The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (fourth edition) defines insightful as: “characterized by or displaying insight; perceptive.” Need I say more? One of the cornerstones of opinion journalism is perception, and one of the other cornerstones is insight. So, I mean, I’m pretty insightful, basically. Can you argue with the American Heritage Dictionary? Of course not. No one would do something that weird. That’s why I use that trick all the time.
Back when I was writing for the college newspaper, campus politics gave me so many opportunities to totally neutralize complicated happenings. For example, there was a controversial altercation involving a drunk freshman yelling epithets, threats, and ethnic slurs at a group of African-American students. I don’t remember the situation; they were probably having a dance party, but people accused the kid of racism. Then some people said he was merely inebriated, and then some said the kid was racist. Finally, I put a stop to that argument. I wrote in my, ahem, weekly editorial column, and I think I can quote it verbatim, that “racism, defined by Dictionary.com, is ‘a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.’ On the other hand, inebriation is defined as ‘to make drunk.’ I think it’s safe to say, judging by the definitions of these words, and the things did and spoken, that the kid was inebriated. But also racist.” Well, that settled the score. When I published that column six weeks after the incident, everyone ceased to mention it, as if I had silenced the discourse by making one simple decree. Another columnists on the paper congratulated me for “reminding everyone what simple words meant,” and when I asked him if he was being facetious (I don’t say sarcastic anymore; sarcastic was replaced by facetious once I finished freshman year of college), he said, “Look it up.” So I did. After thorough speculation, I surmised that, yeah, he was being facetious. Good thing I double-checked it with the dictionary, though; to be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t have one on my person at that moment.
After I graduated college (BA in English, Cum Laude…but not Summa or Magna, because of some absurd injustice most likely enacted by the school), I became an Information Age opinion journalism entrepreneur: I started a blog. Faithful readers frequently commented with grievances regarding the blog’s inflated language, er, rather, its unjustified grandiloquence. I replied that the dictionary defined grandiloquence as pompous or bombastic writing, thus I couldn’t be grandiloquent because I was too self-aware and thoughtful to fall into the “pomposity trap,” which, by the way, is my coinage. My father read it and told me I needed a narrower theme in lieu of daily ruminations on the things around me. He thought it was intellectually pedestrian. I told him if he beat me at Scrabble, I would revise the blog as per his request. He turned down the offer. He said, “By this point, I’d say you memorized the dictionary.”
I was surprised by his reaction, I guess. My parents are what gave me my gift for giving the last word, the final verdict, as it were. They told me, as their only child, that I was inexhuastible. I possessed so much energy, and I always demanded they purchase me books whether I would actually read them or not. “You really have a love for words,” they said to me. “You just can’t stop using them.” Believe it or not, my parents are the people who bought me my first dictionary. “Can’t say whether or not we regret that.” Hahaha. I wonder if they were ever oblivious to my penchant for language. Oblivious, now there’s a word I can look up over and over again. Seems appropriate at the moment; I’m not sure why.
