Tag Archives: jargon

Dallas

Dallas: (n) a city in NE Texas.

If you want to lose your prejudice, travel.

I dare say it is impossible to refrain from some sort of stereotyping of other individuals and races as long as you remain in one locale, or only scuttle about a hundred miles or so.

Although you may try to be open-minded, black people seem ridiculous when you’re only around white people. And white people all look like slave owners when you are living in an urban area, surrounded by your identical color.

Travel is an amazing thing.  You immediately see two lies played out:

  1. People are different
  2. A region can reflect an attitude

In both cases, it’s just not so.

Although the South touts hospitality, it is only dribbled out based upon whether the Southern lass or gent deem you to fall into the realm of normalcy.

And people being people—possessing biological, mental, spiritual and emotional propensities—generally speaking ooze out favored sentiments.

The first time I went to Dallas, Texas, I was expecting cowboys, Southern jargon, big, thick steaks and beautiful women adorned with pumped-up hair and large smiles.

Don’t get me wrong—these are available.

The Chamber of Commerce, the churches and the politicians make sure they have representatives of this style of Dallas on call for the tourists.

But when you step a little deeper into the community, you find human beings. Most of these souls don’t have enough security, finance or agenda to be hateful or loving.

They’re just doing the best they can.

So these folks are not different at all and feel no compulsion to reflect the attitude of Dallas or any other metroplex they might need to represent.

Bigotry is kept alive by business, religion, politics and entertainment wishing to keep us separate.

We have certainly learned this year that when the same problems are thrown at people who are supposed to be different, those who survive stumble upon mutual solutions.

Coherent

Coherent: (adj) a logical theory

A common weakness in those who take pen to paper (though there actually is no pen or paper anymore), who fancy themselves to be writers is the tendency to become exasperated with the reader when he or she pulls up mentally lame–incapable of grasping a deep point or drooling over a clever turn of words.

Actually, to become a good writer, you must “de-brat” yourself. In other words, have the brat removed without losing the childlike quality of simplifying human truth to concepts which are easily grasped. Therefore, don’t put too many steps in your process.

Yesterday I saw an article that advertised “31 Things to Do to Make Your Life Better.” I, for one, am overwhelmed with the notion of Baskin Robbins having thirty-one flavors, let alone remembering them in any sequential order.

Coherence also demands that we use understandable language instead of historical wording. Some words, phrases and ideas are dead. I don’t know if they will ever be resurrected, but presently they are stinking in a tomb.

Just don’t use them. Avoid getting angry with the populace because they’re unfamiliar with your jargon.

And being coherent certainly requires the grace to adjust your thinking when someone finds the flaw in your figuring. No matter how good you may think you are when putting together a respectable thesis, there will always be something you forget.

Rather than losing your cool over being challenged, warm yourself to the idea of learning from your mistakes.

Coherent is when smart meets flexible and they have a child called wisdom.

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Buzzword

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Buzzword: (n) fashionable jargon

We must never grow weary in the pursuit of changing the world. Yet the process by which we try to rejuvenate needs to be carefully analyzed.

The most difficult thing to do is to revise people’s habits. You might as well just give up on that one.They are in charge of them, and still find change nearly impossible.

Likewise, you will also fail if you try to alter people’s minds.

And if you look for a revival in the soul, they will tell you immediately if they’ve already arrived at their religion, or if they’re just not fond of spirit.

Sometimes you can change the heart. This can be done by the introduction of emotion, which cleans out the valves.

But I can tell you , if you want to change the world, the most intelligent thing is to introduce good words.

Yes. Create fresh buzzwords.

In a climate where misinformation, fake news, reality TV and cultural differences are being bandied about, leaving us at constant odds with each other, just casually introducing buzzwords of energy and virtue can make a difference.

Let’s welcome back some great standards:

How about passion?

Here’s a good one: brotherhood.

One of my favorites: gentleness

And of course, there is that glorious buzzword phrase of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Sometimes if you can get people saying the right things, they might just start feeling a spiritual awakening that makes them think about addressing bad attitudes.

 

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Barometer

Barometer: (n) an instrument measuring atmospheric pressureDictionary B

Sometimes a barometer is just a barometer.

In other words, it is some sort of instrument that measures the pressure in the atmosphere, to let us know when it’s going to rain or whether we have at least the possibility for some sunshine (even though I am both perplexed and perturbed when the forecast reads, “partly cloudy.” Dammit, make up your mind.)

But in the passing of time, the word “barometer” has been abducted and held for ransom by writers as a term to punctuate any change that happens in society.

In other words, “the barometer of consideration on the Internet lets us know…”

Or the pollsters took some numbers, and “the barometer of the reaction was…”

So tempted as I may be to waddle down that chicken trail of pop culture jargon to make some point about humanity and our times, I will refrain, and allow the barometer to have its space and distinction.

But if I were to add any insight on the issue, I would tell you that the atmospheric pressure of our times is a pair of contentions: humanity is either all animal or is intended to be angelic.

No one seems to want to let people be human–a little classier than Monkeyville, and on the other side of the tracks from Gabriel and the angels.

 

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