"The Boy with the Wonderful Words"

That was my name-title to one of my friends back in elementary school.  It's also painfully funny because I am notorious in my family for some really unfortunate Freudian slips of the tongue on my part.  For example, one time in a sacrament meeting talk, I said that Nephi and his brothers went back to Jerusalem to obtain "the plates of grass....brass, that is."  Suffice it to say that everyone knew where my family sat in the congregation that day because they couldn't contain themselves.  Punks.

Another nickname given to me in elementary school was "walking dictionary".  This is because I was really good at spelling and knew slightly more than your average fourth-grader because I had three older brothers who had all gone through fourth grade already.

In our family we've played with words for a long time.  For example, my Mom used to say things to us like "Robin Hood: Prince of Sleeves"?  We of course had to correct her.  "No, it's 'Prince of Thieves'!" we would say.  Or she would ask utterly ridiculous questions like "Do you suppose of toes?"  Of course not—for fear of supposing (erroneously) that they were roses.  (Anyone who knows that reference is awesome.)  Also, I recently learned from my wife that playing with phonemes (the basic sounds that make up words) tends to high intelligence and reading ability in young children (my wife's a special ed teacher).

So I come to this English—I mean, Writing—class with all this as my background.  I find that I appreciate the process of choosing the proper words to convey my intended meaning.  For me, words are knowledge.  True, words only convey information or knowledge, but putting the right word to my feeling or idea is satisfying to me in that I understand things more clearly with the right words being used to describe them.  And so, in a way, working on refining my rhetorical analysis and choosing the proper words is enjoyable to me.  And I've found that choosing the right words comes in handy in more than just an English class.

Let me illustrate with a story.

My mother is visiting this week, and last night we needed to figure out who would pray before bed.  With old roommates we would do rock-paper-scissors to decide, and at home with my brothers we would do the nose-goes rule.  So I decided it would be funny to say something like "We used to do rock-paper-scissors, but we're better than that now," and then I would quickly touch my nose before anyone else could say anything.  I thought that it was pretty funny, because I knew what I was going for, but I also felt that I needed to use different words.  The joke was that I was gonna default to a method of deciding that was equally childish and not at all an improvement.  As I was finishing brushing my teeth, I settled on what I thought was a better wording—one that would more clearly communicate the point on which the joke hinged.  Instead of saying "we're better than that now", I came out and said to my wife and my mom, "Me and James used to do rock-paper-scissors to decide who would pray at night, but we've since progressed to more refined methods of deciding."


Then, when I quickly put my finger to my nose, everyone laughed (just as I thought they would), but I knew it was because the joke was more clearly communicated.  If I had just shot from the hip, and said what first came to me, it wouldn't have been as clear, and my wife would've only had to give her obligatory laugh.  But because I used more "wonderful" words, everyone genuinely laughed.  And that was the best reward of all.

(I'll bet you didn't know that being a clown was such intelligent, difficult work, did you, wife o' mine?)

The Circle of Life for Vampires

Somehow I don't see him bursting into song...

Is Edward Cullen really immortal?  I hope not.  But looking at the 'life cycle' of a rhetorical situation from Writing and Rhetoric Chapter 3, I saw a similar life cycle occurring with popular fads and trends.  As a refresher, the life cycle of a rhetorical situation is as follows: origin, then a stage of maturity, deterioration after it has passed it's peak, and then disintegration altogether.

Most fads are certainly recognizable at the peak of their popularity.  The current vampire craze can be traced directly back to the Twilight books (its origin), but the craze only came to the forefront of popular culture with the release of movies based on the books.  This fad has matured now (I hope), and many people—mostly men—are glad that it seems to be deteriorating.

The final and critical stage of disintegration is similar for fads as well as rhetorical situations.  As a rhetorical situation example, in the 60s after JFK's assassination, there was much talk of a government conspiracy behind the murder.  Decades later, in the early 90s, a film was made putting forth similar arguments and bringing up the issue again.  While a situation like the debate over JFK's assassination had disintegrated (as far as most of the public was concerned), there were those who would resurrect the issue later on.

Similarly, in popular fashion, back in the 80s "wayfarer" sunglasses were made famous by television stars like Don Johnson, and became an essential fashion accessory for men.  They eventually fell out of favor, but nowadays on campus one doesn't have to look far to see them being worn again, even as frames for regular prescription glasses.  Though wayfarers are not as popular now as they once were, the fad has been resurrected.

It seems that fads for popular consumption, as well as issues for public discussion, go through a similar life cycle, only to be resurrected again by future generations.  I guess it's up to the next few generations to decide if Edward Cullen really is immortal.  I, for one, will be teaching my kids to let him rest in piece.