Tell me something.

That’s really what I want.

Tell me something that shows me what I cannot see, that takes me where I am not, that lets me understand.

Is that too much to ask?

We seem to have lost our ability to use descriptions that actually mean something, and instead, we are mired in the ketchup of bland, meaningless adjectives.
When you say “It was great,” that doesn’t tell me anything about it, just about you—it tells me that you liked it a lot. The same goes for “delicious,” “good,” “pretty,” “crazy,” and a whole host of vague adjectives. You use them out of habit, but they are lukewarm and indefinite, and really don’t say a damned thing. They are clichés that you use as a substitute for thinking about what you are saying—and I suppose you have a right to—but if you expect me to listen, I expect you to actually say something.

Don’t even get me started on “awesome” or “nice.” Grrrrr!

When you say you had a good day, that tells me nothing except that your day wasn’t bad; I want to know what made it good. Was it hectic? Was it relaxing? Was it productive? Was it amusing? If amusing (and yes, most of my days are), what made it so?

On the other hand, if you say you had a bad day, that doesn’t tell me much either. Was it boring? Terrifying? Exhausting? Frustrating? Unproductive? Were people cruel? Demanding? Unreliable? Distant?

So it was a good movie. Was it thrilling? Challenging? Surprising? Hilarious? Moving? Did it make you weep or laugh?

When you say the cake was delicious, I want to know what about this specific cake made it so wonderful. Was it rich? Moist? What flavor did it have? Subtle? Dramatic? Sweet? Spicy?

I’ve even heard people say “it was a really nice wedding.” Seriously? For better or for worse, one of the most important days for two people, and a rather momentous one for a lot of people connected to them, and all you can say is “nice?”
Oh. Pardon me. “Really nice”—adding a meaningless adverb to a meaningless adjective just raises the level of insipidness.

(Congratulations and best wishes Rachel and Rebecca, by the way; I’m sure the festivities were so beautiful nobody would dream of describing them as nice.)

An adjective should describe, should tell me something about the thing that it modifies.
An odd thing I’ve noticed about twitter is that very few people even need 140 characters, because we just don’t say very much. For many of us, life events can be reduced to an emoticon. But not for me—for me, life is infinitely rich, and each event is fraught with wonder and complexity. I have never seen a “pretty sunset;” the hard, cold facts of atmospheric conditions produce a symphony of violent red, majestic scarlet, and mellow orange, gilded with eye-catching gold and sharp yellow against the contrast of the shift from the blue of the day to the coming indigo of night.

I’m not saying you can never use a vague adjectives; they are fine as preludes, to set up the details that are to follow. I can start by saying that the chocolate cake was incredible, but then I should use my words to tell you that it was shaped like the top hat from Dr. Sleep, was a deep rich midnight black, was so moist that as the sunlight caught it, each bite on my fork would glitter in dark rainbows, and the piece of cake on my plate would slowly rise back where my fork had just been, so that it almost seemed alive. The chocolate was rich, so that the bitterness and the sweetness played off one another, and I would close my eyes and sit back in the sun, just to concentrate on the warm flavor in my mouth.
Or I can say the apple-caramel cake was amazing, and then follow-up by saying that I was amazed by the detail of the basket-weave icing, and the whimsy of the little cake apples on the top, and that the cake itself was firm—the way I like a fruit or spice cake to be, but that the layers of apple and butter cream in between kept it from being too dry, and that it was spicy, but really let the taste of apple come through.

(Special thanks to the divine Meg and to Grace J for those cakes this past week; either of you can bake for the Bistro anytime.)

OK.

To be fair, I know that very few of you live the life of a Dr Bear, where your mind runs through baroque patterns in several multisyllabic conversations at once, and the flowery Nineteenth century language swarms like a flock of starlings.  I don’t expect a sonnet with each status update. However, language is beautiful, so why not use it? Adjectives can tell us so much, so why not use words that actually do?

Or better yet, use verbs.
Tell me what the day has done.

Until next time,
take care of yourself,

And I hope your life defies description, but that you try to anyway,
Affectionately yours,

Dr Bear