THURSDAY WRITING CHALLENGE: DOUBLE SPEAK(THE I ...

Do you remember when "I Love Lucy" and her friend Ethel tried to explain their actions to their weary husbands? It always seemed to come out comedic "DOUBLESPEAK", that's for sure!

According to Webster's Dictionary, Doublespeak is synonymous with the word Deceit.

Advertising in America seems to be so laced with Doublespeak that we hard placed to tell the real difference between actual 'Truth" and "Fiction" anymore.

Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Sir Winston Churchill , was a man of impeccable courtesy. ?He never interrupted a speaker no matter how tedious the recitation. ?One night at a meeting, he was cornered by a bore who began to recount a dull story. ?After some minutes, Lord Randolph could stand it no longer. ?Excusing himself, he walked over to one of the attendants and replied:" Will you lease listen to this person until he has finished speaking----I have to leave now!"

The English language provides many Words with similar meanings but only one is the "right" word--the one that expressed your exact meaning. ?If you think exact meanings don't matter, remember author-writer Mark Twain's advice:"Use the right word, not its second cousin. The difference between the almost right word and the 'right" word is really a large matter----it's the difference between the lightning Bug and Lightning itself. ?A powerful agent is the correct word"!

When Confucius, the Chinese philosopher was asked what his first deed would be if he became Emperor, he replied:" I would re-establish the precise meaning of words."

That's a giant challenge to all of us today, isn't it? ?When President Franklin D. Roosevelt prepared his speeches he 'took keen pleasure in the precise selection of words" his secretary said. ?President John F. Kennedy, according to his speech collaborator, looked at words as "tools of precision to be chosen and applied with a craftsman's care to whatever the situation required.

The French have a perfect expression for the correct word. ?They call it "Le Mot Juste"---meaning the word that fits exactly!

The Book of Proverbs puts it?succinctly:" A Word fitly spoken is like apples of Gold in pictures of Silver." Prov. 25:11.

So let's leave most of the Doublespeak to Lucy and Ethel. ? After all, ?profits from their television residuals must keep their hilarious comedy memory rich!

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