mot juste

Mot juste, we are told by the inimitable Hemingway, is more than just a French phrase thrown into our language to impress and influence. It is a standard, a lifestyle - it means exactly the right word; the one word in the entire language which is exactly suited to a particular desire; the one and only perfect word to describe whatever it is you happen to be describing. I am a big believer in mot juste, and I continue to be dedicated to hunting down the perfect word for every situation, which is not only a personal burden I am willing to carry, but a privilege as well.

Five years ago I began working with youth in our church. After a few months a young man began to attend who made fun of the way I speak (something which did not seem laughable to me.) He accused me of using "fancy words" to "impress" people. I took this rather hard, because it was nothing like what was happening. What was in actual fact occurring was that I was simply speaking the way I always do... I was speaking the way I read. Unfortunately, the young man had no idea what I was saying.

Let me digress for a moment and mention texting (the connection will become clear later.) A typical text message between two teenagers does not look like English. It barely looks like Swahili. It is full of unnecessary punctuation resembling sideways-facing faces, numbers substituting for letters, and invented slang which, as someone who grew up during the eighties, I can testify that we NEVER used.

I always thought this was merely an unfortunate trend, until I read a book about punctuation. Really. In this book the author made the cogent point that such behavior is not merely a matter of personal preference, it is actually rude. What it communicates is the following: "I know that words have proper spelling in our language, but that is a lot of work for my thumbs, and I'm quite busy, and so I'm going to invent characters which have no real meaning and let you work it out for yourself. You may have to say it out loud a few times before you get it. It's like a little puzzle I made just for you."

You see what this does? It takes the whole burden of comprehension and lays it upon the poor wretch who is wondering why he just received a message which looks as though it were accidentally typed out by someone's buttock while the phone was in their back pocket. The responsibility to communicate is not assumed by the person speaking, (which is where it belongs) rather it is foisted upon the person receiving the information. If somebody has something to say, it has historically been believed that he or she has a responsibility to make themselves clearly understood. Apparently, that's too much of a bother these days.

Back to my dilemma. I found the same thing happening in reverse when I was speaking intelligible English to my youth group. One reason they were so quiet while I spoke was they were trying to figure out what some of those funny words meant, or which language I'd borrowed them from. Once I realized what was happening, I faced a very serious problem.

Do I continue to work hard to craft my vocabulary in order to maintain high personal standards, and to impart those standards to others? Or do I continuously lower my style of communication down to the level of monosyllabic grunts and hand gestures which would be fundamentally comprehensible to Bobo the trained gibbon? What is a fellow to do in such a quandary? Should I say "twisty, flexible stick thing" when I really mean "withe?" Or should I say "a sort of name that gets stuck to someone like a title" when I am thinking of "appellation?"

According to the above theory, I should take responsibility to make my meaning clear for the listener; but here I run into a philosophical dilemma. In the first scenario, someone who can speak coherently refuses to match up to their own ability, preferring instead to take the quick and painless route, (for themselves) thus contributing to the already-appalling decline of grammar in our society. In the second case, a brave and lonesome, handsome speaker strives to raise the awareness and linguistic prowess of those within his sphere of influence. So who is right?

We can answer the question by remembering the entirely fictional history of a people who should have existed many thousands of years ago, whom we shall call the Nozirev. The Nozirev can easily be imagined as living somewhere between two countries you've never heard of north of the subcontinent. They had a beautiful, sophisticated, sparkling language called Nozi which was capable of both great subtlety and great specificity. It was rife with poetry to melt the heart and rhetoric to stir the soul. This people produced great orators and musicians and writers, and trade unions, subjugating nearby cultures using nothing more than their wit and their semi-annual pilgrimages to the Shrine of Perpetual Verbiage. All was well, until one enterprising man invented a way of capturing pigeons and training them to return to a previously appointed locale.

Before long, these pigeons were all the rage with the teenagers and young adults living in that land. They took to tying little parchment messages on the pigeons' feet and sending them to their friends. But because of the dear price of ink, and the smallness of the parchment, they had to contrive smaller words, abbreviated phrases, and slang. It is possible that this is where the # sign originated, although we will never know for certain.

Soon, all the teen Nozirev were speaking in Pigeon-Nozi, talking to one another in adumbrated phrases which were neither comprehensible to their elders, nor conducive to their rich literary heritage. Within one generation, the adults and the youth could not communicate, which was a great joy to the young people, but a great sorrow to the adults whose job was to preserve literature, teach children, and hire people to work in fast-food booths. Because of this dichotomy, their entire culture soon fell apart. Every trace of their existence disappeared so completely that today all information about them has to be completely invented.

You may not be able to comprehend what I'm saying here, but it sure makes me feel better to say it.

Cause and Consequence

Perhaps the greatest (or primary) tragedy in the drama of the abortion debate is not that millions of lives have been destroyed, but that we have apathetically allowed conditions in our nation to atrophy to such a point that abortion has become an issue at all; that many see it as a practical necessity in light of circumstances is a consequence of placing freedom of choice above God's standard of moral purity.

Let us remember that immoral sexual attitudes came first. When we strike out against abortion we are aiming at a symptom (albeit a tragic and horrifying one) of our nation's growing idolatrous fascination with the view that humanity's great compensation for the woes of this life is sexual gratification.

This view was legitimized by Freud, defanged by Kinsey, popularized by the media and canonized by that generation which is so proud of the accomplishments of the 1960's.

Struggling to make abortion illegal may not be harmful, but it may not be effective either; it is a symptomatic treatment at best, and unless something is done to eliminate sex-worship among all levels of society, our struggle will only be the stamping out of fires which will continue to arise straight out of human nature. History gives us no consolation as we consider the odds against us. Abstinence movements which depend on logical persuasion, trinkets or fear tactics may serve some good, but statistics are not encouraging. What is needed is not incentive to avoid wrong behavior, but a passion for godliness, and genuine morality for its own sake.

One thinks of the fame of pop-icon Brittney Spears. Her once-justifiable popularity is now destroying her like slow acting poison, while the eroticism she and countless others peddle as art eats away at our ability to comprehend purity. Our culture and the tragic heroes of excess we have created are like the new-age image of a snake with its tail in its mouth. What feels like a satisfying meal turns out to be our own annihilation. First the tail, then the body, then the head all vanish in the vulgarity of our appetites.

And in the meantime, we legislate...

Number Two All Time Favorite

In 1972 author Richard Adams gave the world something it didn't even realize it needed: a novel about rabbits. This story is a combination of quaint and epic which is so rarely achieved that it is no wonder that this book remains such a well-known/unknown book. It is well-known because many folks have heard of it, or seen the cartoon (I never have) and unknown because everyone I've ever met who has wanted to read it has never actually bothered. I understand that we, as a culture, are enthralled by the immediate, and the more recent something is the more we value it. But if you can go back in time long enough to lose yourself in these characters, you'll be more than rewarded.

It starts in a meadow, where a large warren of rabbits is about to be destroyed by the machine of progress. The problem is that none of them know it except for a frail, intuitive bunny who somehow glimpses a shadow of tragedy about to come - blood splashed across the shrubs and soil of their hillside. That premonition sets a tiny handful of rabbits on a quest for a home of their own.

The way the author brings these animals to life, forcing you to care deeply about their combined fate, is astonishing considering most people leave their fondness for domesticated rodents (if they ever had one) far behind them once they grow up.

If you find yourself opening this book, watch the transformation of Hazel, one reluctant, average rabbit, as he goes from being a frightened refugee to a leader, a hero and a revolutionary. The journey he takes is every bit as delicious as the actual path which brings these characters through seemingly insurmountable dangers and pitfalls. It is equal to any adventure story in any age.

The charm and strength of this allegory lies in the way it uses such unabashed simplicity to craft a tangible world so very, very like our own. It has the power to make you feel ancient and brand-new, child-like and wise with age. Take a chance on something older than this summer's reading list, and find a copy of this book. You'll thank me.

Watership Down, by Richard Adams - 1972