PittsburghThoughts

Sticks and stones can break your bones but the pen is still mightier than the sword,

Did you notice, that all of the sudden, the in-the-know people are using the word "winnowing" an awful lot? Why didn't they comment on the winnow factor earlier? Why are we just now hearing it over and over instead of, as statistics would have it, hearing it used now and then over a long period of time? I'll tell you why, because one person used it, a second person thought it was hip and used it, then the third person didn't want to miss the boat to hipsville and so they used it and pretty soon everyone is using it to demonstrate that they too are hipsville bound. 

I think it started with "paradigm" probably used first by some intellectual poopy boy like George Will. "Meme" came next and echoed back and forth until it lost all of its kinetic energy. "Frame" was big for a while, as in letting the opposition "frame" the argument. "Surge" became the next overnight sensation thanks to someone on the Bush team drilling for euphemisms in order to "stay the course" that Bush said his administration's has never been about.

Words not only convey meaning, they convey our status, our affiliations and our pomposity. Some of the smartest, most decent people I've ever known were rather taciturn. I remember a few guys that were mechanical wizards in their abilities, talents and knowledge. For whatever reason they all seemed to substitute spitting tobacco for talking. It must have satisfied a chemical imbalance in their frontal lobes or something. What good did talking do them anyway? It took time away from their beloved tasks and the thought processes necessary to perform them. They were sure of themselves and their abilities, never needing consensus via round table discussion.

I, of course, do talk but more through my fingers than my mouth. And, I'll use a hip word or two occasion permitting. Maybe I'm just jealous of the people that circulate and recirculate words and think that no one will catch on. They make good money writing for prestigious magazines and papers. Newscasters.... oops, wrong term, opinion mongers on TV must make a lot of money, who else can look a republican flap jaw dead in the eye and not feel the need to vomit?

In the meantime, winnowing is a pretty good word. The dictionary uses the wheat from chaff metaphor when defining it, therefore, for Christ's sake, it can't be all bad. The dilemma; the chaff never knows it's chaff. The chaff insists it's wheat and you can't convince it otherwise. The wheat can't by itself oust the chaff, some outside force has to "winnow" it. But, if George W. Bush's appointment to the presidency is any indication, when it comes to politics, haven't we kept the chaff and winnowed away the wheat?   Gene