It has been much too long since I posted a
note
on this blog, and I apologize.
I have an excuse. Shortly after Thanksgiving, I
had triple-bypass surgery. Believe me, this will
put a crimp in your blogging and in everything
else. Just skip the whole thing if you
can.
If you must have bypass surgery, though, you
could do a lot worse than have it in Durham
Regional Hospital (that is Durham, North
Carolina). I was lucky to have fine surgeons, Dr.
Charles Murphy and Dr. Thomas Marsicano. And I
shall always be grateful for the care and
compassion of the nurses and nursing assistants
in the chest-pain center on the hospital's fifth
floor. These folks were unfailingly kind.
While I'm here, I'll mention one or two points
about language.
Terms of endearment
The first one concerns those nurses and nursing
assistants. It strikes me that they are among the
last groups of people who haven't been
intimidated into abandoning terms of endearment.
Far too many people, including many writers, shy
away from using such terms for fear that the
thought police and the language harpies will
pounce.
I, for one, am sick of these "politically
correct" types.
Yes, of course, it can certainly be inappropriate
in writing or speech to use "dear" or "honey" and
the like.
But sometimes such terms are quite appropriate. I
found it not only endearing but also comforting
when the nurses spoke them to me.
I hope that you, as writers--but more important,
as human beings--have the judgement to know when
to ignore the thought police and the courage not
to be cowed.
A foolish word
"Carjacking" is one of the silliest and most
annoying words that appear in the media. For one
thing, it reeks of the kind of cutesiness that
passes for cleverness among hacks. For another
thing, it isn't needed. We already had the well-
established "hijacking," which covers most
situations that involve the forcible taking of a
vehicle.
The writer who thinks "carjacking" is clever is
only too apt to commit worse folly. Such as the
network TV promo I heard the other day that
referred to "truckjacking."
Thanks for you patience, and I will try not to
wait so long before posting again.
