And those are just a few that are printable in a family newspaper.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. At the end of the day, I can’t believe that we, in this great nation founded by our forefathers, are so wasteful with our words, so cliche-ridden. And we can’t spel, either. But that’s another story.