Month: August 2016

The Curtain Going Down on Another Summer

Well I guess that’s about it for another summer.  I know a lot of people enjoy the fall, and they are getting all excited about cool mornings and sweaters and snuggling on the couch, making stew for suppers and watching the trees turn colour.  Not me so much.  I work outside, and even though summer can be a lot of sweating in the sun, it’s still prefferable to squishing around in the rain.  I like the freedom of summer – of plunking down in the grass any old place I want and wearing minimal clothes, eating lots of barbecued stuff.  I love the fact that nature is in full bloom, all the fruit being in season and fresh, all the flowers and birds brightening up the world.  Fall for me is about watching all the warmth slowly seep away and watching all the colour and vividness of the world droop and fade.  Fall is the old age and death of the calendar year.  Worst of all?  My frickin lawn starts growing again.

Winter is much better than fall in my mind.  I don’t mind the occaisonal snow fall, and winter tends to be less rainy and windy than fall.  Also hockey is in full swing by winter, so if you’re stuck indoors – again – at least there is entertainment to be had on the tube.  I also find it psychologically pleasing to know that when winter starts, the days start getting incrementally longer, brighter and warmer.  It’s always exciting the first time you notice the sun rising earlier and setting later; but the big thrill is the first sunny day that gets into the 14 or 15 C range when you can open the window in the car and let the breeze blow through your hair.  Next thing you know it’s spring.  It’s a magical time when we start the barbecue up and see the blizzards back east on the news.  The weather starts behaving itself and the hockey playoffs get going.  Of course all my teams are usually offed immediately in the playoffs, and the frickin lawn starts growing again, so spring does have a few shortcomings.
Clinical features, such as euphoria, grandiosity, hypersexuality, competitive thoughts and decreased need for sleep are typical of mania associated with bipolar primary in order to distinguish it from primary cialis generic cipla patients with ADHD. The viagra online sales patient has a difficulty to utter words. This cialis 10 mg is an exceptionally humiliating turmoil for the men since it doubts their entire masculinity and it can be extremely hurtful to their relationship also. http://cute-n-tiny.com/cute-animals/frog-and-mouse-pals/ viagra uk cheap The women of the past had fuller sizes of breast.
Not good old summer.  The weather is typically great, and everyone you talk to is going on a trip or camping or kayaking on some lake.  Everybody is having a nice time, and the long evenings on the porch with friends, family and a couple beers and the music playing really can’t be beat.  Well I’m going outside now for a barefoot stroll in the grass while I still can, time is quickly running out on another summer.

The Curse of H.L. Mencken

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”  – H.L. Mencken

HL_Mencken

I was looking for a quick way of assessing the word usage level of certain dialogues.  I wasn’t successful at finding anything quick – maybe someone should invent one? – so I’ll have to forge ahead making guesses and assumptions.

A long time irritant for me has been Ford commercials, especially for their trucks.  The ads contain almost nothing but one syllable words, often delivered in an in-your-face grunt.  They are, I am guessing, what old Mr Mencken was talking about in his column in 1926 when he said no one went broke underestimating intelligence.  The latest batch of Ford truck ads are using the word “undisputed,” which is a whopping four syllables, but still conveys a tough guy swagger as the word is best known for its description of a fighter who has conquered everyone.  Even allowing for this exception, my guess at the word usage level for these ads would be about grade 5.  Gearing your advertisements towards people with a low reading/comprehension level isn’t hurting Ford too much, as their trucks are on every street you look at, having been the highest selling truck for 50 straight years.

There are numerous pills that are widely demanded for their effectiveness such as Kamagra, Caverta and on line cialis . This saves you online prescription viagra without money and is a confidential service. The tablets are safe, modern and improved remedy of relieving cialis cheap online male disorder easily. The Gateway to 10,000 Illnesses describes in straightforward and largely non-technical language the levitra without prescription core mechanism – the engine – of what makes us tick and his conclusions on why this hitherto little understood area is essential for addressing almost any disorder. It is well documented that the education system of the USA has been churning out grads who are nearly illiterate for some time.  I don’t want to pick on Americans, as I’m sure the same is true in other countries as well.  In Canada no one ever seems to fail a grade any more.  If you show up most of the time you will get your participation ribbon/grade 12 diploma.  It’s just that we hear so much more about the Americans and how they’ve fallen into 20th place or so in most subjects when compared to other advanced industrial countries.  So Ford is only following Mencken’s advice and not getting people with poor vocabularies all mixed up with that there fancy language.

Which brings me to Donald Trump.  The Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University rates Trump at about grade 4 usage, the lowest of any candidate in the 2016 election cycle.  (I heard that during the debates when he was speaking off the cuff it dropped to a grade 3 level.)  Although, to be fair, the highest usage level was only the 10th grade wordiness of Bernie Sanders.  All the candidates must be careful not to alienate the “plain people,” as that would surely not get anyone a majority of votes.  Like the Ford truck, the Trump brand is not being hurt by keeping it simple.  As of today he is slightly behind Hillary Clinton in the polls, but there is lots of time left to catch up.

If democracy is a true method of bringing the will of the people to the ballot box, then maybe a poorly educated mass should elect a poorly spoken candidate.  There is also a correllation between education levels and where a person votes along liberal-conservative lines, with the better educated tending towards liberalism.  Of course, there are exceptions like the brilliant conservative William F. Buckley, but the trend is fairly consistent.  So a poorly spoken conservative should be a winning combination in today’s world.  How else could you get mass appeal for an arrogant billionaire who promises tax cuts to the rich?

Oh well, it isn’t my country or my election, but it does dominate the news.  I also don’t feel any smugness about it happening elsewhere.  The Canadian Trump might be Kevin O’Leary, and he has expressed interest in running as a Conservative and cites Trump as an inspiration.  Stay tuned for the Great White North edition!