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I began this with the intention of highlighting ways where sloppy (I’ll explain) grammar is an excuse and foil for disordered thinking.

Take something commonplace simple as saying “I flew to New York.” Unless a bird or pilot, you did not. “I was flown to New York” is a more accurate description on what happened, though (stop yelling at me) we all recognize common convention in what’s intended to be said when we speak it wrong.

As acts and activities go, sitting in a seat is not much of an accomplishment. We know this, but it’s too (awfully) common hearing a bogus form of activity be passed off as something larger and more meaningful.

In terms of effort involved, I walked the dog and I voted are kissing cousins on the effort-required scale.
But, you don’t want to hear me go on about language minutia, but on other feet you might use the perspective lens when someone proclaims “I gave THEM a piece of MY mind” means only “I yelled at them.”

Taking seriously (which we often do of politeness or convention or laziness) empty claims lets the lackadaisical asserter (there are a lot of asserters out there) off easy by not requiring they detail what they mean.

“Just what is the important thing you upheld?”

When that is answered with “You know what I mean” you can bet hard the claimant (a nicer word than asserter) doesn’t know and expects you to do their heavy lifting. If you wish you may, of course, do their work and fill in the asserter’s blank assertions. But that’s work which should rightly be done by the one making the claim. Not you. Or me.

Why? Because we can only add what we think they might have meant. Somewhat generous of us, ‘specially if the base was near empty to start.

Perhaps I got distracted from grammar because it’s so easy and commonplace in contemporary society to accept a constant flow of gibberish as meaningful. “O Baby, Baby!”

Let’s say any of us want to pursue happiness. Is happiness a thing able to be pursued or is it a result, something reached while bumbling down a long and bumpy way?

Chasing after happiness or fun might be on the same level as seeking the most excellent drunken state or the perfect buzz. But there’s irony involved. While we can’t buy happiness by the pound or measure fun in metric numbers we generally come to recognize that what can’t be bought or measured comes with a cost, at times slight, but sometimes great.

Being something of a perennial pain, I feel is time to remind folk of some of our ancestral awareness, for those who’ll listen, that is.

Not every ancestry or every culture said it in the same way, but most had a version of how to spot and where to look for honest legitimacy in its sack of accumulated wisdom.

Despite being an exploitative colonizer and slaver, old-time Romans said some professions are “dirty.” Beware of them. Who were the outcasts of a society most of us would cast to Hades? If denounced by evil Rome, does that tell us they were good and laudable?

The Roman dregs were actors (including gladiators) and prostitutes. Why? Because actors pretend to be other than they are. Prostitutes are similar, offering temporary affection by the hour. (Could add politicians, advertisers, promoters and others selling self interest as public virtue.)

In a way goes back to how seriously we take words. More likely than not (I ‘spect you’ll find some agreement here) a vow or promise to fix something isn’t at all the same as doing so, ‘specially if so doing means menial dirty-hand effort. Gold-painted ceremonial shovels aren’t meant for digging.

I don’t care (nor does grammar) whether you or I lean left or right, whether we favor a people’s dictator, a monarch, an administrator or consensus, mistaking words for actions is a problem.

One, I might add, that advertisers, promoters, actors, liars and people just like me rely on to be successful in our work – be that labor to lead or mislead.

A cute (don’t trust my use of that word) example of grandified self-interest hit me on the nose during my recent travels when ongoing war in the middle east turned from simmer to hot. Many aboard exclaimed (can say ejaculated if you wish, “O Woe!” New Zealanders were especially glad to bash the U.S. for something new (but forgetting Zealand was not a name their island gave itself) on the plain plane of maintaining a pretense of moral high ground.

But here’s pudding for proof. The moral outrage was a bit lean, low fat, skim because the concern quickly showed itself as a fret over travel plans suddenly gone uncertain.

“Our flight through Dubai is cancelled.” I’d bet any war at any time complicated travel. I’d bet, too, bombs falling are a more serious problem for folks on the ground than is inconvenience to a ticket holder who has to reroute.

A little attention to grammar can help tame the bloat of self-importance. Being flown is not the same as flying. Evidence or testimony aren’t necessarily proof.

Keep in mind that while a dead body remains the same whether it was killed or murdered can make a world of difference.

The word community added to a spiel (a quite popular addition) doesn’t mean any such community exists other than on paper as an imagined group. And yet, how often is persuasion attempted with an alleged community as a prop? How far does the community extend. Does it have a members roster? Are dues paid? Who elected or appointed the spokesperson?

When, which I think is reasonable enough, a claim’s legitimacy is questioned the result might be a clearer notion of who is representing what and why they’re doing so. I say this because bolstering individual positions with group credentials.

Funny. When I was a boy on the Iron Range use of “we” instead of “I” heard this. “Turd in your pocket?” A question when someone uses we or our instead of I and my.