Many years ago (more than I like to think about), I was in my fifth grade English class. We had a very good teacher who taught us how important it was to be able to read (and write) so that you could learn and advance. One of the concepts that he used was “Institutional Inertia”. Our teacher did not formulate the concept as a gentleman by the name of S. I. Hayakawa did, but he applied it especially to thinking. The inertia that is referred to is the tendency of an institution to continue to roll along even after it is really not relevant. The largest problem is that when an institution whether social or government gets rolling the controlling interests believe it is the only correct way and woe to anyone who thinks otherwise.
There are institutions within institutions and one that is rolling today is “Political Correctness”. It is already at the stage of “woe to you if you think otherwise”. For example, it is not PC for a guy to refer to his wife as “The Blonde” even if she likes it. PCers assume that is a negative comment for reasons that baffle me. Blondes are some of the nicest, most intelligent people I know so I have yet to figure out what the problem is. Actually a blonde’s biggest problem is the PC institution itself which has decreed that it is OK to tell blonde jokes without any repercussion. Blonde jokes are, of course, a replacement for the ethnic, race and religious jokes that used to be told. Doesn’t seem to me that PC is treating blondes very well!
Enough pontificating as that is not what I normally do so why not move on to something more cheery. Perhaps, we can all think of an institution that we do not like and “give it the raspberries”! That term by the way goes back to the early 1800’s in England. This term has a sinister history as it was used by vagabonds, crooks and scamsters. Today it is the same thing as giving a Bronx Cheer. However, let’s return to 1800’s England to where giving the raspberries developed into a method of expressing by rhyme. The idea was to take a word in a sentence and substitute two or three words for the one word. The word most often replaced was “wife” and words like “trouble and strife” used instead. Apparently there were hundreds of slang rhymes for “wife”. That really was not very nice!
Along with the term “raspberries”, the English had what they called a “razzer” that any well prepared person would carry to the theater. It was a small device like a floppy, flattened piece of hose attached to a wooden mouthpiece. They would then blow it and the hose would vibrate making a pretty rude sound.
Can you imagine the chaos if some Villagers were to take a razzer to the Sharon or Savannah Center? It would not be a pretty sight with folks our age giving the raspberries to each other and perhaps trying to grab a razzer from someone who was using it. No sir, I think we had better leave the razzer to the Brits – although someone will probably check to see if you can get one on Amazon.
If they do have it, I just hope that those who attend political gatherings don’t take them in large numbers. Then, on the other hand considering the state of politics today, it might be justified!
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com
