How can you stand it? The words? You can't get away from the words or the voices. George Will cannot get away from the voices. They surround him! They clamor away like ghastly disembodied spirits, filling every nook and cranny with their woeful din. Make the voices stop! Make them stop! WHY AREN'T THEY STOPPING?!? OMG.
George Will went to the airport once, and JESUS, THE VOICES AND THE WORDS! And the underground trains, again with the voices saying things, things... things George Will already knew! And another airport and more words, and trial lawyers, and something about daydreaming and foolishness and minatory pronouncements. MINATORY. That is a word that George Will uses, and nobody is going to take that right away from him.
And why can't George Will sit in a chair quietly without Wolf Blitzer just NOT SHUTTING UP. The whole entire world is closing in on him, inching ever nearer, nearer, nearer, whispering mocking nothings in his ears. His exquisite ears. Those ears know what torture is. They've seen it. I mean they've heard it. Everywhere. There is nowhere quiet for George Will. Ever.
Here's how it happens: George Will is somewhere, it could be anywhere. And maybe that particular time isn't a good time for him to be stuffing clay in his ears; maybe he has a companion, or maybe he wishes to talk on the phone. And then some voice somewhere starts some words going, and that sound travels along, radiating outward from the source, and eventually those words, speeding along, come across something new: it's George Will's ears. And do they ask permission before they go ahead and enter those ears? No, they do not. And then it's merely a hop, skip, and a jump through George Will's head, vibrating bones everywhere along the way, and then it's off along the auditory nerve and then, POW! Voices in his head! New combinations of words have been integrated into George Will's brain and, sheesh, the gall!
Look, words are just better when George Will is writing them. This is the exception to the "too many words, everywhere" problem. Words are particularly good when George Will is quoting them, like, oh, say, George Eliot. Middlemarch! I bet you weren't expecting THAT, were you? Ha! George Will snuck up on you and did a fine number on you, didn't he, with his fancy Middlemarch?
But all the words, OMG. WHY WON'T THEY STOP?
Stupid words.
15 comments:
Eye KNOW! It SUCH "an environmental blitzkrieg of blather." How will we ever cope?
You actually read an entire George Will column? You must have a much stronger stomach than me. Though I profess non-violence in general, whenever I see Will's face I want to punch it just on general principle.
I literally just read all those, pardon the pun, Will-ful words in our local paper this morning.
It was like the newsprint version (how quaint!) of chalk screeching across an old fashioned blackboard. Good grief, George Will, spare us from some words. Like. Your. Own.
@sfmike - I typically would not have made it all the way through, but the words about words were just so awful that once I started, I could not stop. It was like a bad episode of too much drinking. I feel lousy now. Thankfully, this blog was just the tonic needed for a palette cleanser.
min·a·to·ry /ˈmɪnəˌtɔri, -ˌtoʊri/ Show Spelled [min-uh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee] adjective menacing; threatening.
Uh, yes, thanks, I'm aware of that.
Kinda like what Ted Sorenson wrote about William F. Buckley:
“Perhaps I misread Mr. Buckley, not being a lexicographer. If I understand him – and frequently I do not – national service, morphologically speaking, is apodictically not a mere millenarian velleity or synecdoche exiguously reified as antinomian meliorism by exogenous Ortega y Gasset epigones with their conflated burins. At least, I certainly hope not! But be prepared for these and similar terms when you tackle Mr. Buckley's text.”
Except Mr Will hasn’t had a new idea since 1975, and isn't such a fancy writer, for anyone who has graduated high school. He just stands up for whatever is wrong, over and over.
Georgie, take the black pill. The horrible screeching noises will stop immediately.
Hey, a TWOFER!
Hey George, ever think that there might be, you know, blind people in the world? For them, "the river of words" might be useful. I'm sure that they regret inconveniencing you with their inclusion in our society. And what about all those bumpy dots all over signs and elevator buttons, they make my fingers hurt . . . Do they have to be there?
And don't even get me started on those job-killing handicap access regulations. Why don't those crippled people just stay at home!
George is such a sensitive boy. If you tell him it looks like rain, his eyes fill up.
The drizzle of superfluous words
George Will eloquently describes a George Will column.
min·a·to·ry /ˈmɪnəˌtɔri, -ˌtoʊri/, noun - 1. a mandatory minimum; "There exists an editorial minatory of three banal and/or useless observations per George Will column." 2. an outbuilding on a farm or ranch where minotaurs are house.
How about this one:
ep·i·gram /ep-i-gram/ - any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed. ANTONYM - whatever the hell George Will has been doing for the past 40 years.
Gosh, Georgie Porgie was really hard up for a topic, wasn't he? Unlike today's column, in which the pillar of the Republican establishment slams the candidate who is the pillar of the Republican establishment. Hm.
The only voice the pompous, pretentious Wills wants to hear is his own.
George Will is sooo right. Bring back Cuneiform pictographs, I say.
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