Two Words You Should Never Say

This story was published in the Virginian Pilot last weekend and it wasn't until later that I learned from my sister that the two words my grandfather cautioned my mother never to say were "swell and lousy" not "swell and awful." Obviously, only one of us was paying attention. I have made the necessary correction 

 

Two words you should never say

 

I don’t remember what situations brought it on each time I heard my mother repeat her father’s advice but I do remember hearing it often.
 

      “‘There are two words you should never say,’ he’d say”, she said. “One is swell and the other is lousy.”

 

She’d see our puzzled expressions and did what she could to keep the ball rolling just as, I’m sure, her father did when she was a child hearing this advice for the first time—or tenth time or hundredth time.
 

“We never knew if one of the words was swell or just a swell word,” she’d say, “or likewise whether the other word was simply lousy or simply lousy.”
 

“So what were the words, mom?” we’d ask.
 

“One was swell and the other was lousy,” she’d say leaving us still in the dark.
 

So there you have it. Still in my formative years and one of my few accomplishments was either being on the short end of a decade’s old running gag or the recipient of a bit of wisdom as clear as the back of my back.

 

But as I grew older and had the opportunity to read correspondences between members of my mother’s family and particularly between my mother and her mother, I noticed a certain consistency in them. There were four elements almost always present in every letter.
 

The first was that every correspondence was completed on the inside of the envelope flap as there was always one more thing to say and after they had used up every inch of margin the flap was the only place left to write on.
 

The next were the initials JMJ at the top of the first page—before the greeting, before the date, and before the number designating the page. The initials obviously stood for Jesus, Mary and Joseph indicating that the letter and everything contained in it was dedicated to the Holy Family.

 

And then, sprinkled liberally throughout the letter were the two other ingredients—the words swell and lousy used to describe every last bit of news contained in the letter. I later would discover the same abundant use of the same two words in the wartime correspondence between my mom and dad when they were merely sweethearts dating by mail.
 

Clearly my grandfather was tired of hearing the words swell and lousy in every sentence and couldn’t understand why every single possible event that might occur had to exist at the extreme ends of the spectrum so easily identified by the words swell and lousy. I think he had a valid point.
 

You don’t hear the words swell and lousy much anymore. I’d like to think his effort paid off and he was responsible for society coming to its senses but as I have pointed out, his message was very confusing and I’m not sure anyone took him seriously. But it was a swell attempt on his part but the lousy news is people are still living on the extremes. Just as there is no longer a middle class there is also, it would seem, still no middle ground.

 

There are two new words used to describe virtually everything that happens in today’s world, two words that pull into its clutches every conceivable act, idea, personality or situation. Hardly anything is simply good or bad, nice or naughty, enjoyable or displeasing, pleasant or uncomfortable. Everything has to be really bad or unbelievably good.
 

It’s got to stop. We have to come to our senses and regain a little thing called perspective. We have to get back to the middle of the road and stay out of the dangerous ditches on both sides—ditches where we don’t belong and where no good can come.
 

In an age where thousands and tens of thousands comments are sought and provided for every imaginable occurrence appearing or being reported anywhere in the universe there must be some criteria for accurately assessing the value of each one. There has to be more than just two choices. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it. Someone has to say enough is enough.

 

If someone were to ask me for advice—and hardly anyone ever does—but if they did, if they wanted to know what I think would make the world a better place, this is what I would tell them.

There are two words you should never say. One is awesome and the other is stupid—and just to be clear, the words are awesome and stupid.

 

Anyone hearing these words should be appalled—really appalled.