Logan Daily News

Net Watch
by Bob Green

I was just perusing through the Internet and came across a site that provides a dictionary and a thesaurus. All you do is type the word you would like to look up and in a second or two a complete Webster's description appears. (http://www.csv.warwick.ac.uk/~bsumi/tools.html)

In my writing there are times I abuse the English language for the fun of it. There have been situations where I have unintentionally misused words that have left me a little red-faced. Let me share an incident that happened to me a few years ago that illustrates my point. The company I was working for received a call from a contractor based in Boston. This contractor had a rather large job where several hundreds of thousands of dollars of materials would be needed. Discussing his needs over the phone, it became apparent that I would need to go and review the project face to face with him.

Upon arriving at the contractor's location, I had to double check the address to insure that I was at the right place. The street number that was given to me was a rather run down looking two story house in a rough section of South Boston. There were no signs to indicate it was any type of an office. There were several locks on the door and an old intercom box was attached to the door frame. Pushing the button, a crackling voice asked what I wanted. I asked if this was the contractor's office and the voice confirmed that it was and that someone would come to let me in. You always get a little uneasy in these types of areas, looking over your shoulder and expecting the worst. After what seemed like a long time someone came and opened the door. The receptionist told me to go upstairs where I would find my contact. Mike was his name. At the top of the creaking old staircase, I walked into a makeshift, cramped work area with three or four people, several desks and contruction plans stacked everywhere. It looked like a fly by night operation and it was hard to believe this group could really handle the high dollar project that we had discussed over the phone.

The fellow standing before me appeared to be in his forties and he looked like an old hippy. He was wearing contruction boots, jeans, and a ratty old sweater. He was bearded with tousled greying hair. As we talked and dodged people bustling about, two things became apparent. My first impression was that he was flying by the seat of his pants on the project and the second was that he wasn't the typical contractor. One odd thing here that I'd never heard in any contractor's office before was classical music playing in the background. He didn't seem very friendly and I was beginning to feel uneasy with his penetrating questioning. It felt like I was being cross examined. One of the workers stuck his head through the door of the adjoining room and called Mike into the next room with questions about the project. Now that I had a minute or two to look around, I noticed some diplomas on the wall and walked over to get a closer look. A large diploma that got my attention was from Harvard. My first thought was that it was someone else's. Further inspection revealed that it was Mike's and he had graduated from Harvard law school with a straight A average! Talk about an uneasy feeling. One wrong word from me and this guy could and probably would eat me for lunch. Not that I was saying anything wrong, mind you. I always strived to tell the truth because if nothing else, I'm too forgetful to remember a lie. Mike came back and sat down behind the old desk in the corner and I was very careful with my choice of words as we discussed just how my product could and should be used. The conversation was nearly finished. He had picked up and put on a pair of reading glasses. They were wire half-rim glasses similar to the type Benjamin Franklin would have worn. He was reviewing some project related documents as our conversation was coming to an end. As a final statement I asked him if he felt comfortable with the amount of information that had been given. I asked "Is there anything that you are the least bit juberous about?" He looked up at me over the glasses with a penetrating look and said "Juberous?". He turned around and pulled the biggest dictionary I'd ever seen off of his bookshelf. He muttered "juberous" a time or two more as he opened the mother of all dictionaries. "Jube . . . jubilee . . . why, there's no such word as juberous" he sternly informed me. My face was turning red. I had been so careful to weigh each of my words and now I was being undone by a common word used by my mother-in-law from West Virginia. I had just accepted that the word was a genuine term. In one last desparate attempt to save my credibility I stood up, walked right up to his desk, put my hands on his desk, leaned forward and looking down at him I asked "Just where was that dictionary made?" Taken somewhat aback he stated "Uh, well . . . I don't know", and he started to turn toward the front of the book to find out. Pressing my point I asked "Well, was it made in West Virginia or not?!" Somewhat surprised, he responded that it had not. I immediately retorted "Well, throw that stupid book away. It is apparent that you Yankees need us hillbillies to instruct you in the proper way to speak!!" He looked at me and the book several times with an expression of unbelief and bewilderment. Then one corner of his mouth turned up, then the other. He started to chuckle and then broke into laughter. I ended up not only making the sale, but he even took me home to meet his family and we've since become good friends. I guess I'm their token hillbilly.

Sometimes lack of education can be overcome with attitude, but we are increasingly moving into a world that will tax our learning skills and our knowledge to the limit. Those who can't keep up will fall woefully short as they try to compete with people from all over the world on the Internet. Our schools, community leaders, parents, and business leaders need to take an active part in educating people in our area (both young and old) on these issues. To avoid doing so could have a devastating effect on our economy in the not too distant future. Logan officials might consider a community funded project to provide critical training on computers. The word on the street is that the building next to McDonalds (Employment Bureau) will soon be vacated. Why not see if the state agency would donate that property back to the city of Logan? That might be a perfect place for this type of project to be started. Just a suggestion.

Once again, if you have any comments, or suggestions, or stories, contact me at mdpine@brutus.bright.net. Your comments are always read and appreciated.