Watching TV is Never Good for Me.

I recently saw a commercial on TV that really set me off.  It was for a women’s multi-vitamin, and the tagline was “There’s complete, and then there’s most complete.”  This is the kind of blatant misuse of the English language that gets students in trouble on the SAT all the time.  Isn’t MOST complete actually less than complete?  Imagine you’re an astronaut (yes, I know, some of you out there reading this actually ARE astronauts… bear with me) and the Flight Director comes into the briefing and says, “For this mission we’re going to send you up in the most complete shuttle we’ve got.” Time to head for the door, right?  It’s like being mostly dead or a little bit pregnant.  Most complete is not complete.

I tell my family on a regular basis that specific words in the English language have specific meanings.  Every time I hear someone say that a book is ‘entitled’ I cringe… (Really…? Entitled to what??  Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness???) A good vocabulary is essential to not only doing well on the SAT and ACT but also in life.

Making a Waitress Cry

I was having lunch many years ago with a colleague of mine from Great Britain, named Paul Wofford. We were at a little pub in Georgetown just outside of Washington, D.C. and as he placed his order for fish and chips in his heavy, cockney flavored accent he also ordered two bottles of wine – one for each of us.  God bless the British and their wonderful customs… but I digress.  The waitress, probably a student at George Washington University, giggled and said, “That’s so cute!  You mean a glass, right?”   Paul’s face immediately became clouded.  He stood up, and in a voice that was anything but quiet, exclaimed “Last I checked, Love, we INVENTED the [expletive omitted] LANGUAGE!  I said bottles and I meant bottles!”  Everyone in the restaurant turned and stared. The little waitress stammered an apology, spun around and ran into the kitchen.  Two minutes later the manager appeared and asked us to leave.  We ended up eating at McDonald’s instead.

Lexiphany… huh?

It was funny at the time, it’s funnier to me now, and it illustrates a point.  Specific words have specific meanings. Superior command of the English language is important and, at the risk of sounding lexiphanic, it makes your conversations more saporous and engenders ataraxia, especially while writing an admissions essay. For those of you who may accuse me of sciolism, or allege my writing pleonastic, it is without jactation that I assure you I regularly enjoy studying vocabulary until lippitude.  [grin]