Generalities In General

Some people love being ridiculously vague. To give a broad scope of a situation in simple terms, allocating almost no detail frustrates the hell out of everyone. There is also of course circumlocution, or “talking around a problem or question rather than actually addressing it full on” a tool which is well utilized by the teachers and politicians of the world. What made me think about this was a headline I saw in the Macomb Daily today that said “Foundation offers scholarship” and I simply thought they could not be any more general or vague in that headline.

It’s like seeing a headline that reads “Cop Arrests Bad Guy” or “A Person With A Thing Appeared At A Place Sometime Today”. Now, making a connection back to high school, something I like to do because I’m in the real world now, and when I was in high school they kept making ‘real world connections’ so they must be reversible, right? Had I written a paper about George Orwell’s 1984 entitled “George Orwell wrote a book that means something”, I’m sure it wouldn’t have even received the stellar 78% I got when I wrote it for real.

It seems though that people who love speaking in generalities love the phrase “…and stuff”. They use it more than I use Zatarain’s Cajun Seasoning (and I use a lot of Zatarain’s Cajun Seasoning). Many sentences they say end with ‘and stuff’. For example let‘s assume someone is giving a class speech about Abraham Lincoln (I say a class speech because I am making more real life to High School connections)

“So, the reason why Abraham Lincoln was a great President was because he freed the slaves and stuff.”

I can’t stand the phrase at all, even though I am guilty of using it myself from time to time. Also, it’s annoying when a person finishes a sentences with “and that was bad” or “and that was good”. Again, let us assume the fictional person speaking is still referring to Abe Lincoln.

“There was a Civil War, because the south wanted to keep slaves, and that was bad.”

Letting people know that slavery "was bad" is a lot like letting people know that the sun comes up in the morning, and the moon comes out at night. It's a waste of five seconds, you do not need to let people know that an obviously bad or good thing is an obviously bad or good thing.

Actually, instead of using a fictional person and dialogue to prove how awful and stupid speaking in generalities is I have a link to a video of what I consider to be “The Dumbest Person On The Planet”
Here’s the thing, people who aren’t smart should really learn more things and stuff, because that would be good.