In yesterday's paper, there was a Veteran's Day ad that read "Lest we forget" on the header. One of our salesmen showed it to me. I want to word the description of him carefully. He's from up north, and Yankee may be too harsh - we see things differently. Don't get me wrong, he's a cool guy. He has a few funny jokes and he works very hard. He's aggressive in trying to get things accomplished. We just don't appreciate the same things - polar opposites, really. It can sometimes be offensive to me when people are so closed-minded about something I find interesting.
"Hey! English Major!" Just FYI, that's the name you get when you check every body's grammar when they ask your opinion on something they've written. (i.e. a letter.)
"Minor," I corrected.
"Hey! English Minor.
[WTF]-ever."He held the ad up in front of my face and said, "What's this mean?" He's not pointing to the words, he's just holding the ad and a cup of coffee. I automatically knew I would have to read and assume to know his inquiry. I didn't.
"What do you mean?"
"
Lesss we forget...I don't get that. What is that? What's it mean?"
Did you take English? "You've never of that?" The look on the face answered my question. "It means don't forget. It's Old English."
"What the -" He overreacted a bit for drama I guess. "Why would you put this in a paper? Who actually knows this shit?"
"Well, it's pretty common. You know, literature and all. Kind of like Mark Twain? Shakespeare?"
I'm not getting anywhere. I was hoping that he was forced to read some of it in high school.
"I didn't read none of that shit! Who cares how people talked back then?" His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head and he kept waving the ad around like it was idiotic and needed to be trashed.
"Well let me ask you this," I started my debate speech. "Haven't you ever wondered what it was like 100 or 200 years ago?"
"Yes, but not how they talked," he answered very matter-of-
factly.
"But literature from back then gives us so much information about that. It tells us what it was like. The vocabulary shows us how much -"
"I'm with you, C.Ray. Who needs that crap?!" It was the voice next to me, that I sit next to every day, who like me, has an opinion on everything. "Who cares what they sounded like! It's all boring!"
I couldn't believe this. I just witnessed men prove themselves menial.
