In many ways, our language has been impoverished--by politics, ads, ignorance, and suspicion of eloquence. In the Renaissance it was socially valuable to be able to speak well; you could talk yourself into court or into bed. Whereas in America, and especially in the latter half of the twentieth century, we have tended to equate eloquence with arrogance at best and dishonesty at worst, preferring people who, like, you know, well, kinda couldn't exactly, like, say what they mean. Sort of. Whole concepts have disappeared via advertising from our fund of expression. We no longer have meaningful ways to say: the real thing, the right choice, new and improved, makes you feel young again, or just do it. The words wonderful, great, grand, distinctive, elegant, exclusive, purity, pleasure, passion, mastery, mystery, and natural have been coopted and corrupted. If I say, "I love what you do to me," it's clear that I've got something to sell.



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