Am I the only one who cringes when affable Vancouver-raised filmmaker Seth Rogen being interviewed about the movie 50/50, says, me and Will did this and me and Will did that?
Kate Zimmerman
North Shore News Oct. 9, 2011
Do words shape behaviour, or is the reverse true?
Wading into a discussion about appropriate use of the English language is not for the faint-hearted columnist. Kate Zimmerman did it well in a recent Going Coastal column; she is a lady after my own heart.
Why should it be difficult for a columnist? Well, from the day the story appears, editors, other writers and the all-important reader will forever lie in wait for that Aha! moment when the critic can be rendered the critiqued.
Consider, for example, the cringes that must be caused by my own irritating habit of using a conjunction to begin not just an occasional sentence but often new paragraphs.
My too-frequent lapses into unfortunate colloquialisms notwithstanding, I have more than a few language peeves of my own:
The use of brought instead of took, sunk instead of sank, story instead of storey not to mention the delightful plural, stories seen recently on a For Lease sign in the window of an empty Lonsdale Avenue store.
The crux of the matter is that the use of inappropriate words and phrases can frustrate effective communication between the speaker and the listener or the writer and the reader.
Intentionally or otherwise, Zimmermans spotlight on the ubiquitous me-and-Will example suggests our current education system leaves something to be desired.
When used in the right context, the three words Will and I or Will and me convey respect for the other person too often lacking in human interactions.
Switching focus a few degrees, this last raises a point I have pondered for years:
Many of our societal stresses could be relieved by a few words of courtesy and thoughtfulness: by a customer looking at a barista instead of talking on a cellphone and pointing to a pastry without a please or thank you; by putting the day of a cashier ahead of ones own impatient reaction to a long checkout line; by caring about a flag-persons family and slowing down while driving through construction; by the coordination of public works to avoid one municipality warning drivers to use alt. route, while a neighbouring community shuts down significant portions of he detour.
This last topic arose recently as a friend and I chatted about a traffic accident wed come across in West Vancouver.
According to a witness, this is how events unfolded:
A cyclist entering fast-moving traffic at a bend in the road leading from Welch Street to Park Royal shopping centre swerved and fell over. The driver of an oncoming vehicle, focused on the downed cyclist, drove over a concrete divider between the road and the Capilano River RV Park, ripping out the vehicles undercarriage.
By the time I happened on the scene, an ambulance had taken the cyclist to hospital, a police officer was writing up a report, the bicycle was being loaded for transport to who-knows-where, and the still-shaking driver was on a cellphone trying to muster tow trucks and family support.
ICBC, here we come.
We all make mistakes, but that expensive no-accident would not have happened had all parties courteously followed the rules.
Without the involvement of a cyclist, I have seen that scenario many times over the past decade or more and it worsens year by year as traffic volume increases, cycle paths are installed or moved and jurisdictions do nothing about the hazards they have been aware of for many years.
Should you be thinking, Cyclists! or, Drivers! one of the vehicles to become stranded on the barricade was an empty transit bus driven by a professional.
Any driver waiting to enter the speeding traffic flow at that corner needs to know that a cyclist may whiz by with no warning from any one of five directions.
To make matters worse, pedestrians for whom a poorly-marked crosswalk is provided on the straightaway also jaywalk at that curve because they have a better view of traffic coming at them from all directions.
Will it take a fatality at that Nascar corner before the municipal and First Nations administrations cooperate and take action?
Or do we accept that the road from Zimmermans plea for more careful use of language to courtesy is more direct and less stressful to travel than most of the alt. routes from Park Royal to Lynn Valley?
Whatever. Me and Kate would sure appreciate it if yous-all would just cool it, OK?
