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The Citizen, 1999-05-05, Page 5— Watch your language In certain trying circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even in prayer. Mark Twain Old Mister Twain knew whereof he spake. The creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn was, of course, a master of exquisitely phrased English, but he was also no slouch when it came to calling a spade a spade. Or a @#%*A& shovel, if he felt the situation warranted. As a matter of fact, Twain was so adept at colourful language that his wife was embarrassed. She tried various approaches to clean up his conversation. One morning Twain cut himself shaving and cursed a blue streak at the top of his lungs. When he was done, his wife decided to shame him by repeating, calmly and dispassionately, every profanity that had spilled from her husbands lips. Twain listened calmly, then observed "You have the words my dear, but I'm afraid you'll never master the tune." I can't help but wonder what Mister Twain would make of the predicament Timothy Boomer finds himself in. Mister Boomer will be going to trial soon. And if he loses his case he could well be going to jail. His offence? Swearing. Last summer the 24- year-old automotive engineer rented a canoe with some friends during a vacation in northern Michigan. Mister Boomer, evidently a better engineer than canoeist, paddled his International Scene By Raymond Canon A bit of a come-down Over in Europe you can almost hear some of the car manufacturers gloating when they contemplate the current state of affairs of General Motors, which for much of this century has been the world's most important company in terms of a contribution to the economy. With its 600,000 employees world-wide and over $300 billion in sales, you might expect people to look at it with something approaching awe. Not any more! The strike that we witnessed last summer in Flint, Mich., and which affected production in Canada, was only one of the aches and pains that has brought the company much suffering. It is the least efficient of the big Three and Japanese firms such as Toyota can run things around it in this respect. As one observer has suggested, the only time you read about GM in management books is as an example of what not to do. Another commentator has added the opinion that all of GM's restructuring in the last 20 craft straight onto a rock, whereupon the canoe tipped, depositing Mister Boomer into the Rifle River. At which point Mister Boomer bemoaned his fate in salty language loud enough to catch the ears of three county sheriffs who were patrolling the waterways looking for underage drinkers. The law enforcement officers, cognizant of the fact that there were, as they put it "a mother with her kids within earshot" pulled Mister Boomer out of the water, then slapped him with a citation for using indecent, immoral, obscene, vulgar or insulting language in the presence of women or children". It sounds a tad archaic, but there's nothing antiquated about the penalty the citation carries. Timothy Boomer’s dirty mouth could get him 90 days in a Michigan jail. I don't know exactly what words Mister Boomer uttered but it couldn't be much fouler than the stuff I can tune into on late night TV - or overhear walking by the local steelyard, for that matter. Cussing ain't what it used to be - and I think the world is poorer for it. When I was a kid, you could get yourself thrown out of school for using the word "damn". When my Grade 11 English teacher, reading Oliver Twist to the class, came to the part where Mr. Bumble says "The law is a ass..." The whole class giggled uncontrollably. How innocent that seems now. You don't realize it when you live, day in and day out, with words, but they have a shelf life - just like bread or milk. Today, a word years can be put into two categories - catastrophic and ineffectual. All this must sound strange to the people working at the GM plant in Eisenach, Germany, since this plant is among the best to be found anywhere. However, once you get past that, or the company's research program, the rest is all downhill. In essence, GM has two many plants which are too big for its operations (the strike at Flint was a-case in point). Its labour costs are the highest in the Big Three. Its labour relations are also abominable. The company wants to continue shutting down plants (including one in Canada - St. Therese) and instead build smaller, more efficient ones along the lines of the one at Eisenach which I mentioned above. Modules will be assembled by suppliers and the main job at GM, if it follows the script, will be to put the modules together to form a car. Another of GM's problems is that the sins of the past are starting to haunt them. Too many people connected with the company have been offended and the wounds are slow to heal. Add this residue of ill-will to the recent announcement the company has too many dealers, by some counts 20 per cent too many. When the axe starts to fall in this area, there that makes you blush can sound silly a few years from now. Two hundred years ago, the filthiest epithets you could fling were "Gadzooks!" and "Zounds!" The words were purest blasphemy. "Gadzooks" was a corruption of "God's Hooks" - referring to the nails that held Christ to the cross. Similarly, "zounds" was a corruption of "wounds" - the ones caused by "God’s hooks". "Bloody" is a fairly bland adjective to apply these days ("I can't find the bloody car keys!") -- but it wasn't always. "Bloody" is1 a compressed version of "By Our Lady" - referring to Mary, Mother of God. Not something you'd want to let fly in front of the parish priest. I'm sorry to be living in a time when swear words are losing their lustre - becoming so commonplace - not because I'm offended by salty lingo - on the contrary. I think good solid swear words are the spice of language. But in cooking and in talking - when you use too many spices, all you do is kill the taste buds. The secret of spices - and swearing - is rationing. The story is told of U.S. President Harry S. Truman referring to an opponent's speech as "nothing but a bunch of horse manure". It was suggested to his wife Bess that she persuade her husband to tone down his language. After all, it wasn't fitting to hear a President of the United States talk about "horse manure". Mrs. Truman rolled her eyes and replied, "you don't know how long it took me to tone it down to "horse manure". are likely to be more hurt feelings. If GM had the same reputation for diplomacy, it remains to be seen whether this reduction can be carried out without the din of battle drowning out any positive news. All this might be covered up in a seller's market but such a market currently does not exist. Instead there is considerable overproduction and the consumer is very much in the driver's seat. GM will have to do better than just improve; it must make enough positive changes to attract the buyers' attention. If it fails to make these changes, the greatest company of the 20th century may well be a modern version of Ozymandias. A Final Thought The thing that contributes to anyone reaching the goal he wants is simply wanting that goal badly enough. - Charles E. Wilson THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1999. PAGE 5. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Take a May Day* So, how was your April? I seem to have missed mine. I was excited by its arrival. The blossoming awakening, the feeling that my very being was thawing, my senses slowly warming to new beauty, new life. The colours, the movement, the scents (for this allergy sufferer not quite as welcome as other aspects) create an atmosphere of hedonistic hope, the conviction that life is here to be enjoyed. April foreshadows of good things and thus invigorates. It also tends to fly by far too quickly at our household. I want to savour the early spring days. I want to notice the very minute the cool winds turn balmy. I'm eager to shuck the cumbersome attire for carefree comfort, breezy dresses and cool sandals. I want to feel the warming sun, the grass between my toes and the earth beneath my nails. Unfortunately, like most others, I just don't seem to have the time. Everyone I meet, everyone I talk to is on the move, running here and there. It has become so much a fact of life, that in the past week the topic has come to my attention on several occasions. Our minister, in his sermon, noted that the hour in church is often the only respite for some people. This week's minister's study suggests much the same thing. During parent/teacher night last week, the topic came up often in conversations. So, why are we racing through life? Why do we let it happen? And be assured we are letting it happen. Demands on our time are quite often of our own making. The difficulty is prioritizing correctly and finding the right way to say no. We don't have to look too far back to remember how. The generation before us, by my recollection, seemed to have the matter in hand. Our parents worked hard, but in my memory they always seemed to make room for those moments to kick back and recharge. In a world where modern conveniences weren't as convenient as today, they ironically seemed to accomplish a lot more in a lot less time. Whereas Mom seemed to have evenings free. I'm rarely home. And it's not just a symptom of adults. A friend recently pointed out that while generations before us often expounded on how quickly time passed as you got older, even today's youth are seeing reality's home movie on fast forward. Everyone, from young to old is on the move most of the day. We are working, we have hobbies, we have commitments. My husband and I mentioned this to our youngest children recently, how unbelievably swiftly the years have passed. We begged them to appreciate each moment, to decelerate occasionally and not let little opportunities fly past. And why don't we all try to do the same? I suggest that this month, we each pick our May (I just sit and relax?) Day. The most important rule is don't move. Lay back in a canoe and look at the sky. Watch a bee buzzing from flower to flower. And when someone wants to talk to you, listen, really listen. Don't miss a thing.