No amount nor selection of words can restore dignity to bad ideas.

Photo by Sean Biehle

Little Miami,
A canoe in brown water,
Showed us much today.
Littered beaches made us sad,
And drunk couples made us laugh.

“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.”

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”, 1946

“The Myth of Gregor”

Gregor Johanssen, senior vp of store operations, Midwest region, is just like any other young executive at Chipotle Mexican Grill. He’s a plucky, live-fast-or-die-trying kinda guy with a career trajectory hurtling him toward a cushy C-level post when all is said and done. He lives in a 3-piece suit, drives a hard bargain, and raises the most adorable profits you’ve ever seen. Seriously, he keeps pictures of annual reports and company junkets in his Cucinelli wallet. (Cucinelli doesn’t even make wallets, but they did for Gregor.) Which is what makes his meteoric fall to junior vp of store operations, Midwest region so bizarre.

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“And I made for the water as only I could: Body tense with frigid anticipation, sprinting from the shore to escape drowning in the sun. I gasp for air in water knee deep as if exiting the troposphere in some fantasy trip through space. Shrinkage. Shallow breaths. Deeper water. Submerge…

OH MY GOD WAS THAT A TAMPON?!”