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Show 0 R E M TIMES Thursday, February 5, 2009 The greatness of our country Staff Sgt. Brock Jones fe have a new boss in the Army, a new commander-in-chief whose recent inauguration has given me reason to reflect on what it is that makes our country great and what it is that makes our country, well, not so great. I recognize that there is no one thing that makes America great, no single idea or monument, monu-ment, no one physical feature of either man's or nature's creation. The reason behind the greatness of our country or lack thereof could be debated until Obama's term , is over and even then might not be resolved, the whole thing being too subjective or too partisan or simply ten) exhausting. ex-hausting. I see America's greatest strength, in fact the strength of the Army or any organization, organiza-tion, as its people, who go about life doing the best I hey can with what they have. America is great not because be-cause of organizations or groups or parties, but because of the individual talents and abilities of the people and in their willingness to put those talents to good use for the benefit of themselves, their families and the rest of us. America is great not because of a system of government gov-ernment but because of the willingness of each individual to accept that system and attempt at-tempt to do his or her part, however large or small. America is great not because be-cause of any one president, senator or any other political or religious leader or any pop-culture icon, but because of people who believe in the system itself who put aside the differences they have with others around them and follow those who have been elected to lead. What makes America Do You Have A Edison Stanford Hearing Centers wishes to test drive a remarkable new digital hearing instrument in the area. This offer is free of charge and you are under no obligation. These revolutionary Digital Instruments use the latest technology to comfortably and almost invisibly help you hear more clearly. This technology solves the "stopped up ears" and "head in a barrel" sensation some people experience. If you wish to participate, you will be required to have your hearing tested in our office FREE OF CHARGE to determine candidacy and report your results with the hearing instruments 'each week for a two week period. At the end of this period, you orem pleasant grove alpine lTnder FDK n n n .. II great comes down to "we the people," those who want to continue in the endowment of the rights guaranteed by the Gnstitution to every American. Ameri-can. I don't pretend that America Ameri-ca is all great. I am well aware of the shortcomings our country coun-try suffers from because they are also my shortcomings. They are everyone's shortcomings. short-comings. I cannot condemn America for those imperfections imperfec-tions because every blemish that exists in our country also exists within each of us. If America's greatest strength is its good, honest citizens who live lives of integrity, then our country's greatest weakness is the very opposite: people who have no integrity and live lives of selfishness and dishonesty and go about life with a very solar system-like attitude: Everything revolves around them and is at their disposal. If selfishness, greed and hunger for power pull America Amer-ica down, they have already done the same to us. If hate and anger and hopelessness plague America, they have already afflicted us. If a sense of entitlement or elitism has separated America into nothing noth-ing more than a scattered bunch of schisms, then they have already divided each of us, both within and without. The weakness of America is definitely very personal. It is you and me. But the greatness great-ness of America is also us. You. Me. And what this all comes down to is taking responsibility re-sponsibility for our own lives, both for what is amiss and what is right, building on the good and throwing out the bad. That is how we all can ensure the continued greatness great-ness of our country. We America will never nev-er be perfect but we can each take action to do what little we can in our own spheres of influence, be they big like President Obama's, or small like mine. Hearing Loss? may purchase the instruments, if you so desire, at a reduced charge. Otherwise, there is no charge whatsoever for participating in this promotion. Special testing will be done to determine the increased benefits of this technology. Benefits of hearing aids vary by type and degree of hearing loss, noise, environment, accuracy of hearing test, and proper fit. This is a wonderful opportunity to determine if hearing help is available for your hearing loss while you evaluate your performance with this technology. Call now if you wish to be included in this test drive promotion. Test drive dates are available until the end of February. Edison Stanford Hearing Center 777 North 500 West Suite 005 Provo, UT 84601 801-373-5887 Serving smz'. budnzzz Own a small business? Ready to start one? Discover why so many Utah County businesses prefer Western Community Bank. With every capability Your Highness may need, we stand ready to serve. Call 222-9006. Accepting contractions in writing Don Norton A reader asks about contractions con-tractions if and when they are acceptable in writing. An earlier column suggested that many contractions in English are actually older than their two-word forms: can't for cannot, can-not, won't for will not, don't for do not, and so on. Conservative teachers, and even some would-be authorities, authori-ties, claim that all contractions are appropriate only in informal infor-mal or casual speech never in serious writing. As usual, the rule is much too broad and downright wrong-headed. Let's just say that contractions contrac-tions have been around in the English language for centuries, going at least as far back as Middle English (about A.D. 1 100 on), when we first get extensive documents written in English, including some (for example, Chaucer) in which spoken English is portrayed. It's natural to use contractions in speech; nowadays, if you habitually ha-bitually say do not rather than don't, you'll be heard as being overly formal or dramatic. So the question becomes, when, in writing, is it acceptable to Wrestling Joseph Walker What if? My teenage son Jon and his city league basketball team have fallen into a distressing pattern as of late. They start each game slowly, often getting get-ting behind by 10 points or more, then they come rallying back in the second half, usually winning at the end. The players on the team seem to be content with the situation. sit-uation. The games are always exciting, with new stars saving sav-ing our collective bacon every week. As long as we eventually eventu-ally win, that's all that matters to them. The only person who is distressed about it is me, because I'm the coach, and I'm not sure how many close calls this old heart of mine can handle. LOVE A BERNINA 830 PURCHASE ANY NEW OR USEP EMPRR0IPERY MACHINE ANP RECEIVE A 300 EMBR01PERY STARTER PACK FREE!!! rm-.it. NO PAYMENTS NO INTEREST FOR. 1 2 MONTHS! Special Pricing on all new Bernina Machines! Gift Cards Available! Bernina Accessories Specially Priced! ACfivA iirX Mwi -Fri 10 am - 6 pm Sat 5 am - 5 pm 2M ptovo J4-55Z0 . www.artista.net reflect normal speech? Usage authorities differ in their advice. True, many writers writ-ers feel uncomfortable with contractions, even though many excellent writers use contractions even in their more formal writing, for example, "I won't take issue with Smith on that point. If it hadn't been an issue of conscience, I wouldn't have been offended. Victims of tragedy don't occupy a higher plane." According to one usage authority, in using such contractions, con-tractions, the writer gains "a relaxed sincerity not breezi-ness." breezi-ness." One of the best authors on how to write well, John Trimble, Trim-ble, counsels, "Use occasional contractions. They'll keep you from taking yourself too seriously, tell your reader that you're not a prude, and help you achieve a more natural, conversational rhythm in your style." Another author, David Ew-ing, Ew-ing, agrees: "Such common contractions as it's, that's, they're and she'll are correct in almost all written communications commu-nications in business and the professions. Whether or not you use them is a matter of with the great question A few weeks ago we were making our requisite second-half second-half comeback against a team thaf had completely dominated us in the first half. Thanks to some intense play on our part and a little over-confidence on the other team's part, we had narrowed a 20-point lead to one point with fewer than 20 seconds to play. In an attempt to get the ball back we fouled one of the other team's players, play-ers, and it just happened to be a young man who had missed everything the rim, the net, the backboard, everything on only his previous attempt. I liked our chances. I called a time out and the team huddled around me. "He's going to miss, so we've got to get the rebound," I said confidently. Then I mapped out our strategy for" KRNMA Give a gift that she will really love! She will love her Bernina and love you even more! BUY ANY NEW BERNINA AND RECEIVE A $50 GIFT CERTIFICATE FOR DINNER AT MAGLEBY'S M V? West Center Street acflelvfe pmrmummmk w t su vum m - ii tm i i AURORA 440 1y j .;m a Community Bank Life's needs. Life's bank." WESTERNC0MMUNITY8ANK.COM personal preference." William Zinsser, a highly respected authority on how to write well (that's the title of his book, "On Writing Well, agrees with Trimble: "Your style will be warmer and truer to your own personality if you use contractions like won't and can't when they fit comfortably into what you're writing." But don't overuse them, or they'll begin to call attention to themselves and detract from the written message. (By the way, the same principle applies in dress and grooming: Don't dress or groom yourself in such a way that others see first your dress or grooming, rather than the true person you are. Maybe that's why shirts carrying messages mes-sages are usually in bad taste: others read the logo or message before they "read" you. Or they see you as an extension of that logo you're advertising.) Some contractions belong be-long only in speech: I'd've, should've, who're, there're. Which is probably why we naturally nat-urally say "there's three things I'd like to point out," even though "there arethere're" would be more "correct" gram bringing the ball down the court and scoring the winning basket. It was a great plan except for one thing: the kid on the other team made both of his free throws. Suddenly we were down three instead of one, and that great plan I had just formulated formulat-ed didn't make sense anymore. Since we were out of time outs, I shouted some instructions, instruc-tions, but we ended up turning the ball over, fouling the other team again and losing by four. Jon was devastated. "Oh man," he said after the game. "Can we get a hamburger?" ham-burger?" Devastation only lasts so long when you're 17 and there's fast food on the way home. So, OK. Jon was evidently coping with the devastating loss. I, on the other hand, had a hard time getting to sleep that night. I wasn't angry or upset my team had played well against talented competition, competi-tion, and I was proud of their resilient comeback. I didn't yell or throw things I generally reserve those histrionics for when my professional team plays poorly, which they seem to do more often than not these days. I just couldn't sleep. I paced the floor wondering "what ifs." What if that kid had missed his free throws? What if I hadn't wasted my last timeout before he shot his free throws, but had waited until I knew what the situation was? What if we hadn't turned C33 mm .,' . W '. A y Lhvyyuuu uuuuuul5LUULUIIA (in just about an hour) SXallfor an Appointment 756-8686 : I r r. r o n Ts. -' matically. The word who're is generally inappropriate because it resembles a taboo word, though when spoken rapidly, no one will probably notice. Like many uses of the language, lan-guage, contractions were once ; thought to be "corruptions" of the English tongue, mainly be- t cause as English emerged as an "educated" language, it didn't , follow the patterns of the fixed and formal languages Latin and Greek. It was a new kid on the block, so to speak, and it had to be disciplined. Written contractions, contrac-tions, being natural reflections of normal speech, seemed to fly in the face of the "pure" classical classi-cal languages. Hence the unjustified unjus-tified ban. Ironically, it was during the Renaissance period (the 1500s and 1600s) that English enjoyed en-joyed perhaps its most expressive expres-sive and otherwise eloquent uses. And the best literature of the Renaissance period is full of contractions. I Don Norton is a recently retired English professor from Brigham Young University. If you have a question about usage, email donnorton byu.edu. 'What if?' the ball over and had been able to find our best shooter for a three-point shot? What if? What if? What if? You can make yourself crazy wondering "what if." Believe me. I've wrestled with the question enough through the years to know what kind of toothpaste it uses. What if Mom and Dad had decided to stop after seven children? What if "No Pants Vance" (uh, sorry long story) hadn't treated Anita so poorly just before I came along in her life? What if I hadn't on a whim taken that first journalism class in college? "What if?" is a great question ques-tion if you're looking forward. It opens your eyes to possibilities possibili-ties you might not otherwise consider. It can even be useful looking back in a "lessons learned" context. But there is little enlightenment or satisfaction satisfac-tion in looking back and agonizing ago-nizing over the sundry "what ifs" in our lives. "Living the past is a dull and lonely business," said novelist Edna Ferber. "Looking back strains the neck muscles and causes you to bump into people not going your way." Especially when you're up late, pacing the floor and wondering won-dering "what if." I Joseph Walker writes his nationally syndicated "ValueSpeak" column from his home in American Fork. He can be reached via e-mail at VaueSpeakmsn.com. s 2s value Ml E k( . ... t t? . 233 E. Main, American Fork I 1 1 T 'ft . f -f, . |
