In Its Purest Sense, Nicknaming Is An

Of All The Old Maid's Blessing, The Greatest Is Carte Blanche. Spinsterhood Is Powerful; Once A Woman Is Called "that Crazy Old Maid" She Can Get Away With Anything.

The Proliferation Of Support Groups Suggests To Me That Too Many Americans Are Growing Up In Homes That Do Not Contain A Grandmoth.

As The Only Class Distinction Available In A Democracy, The College Degree Has Created A Caste Society As Rigid As Ancient India's. Condemning Elitism And Simultaneously Quaking In Fear That Our Children Won't Become Members Of The Elite, We Send Them To College, Not To Learn, But To "be" College Graduates, Rationalizing Our Snobbery With The Cliché That High Technology Has Eliminated The Need For The Manual Labor That We Secretly Hold In Contempt.

To Me, Elitism Means A Love Of Excellence And Superiority, But America Has Declared War On Both And Developed A Sick Love Of The Lowest Common Denominator To Make Sure No-one Becomes Too Fine For Our Touted Democracy. We Are Almost At The Point Of Regarding Every Virtue As Elitist.

A Cardinal Rule Of Writing Is Never Interrupt Yourself To Explain Something. If You Must Bring Up An Obscure Topic, Drop Informative Hints About It As You Go Along So That You Don't End Up With The Entire Explanation All In One Place. This Keeps You From Skidding To A Stop And Sounding Teacherish. Otherwise It's Better To Omit The Obscure Topic Altogether, Or As Mothers Might Put It: If You Can't Say It Interestingly, Don't Say It At All.