Heptadecagon

I love this forum sometimes, because I can say what I want when I want to say it. And presumably, you'll all let me. What is it today? I'll tell you. I am tired of hearing the word gorgeous . Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Are you tired of it yet, too? Over the last year or so, I've heard that word used for everything and anything: that gorgeous story, her gorgeous essay, this gorgeous show, his gorgeous recipe, these gorgeous sentences.  Never is anyone talking about a person, or a piece of art, or an animal--the types of things we, in the past, would have described with the word gorgeous . And while I appreciate non-traditional usage of words, and how language evolves over time, I still have a problem.  EVERYONE IS USING THE WORD! The thing with gorgeous language is this: it's only gorgeous when it's novel. After it's overused, it's just done.

Picture this: I'm sitting around a table in the workroom of the high school yesterday morning, with four (count them) high school teachers. Because the morning is filled with testing for the kids, I'm simply filling in where needed. The other teachers are not subs--they are full-time employees who happen to not have a roomful of kids at the moment. Hence, they, too, are filling in where needed. Most of that filling in is spent distributing/collecting test material and picking up attendance forms. In this moment, it is clear that the five of us (Lady #1, Lady #2, Man #1, Man #2, and me) are not imminently needed. Since the other people are full-time employees, they're sitting in front of a computer, connected to the internet. Based on my lowly sub status , I'm reading a book, after having worked on writing up a critique for a fellow Plot Sister. All of a sudden, a call comes through the walkie-talkie. The woman in charge (Lady #1) picks up the walkie-talkie, says ...