May 21, 2002
New Look, Same Great
Publication
You may have noticed some changes in The Last Word since its April issue. I (the editor)
think this new format has more visual appeal
than the old format. Please be assured that the
change has in no way affected the quality of
this publication: I am not trying to appeal to a
broader, blander audience or give The Last Word
a slick, commercial look. The April issue would
have looked like this if I had had a better grasp
of Microsoft Word then. The next issue may
look different still as I learn my way around the
computer, but those changes are purely cosmetic,
and underneath is the same odd newsletter/
zine/mailing/whateveryoucallit that I know you
love because if you didn't it would mutilate my
ego and I would be forced to lock myself in my
room eating jelly beans and listening to Patsy
Cline until I regained enough self-esteem to once
again be seen in public.
"Impact" is Not a Verb
Well, okay, technically it can be. The big dictionary says so. But "impact" doesn't mean
what CNN news anchors think it means. They
seem to think "impact" means "influence". It
doesn't. When it is used as a verb, "impact"
means to press things together tightly, and is
pronounced with the emphasis on the second
syllable: im-PACT. I have never heard it used
correctly as a verb, and even in its adjective
form ("impacted") it almost exclusively refers
to wisdom teeth (like mine) and colons (like
Elvis'). Flooding cannot impact the local
economy, because an economy isn't something
that can be crowded tightly together.
It is perfectly acceptable to use "impact" as a noun, e.g. "The lizard died on impact" or "The
new window trends will have an impact on the
curtain industry."
I, however, recommend staying away from the word even in its noun form unless you are
talking about a car crash or other violent
collision. It is fast losing its rhetorical power
thanks to serious journalistic abuse. A rule of
thumb: don't say "impact" when "influence" or
"effect" will do. If you want a stronger word, try
rephrasing so that you spell out what kind of
influence you are talking about, e.g. "The new
window trends will slaughter the curtain
industry" or "The new window trends will
reanimate the decomposing corpse of the curtain
industry." "Impact" as a noun has already been
used for effect so often and so indiscriminately
that it has become just another mediocre word --
a casualty of journalism's war on the English
language.
My Dear Readers
Seventy-five percent of my readers kindly pointed out to me that the first article in the
April 30th issue of The Last Word had nothing
whatsoever to do with dental care. It was not a
mistake, just a miscalculation. It started out as
a longer article which really did involve dental
care but the dental care part got crabby about
sharing column space with the rest of the article
so I was forced to save it for the next publication.
By then I had developed a great fondness for the
original title so I decided to keep it, even though
the article no longer related to dental care. Here
is the withheld article:
The Ethics of Dental
Insurance (or Why I Never
Get Anything Done)
I have lately been forced into a heightened awareness of my teeth. I've known for a long
time that I must have my wisdom teeth out, but
in the last couple of months I've started to feel
them. I've seen the x-rays: they are wedged
slantwise against my back molars and can't go
anywhere.
The problem is that wisdom-tooth extraction isn't cheap, and I don't have insurance or vast
amounts of disposable income. I could do what
my sensible friends and relatives keep telling me
to do: get some dental insurance. But I hate the
idea and I don't want to buy any.
It's not just that I'm cheap, or in denial. I actually think it is wrong for me to purchase
dental insurance. While insurance may have
begun as a valid addition to the free-market
system, I think it has grown into a form of
economic entrapment.
Don't get me wrong: I am against socialized medicine. But insurance is now subject to so
much regulation by the state that it has ceased to
be a free-market entity. I can still choose
between companies, but if the state can require
me to have insurance (such as auto insurance), or
require employers to provide insurance, or
require that insurance cover specific things, then
insurance ceases to be a competitive enterprise.
Insurance companies, with their heavy baggage of state interference, stunt competition
and raise the cost of health care so that it is now
difficult to get by without insurance. We have
become so dependent on it that it can limit our
career choices (shall I freelance with no benefits,
or work for a company with good coverage?). It
would be wrong of me to buy into a system I
find so morally and economically offensive -- in
effect a form of financial slavery.
Or it could just be that I loathe filling out forms and this is all an elaborate justification for
avoiding it.
The Shoes in Somerville
This morning I passed two pairs of shoes on Washington Street about a block from each
other: a pair of worn combat boots and then a
new pair of black sports shoes -- the kind with
the zippered flap to hide the laces. For months I
have been fascinated by the amount of
apparently discarded clothing I pass on the
sidewalks here. A lot of it is explained by the
busy laundromat around the corner. But not the
shoes -- and there are always shoes: old shoes,
new shoes, sneakers, boots, clogs, heels...
Sometimes they've been kicked around and I see
only a battered lefty lying in the crosswalk, but
mostly they are pairs set carefully on the curb
with the toes pointing at the road.
I think it must be a religious or superstitious practice. Perhaps an offering of shoes will keep
the pedestrian safe in crosswalks. Maybe the
shoes are to appease some discontented local
pavement deity and prevent potholes or wrecks
or other roadway misfortunes.
Practices like this are commonly associated with "primitive" cultures, but really they can pop
up anywhere people feel powerless over their
environments. Everything I have heard about
Somerville's politics and public works suggests
that sacrificing a pair of loafers on the curb to
unclog a storm sewer may be just as effective as
calling up the city to get a maintenance crew out.
_________________________________________
If you wish to send me fan mail, ask me for romantic advice, or comment on The Last Word, you can e-mail me
at Elleason@aol.com. Please note, however, that if the
subject line of your e-mail reads "Free Term Life
Insurance Quotes", or Hot Teenage Cheerleaders!!" I
could mistake it for spam and delete it without reading it.
..................... Lilith