Not long ago our 14-year-old granddaughter asked, “Grandpa, are you rich?”
Before answering I asked myself, ‘What is rich to a high school freshman?’ A few hundred bucks, I concluded, so I avoided a dollars answer and gave her a philosophical one. ‘In many ways we are all rich,’ I said.
Off she went to find more ways to put the word ‘like’ into a sentence only other teenagers would believe to be correct sentence composition.
This generation-gap question came to mind as I read about President Bush’s tax cutting proposal and the opposition party’s reaction to it.
The President called it a tax cut for the middle class. The Democrats said it overwhelmingly favored the affluent and wealthy. The ‘rich.’
The top 25 percent of taxpayers make at least $55,000 a year. Our elected officials in Washington make at least three times that amount.
Therefore, by the Democrats’ definition of rich, they are rich and, therefore, have the most to gain by President Bush’s tax cut proposal. Does any voter really think people on that side of the isle are opposing having their income taxes cut?
The words rich and wealthy should be defined by the politicos. Chances are their meaning would not be the same as that of the clergy. Rich and wealthy to speakers from the pulpit and philosophers rarely have dollar images attached.
Of course, preachers and philosophers aren’t seeking votes.
* * *
My first exposure to the word ‘may’ I think came from my mother. I’d say something like, “I’m going skating!” Mother would respond, “Do you mean to ask, ‘Mother, may I go skating?’ “
Headline writers should have been trained by my mother. Or, a professor I had at Western Michigan, who said, after one of my answers included the word may, “Then if it may, then it also may not.”
Seldom do I read a may-carrying headline that I do not think of the latter.
“Bush plan may boost investors,” read a Detroit News headline.
“Robbing children of playtime may limit them,” read another.
Used like these examples the word ‘may’ throws a doubt into the subject. That last ‘may’ headline example was followed by a subhead, ‘Excessive parental management may prevent kids from developing intellectually, socially.’
And, it may not.
“Caffeine may affect sleep habits of teens.”
And, it may not.
The Detroit Lions and Detroit Tigers may be better next season.
And, they may not.
If the dog hadn’t stopped to rest he may have caught the rabbit.
And, he may not have.