Words, Words, Words

I understand that English is not a dead language, that it is growing and evolving; but language is also meant to convey thoughts and ideas, which should entail some sense of precision.  If your language is sloppy, this will impede your ability to convey information accurately.  Sloppy language may reflect poorly on how you are perceived intellectually.  Choice of words is one area where this is apparent.

Why do people say anxious instead of eager?  Anxious implies, or should imply, a sense of anxiety – worry, nervousness, or unease.  Are the kids anxious to go to the swimming pool because they are afraid of drowning or bacteria?  They are probably eager to go to the pool to see their friends and get some relief from the heat, or they just love to swim.

Why do people say less instead of fewer?  Less is a quantity word, like much.  Fewer is a counting word like many.  How many (counting) cars are driving by? – Fewer (counting) than yesterday.  How much (quantity) gas is in the tank? – Less (quantity) than when we started driving.  “Fewer” means not as many; “less” means not as much.

On a related subject, to say the amount of people is incorrect.  People are countable.  The number (not the amount) of people voting or buying new cars is greater than last year.  Describing the amount of people would require a scale or tape measure.

Why do people describe so many people, things and experiences as awesome?  Awe is a reverential respect mixed with fear and wonder.  Few things are truly awesome.  When people say awesome, it comes from habit and lack of imagination, not as an attempt to express fear and wonder.  Awesome has gone from a description of profound feeling to a knee-jerk, silly, near-meaningless adjective.  So many other, more suitable words more precisely convey feelings of the team’s play, the paintings in a museum, the concert, etc.  Possibilities include:  wonderful, fabulous, sensational, terrific, great, colorful, enjoyable, unbelievable, magnificent, formidable, striking, glorious, or superb (but probably not amazing, another overused word).  Let’s save awesome for gods and tornados.  Of course, awesome and amazing are what cool and groovy were in the 60s so they will probably die out eventually.

What do you say instead of literally when you mean literally?  Recently, “the informal use of the word ‘literally’ – as a term for emphasis when a statement isn't true – has been included as a definition in the Oxford English Dictionary.”  Literally once meant that something really happened or existed, but people misused it so often to emphasize figurative comparisons that it now can mean either literally or figuratively, that is, metaphorically.  His head was literally so big that he could just barely get in the door –I don’t think so.  It’s literally the chance of a lifetime – perhaps, but probably not.  What do you say to make it clear that you are not exaggerating?  How do we distinguish between a big ego and some weird health condition that causes heads to expand?

Words have meanings.  Thoughtful people use the right word.

Buyer Beware

Suppose some crackpot doctor published an article saying that any food with a special purple powder mixed in was significantly healthier.  Then a “mom and activist” took up the crusade, spreading the word on social media.  Do you think any large food companies would take this seriously?  You bet they would!  That purple powder would start finding its way into foods of every size, shape and description.

Proof of that is here in a posting on the NBC News website.  General Mills is changing Cheerios to be able to advertise it as a non-genetically modified product – non-GMO.  Why would they do this?  On the surface it makes no sense.

First, Cheerios has very little genetically modified content.  “Oats, the main ingredient, aren’t a genetically modified crop.”  Only a few minor ingredients, sugar and cornstarch are.  It is a very minor change.

Second, both the FDA and the World Health Organization confirm that all today’s General Mills products are safe.  “Using a science-based approach, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates foods and ingredients made from genetically engineered plants to help ensure that they are safe to eat.”  (Note that the FDA uses the term genetically engineered (GE) rather than GMO because “people have been modifying plants for thousands of years through breeding and selection.”

The General Mills decision is all about marketing, not science.  They recognize the spread of misinformation and the resulting anxiety of consumers with 55% concerned about GMO today compared to 10% in 2002.  “Industry experts say the anti-GMO push is similar to the gluten-free craze” – note the label of craze.

“I think it's totally a marketing move,” said David Just, professor of applied economics and director of the Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. “They’re playing to an audience that, sort of bluntly, has an irrational fear of GMOs,” he said.

The obvious answer to why General Mills is doing this is that they are in the business of selling Cheerios.  They don’t care if your ideas are right or wrong.  The same goes for Chipotle, Whole Foods Market, and any other retailer or manufacturer who latch on to GMO or gluten-free or all-natural or any other craze.  They have no interest in educating the public and will use any misconception to promote a product.  JC Penney, for example, almost went out of business trying to sell goods at a low price instead of artificially marking them down from a higher price and calling it a sale.  Consumers didn’t get it!  They wanted to buy things that were on sale.  Likewise, just because more products are going to non-GMO labeling is no assurance that fears of GMO are in any way justified.  They don’t care about science or logic.  They care about getting our money.

Does Luck Have a Half-life?

More protests are breaking out around the plight of fast food workers unable to survive on the minimum wage.  They are demanding a wage increase to $15 an hour.  The news has presented the arguments pro and con, but have usually given more time to the protesters, sometimes, as in this CBS piece, picking out one as a kind of “poster child” for the cause.  The hidden problem is that minimum wage, unemployment extensions, food stamps and other proposed government solutions ignore behavioral factors.

A primary argument in favor of this issue tells us that all these people are less fortunate, that they need a helping hand to get back on their feet, that "there, but for the grace of God,” go we.  They completely ignore well-known wisdom that behavior has consequences.  We are presented with the argument that every one of these fast food workers are merely down on his luck or victims of a bad economy, and that the situation has nothing to do with consequences of behavior.  This unbelievable scenario is widely accepted by otherwise rational people.  The media and many politicians never challenge it.

This leads to an interesting comparison:  In other circumstances, how do caring people really act?  If your teenage son sits on the sofa all day playing videogames, ignoring homework and refusing to do his chores, do good parents excuse the behavior and cover for him.  Do they pass it off with, “That’s OK; he’s going through a tough time”?  Even non-parents know the answer.  Good parents will institute consequences for this poor behavior knowing that if they don’t, life and reality will later institute much harsher consequences.  Teenage sons can be very difficult, but good parents anticipate with a pattern of similar, consistent reactions to deal with natural childhood resistance and laxness.  That’s how caring people act.  They don’t always come to the rescue – behavior that makes the rescuer feel powerful, but often causes long-term harm to the one rescued.  When the bad situation is a bad break, sympathy and a leg up are appropriate.  If the son is mugged and loses a money, good parents may reimburse him for the loss.  If he loses it gambling, that’s the consequence of poor behavior.  Bailing him out is inappropriate, dulls the impact of the consequence and no learning occurs.  (For an extreme example see the recent case of "affluenza" in Texas.)

Returning to the case of minimum wage employees, especially those presented by the media and never challenged, we must ask if it was bad luck or consequences that contributed to the situation.  If it’s luck, then some temporary help is appropriate, because bad luck does have a kind of half-life or statute of limitations.  A little help can turn things around, but caring people do not bail out from consequences.  That only fosters problematic behavior.

Even in these seemingly innocent human-interest stories the determination requires only a few simple questions.  Where did those two or three children come from?  Where is the father (or fathers)?  What contribution is he making?  If none, why not?  Did all of them finish high school; were drugs ever involved; are they applying for better jobs, are they looking for ways in increase skills, etc., etc.?  What is the long-term plan, if any?  (CBS later reported that their "poster-child" example turned down promotions more than once because it didn’t fit her preferred personal schedule.  Another news story told of a kind social worker repairing at minimum cost the car of a woman who hasn't been able to work in 5 years due to a neck injury.  She can't work, but she can drive?!) 

Looking at the situation through the behavioral lens would probably determine that many of these people are not victims.  Many are living with the consequences of earlier choices.  Should caring people run to bail them out, labeling them all as “less fortunate,” as the compassionistas would have us believe?  Not only do they not learn and grow, but the next generation, poised to make the same mistakes, sees no example to discourage them from following the same path.  So, the current, non-behavioral approaches, which lump them all into the same category, lead not to solutions but to perpetual problems.

Drug of Choice

Can you believe it?  Back at the beginning of the 21^st century not only was caffeine legal, but in the big cities, coffee shops appeared on nearly every street corner.  Caffeine was a common additive to soft drinks and in higher doses to so-called energy drinks.  These products were available to children, and there are records of teenagers overdosing and even dying as a result.  Society at that time condoned it and would have been outraged at any suggestion to control or ban it.  Today, a little over one hundred years later we know better.  Only criminals, lowlifes and hoodlum teens would be caught trying to brew the illegal substance.  If caught, they face fines and imprisonment.  Its use leads to other criminal activity including robbery and battery.  It’s sad to see some of our admired celebrities fall into this habit, requiring extensive and repeated rehab.

The preceding is a possible news item from 2114.  It’s possible because today a similar news story could have been accurately written about practices in the early 1900s by substituting “cocaine” for “caffeine.”  The legality of drugs is driven as much by societal pressure as by science.  We see this as marijuana for medicinal use and, just last week, for recreational use becomes more widely legal.  Attitudes are shifting.  The USA Today reports that “fewer teens see [marijuana] as harmful and more smoke it. In 2013, one in 15 [high school] seniors reported using marijuana daily, up from one in 50 in 1993.”

Despite publicity about a war on drugs, drug use is quite prevalent in the US.  “In 2007-2008, 1 out of every 5 children and 9 out of 10 older Americans reported using at least one prescription drug in the past month.”  Over 10% of adults between 20 and 60 use prescription antidepressants and over 10% use prescription pain relief drugs.  The CDC also reports that over the past 10 years the use of five or more prescription drugs in the past month “increased from 6% to 11%.”

Prescription drug abuse is a major problem.  Since they are sometimes taken for recreational purposes, they do produce “a high” or some good feeling, though people who take them “for medicinal purposes” are reluctant to admit it.

As the use (and abuse) of prescription medication increases, opposition to legalizing “street drugs” remains strong, driven by the fear of addiction; but alcohol is addictive for some and people joke about needing caffeine to get going in the morning.  Some addictions carry a stigma, while others are referred to in an almost playful way.  As society defines and redefines what’s good and what’s bad, the laws follow.

As we continue to lose the war on drugs, it costs us in many ways.  We expend precious law enforcement resources.  We allow people to take some drugs with no guidance at all while other drugs contain long lists of warnings.  We tell people to report all drugs and even supplements to their doctors, but make that impossible (or at least unlikely) by branding some as illegal.  We encourage people to risk blowing up themselves, their houses and their children to manufacture illegal drugs.  We let them consume drugs of unknown purity purchased on the street.  We minimize the incremental risk of committing other crimes by making the drug habit criminal.  We give gangs and organized crime a channel to finance other illegal activities.  We fill prisons with non-violent offenders.  We forego billions in taxes.

At the same time we allow alcohol and other drugs to be taken in the society by those who work, drive, take care of children, etc.  Now with the expansion of affordable insurance coverage, even more people will be in a position to pressure their doctors to write unnecessary prescriptions.  The line between legal and illegal use continues to gray.

It’s time to put the utopian objections aside and make a realistic, objective cost/benefit assessment of the situation.

Responsibility Takes a Holiday

Our holidays are over and most of us are back to work, but responsibility is always ready to take a holiday.  It happens when people want to blame others for their mistakes and then take it even further.  It goes beyond the claim that it’s not my fault.  They hire an attorney – easy enough to do when they will take the work on a contingency basis – and go to court to profit from their own irresponsibility.  It’s the American way! 

Here is a recent case of a man who celebrated too much after a softball game.  When he thought he had enough, a female bartender continued to serve him, saying she would drive him home.  He didn’t turn down the offer.  Later they went to another bar together and he was abandoned.  At that point he “saw his keys sitting on a table, and decided to drive himself home.”  Three poor decisions, though made under the influence of alcohol, were still his decisions.

On the way home he drove his car into a tree and is now a quadriplegic.  Lawyers and the two bars settled the case for $6.6 million based on the assumption that “the two bars violated Pennsylvania laws by allowing him to continue drinking when visibly intoxicated and allowing him to drive home.”  (The lawyers kept about half.)

These types of cases are usually settled either because the settlement is preferable to the expenses and trouble of going to trial or, as in this case, the probability of winning is in doubt.  When there is a jury the probability of winning goes up as most Americans, when considering a dispute between a business and individual, are enculturated to assume that the person is the victim and that some faceless insurance company will pay damages with no ramifications for the rest of us.

This is not an isolated case.  Lawmakers decide that individuals are not responsible and pass laws putting businesses on the hook.  We see examples almost daily.  At what point do we require people to be accountable for their choices no matter how devastating the consequences?