My New York Week July 8 – July 14
Overused Words and a Wordy Book
I’m so sorry the word, fuck, has lost its virginity. Aren’t you? I was thinking that while a friend and I watched THE HEAT, a sentimental, predictable, violent, girlie-bonding, white trash summer movie. Isn’t fuck the ghost pepper of words – to be used sparingly by those who know what they’re doing? Where do we go from here? Is there another word with its repulsion/fascination factor?
Guy is a word that needs to be replaced with synonyms. Am I the only woman who is puzzled when a woman only audience is addressed as you guys?
How are you? Well or good? This is one the grammarians have lost, but it does give us snobs ample opportunity to prove we know the difference between an adverb and an adjective.
Recently, I read Whittaker Chambers’s WITNESS. It’s a beautifully written book in formal American English by the controversial Mr. Chambers. Was he or wasn’t he a lifelong Commie? Is his book a slick whitewash or a sincere recantation? It made me wonder whether this country would have been better or worse if Communism had gained a legal foothold. We’ll never know.
This pianist wheels his piano into Washington Square Park and then serenades us with Chopin.